Is SP1 enough to revive a dying Vista?

That’s right, its finally here — the salvation for sinners, the roof for the homeless, the bread for the hungry — service pack 1 for Microsoft’s acclaimed Vista operating system is here.  But is it too late?  Is SP1 showing up to a party that’s already been busted?

That is exactly what Washington Post writer Neil McCallister is suggesting.  In an article entitled “Vista SP1: Threat or Menace?“ McCallister claims that Service Pack 1 might be too little, too late.

There’s a lot that could substantiate that belief.  Though SP1 does include some odd 551 fixes and performance enhancements, many early of the adopters have already experienced crashes and inconsistencies, probably based in driver incompatibilities.Performance enhancements do deliver a boost, but the boost is negligible; fixes, as with any operating system, likely are bandaid solutions that only expose the OS to other problems and holes.

 The real question at hand is whether or not those who were waiting for SP1 to hit before switching from XP to Vista are going to do so.  There’s more than a decent chance that nothing Microsoft could have delivered with SP1, save an entirely new OS, would be able to pull new adopters in.  

I think it will.  For the very same reason that Vista pulled in plentitudes of early adopters simply because it was the next iteration of Windows, there’s a very specific group of people who wait for a service pack to pick up the newest OS.  Sure, a few of those folks might be a little gun-shy, what with the class-action lawsuits and whatnot flying willy nilly, but there’ll definitely be a good few who will jump on board. 

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