Vista Service Pack 2 likely out in April
A credible source says Vista’s second Service Pack should be released by the end of April. Microsoft appears to want the update released before Windows 7 hits the shelves.
The timeline comes from Techarp, a Malaysian site, which has proved accurate in pegging previous release dates. It claims the release candidate (effectively a final test edition) will be out in February, with a release to manufacturing in April. That’s when the software goes to computer manufacturers so that they can have it ready installed on new machines.
The Service Pack won’t necessarily be available to download in April: both the download and the release of boxed retail copies of Vista with Service Pack 2 will follow some time after that. The length of this delay depends on any technical problems with the software, plus the need to fit it into the Windows Update schedule. (For example, it wouldn’t be the smartest of ideas to release the download on or just after a regular ‘Patch Tuesday’ update when servers are already busy.)
Users will have to have a copy of Vista with Service Pack 1 installed before they can install Service Pack 2. It appears this is simply down to Microsoft wanting the new update to be as small a download as possible.
As is common Microsoft practice, the Service Pack will initially be released for the English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese editions of Vista, with other language editions getting the update around six weeks later.
Microsoft hasn’t confirmed the reports, simply saying: “The final release date for Windows Vista SP2 will be based on quality. So we’ll track customer and partner feedback from the beta program before setting a final date for the release.”
There are a couple of time pressures which mean the April rumor makes a lot of sense. Microsoft is apparently anxious to get Service Pack 2 out before Windows 7 so that it doesn’t come across as if Vista is a lame duck system which won’t get any further support.
And the end of April marks the midway point of Microsoft’s financial year. Beating this deadline means the release can be mentioned in the half-year financial report, which could serve as a positive sidenote if any of the numbers (particularly Vista sales) prove disappointing.
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December 1st, 2008
Trust me, service pack 2 will do nothing to stimulate sales. It will make existing Vista users feel that the OS is still relevant and maybe try to put some peoples fears at ease.
The real big buzz for April for is Ubuntu 9.04 with new exciting features. Much of the computer world is buzzing already about this much anticipated release.
December 2nd, 2008
@Ralph,
I agree – the Vista ship has already well and truly sailed, destination nowhere.
In contrast, Linux continues to go from strength to strength. A hardware engineer with whom I deal at work has just downloaded Ubuntu and installed it on his wife’s Toshiba laptop (replacing XP, which had been borked by a virus). He is very pleased with Ubuntu, and said to me “I wonder why it took me so long to do this”, and, further, “I’ll never buy anything from Microsoft again”.
That might be just one laptop, but this is a story that is being repeated over and over. Microsoft may not implode, they may not collapse in a heap, but it doesn’t really matter – if things continue like this, Microsoft are going to succumb to the technical equivalent of death by a thousand cuts.
December 3rd, 2008
Don Quixote lives in stereo and is tromping around dropping comments with nothing to do with the subject and adding nothing but more fuel to the idea that Linux is used by fanatical tech heads who foam at the mouth at the word Microsoft.
Facts and objective numbers mean nothing. Having no mention of Linux or FOSS in the article or even mentioning something Linux handles better slaps a moronic hue on anything you post.
Hugh agrees with Ralph. What a shocker.
As an enthusiastic Linux supporter since I started using a RH server in 1998, I can assure you these little comments with zero connection with any content only make you seem fanatical and will have the opposite effect of making people want to join our little club.
The only way to bump MS off is to have computers come with Linux installed. Aside from a few tiny pilot programs, the only other player is Apple. Your continual cries of the impending death of Microsoft is far from what people see as reality. It makes anything else you say seem delusional. Ask 10 normal folks with no axe to grind to read the article and comments and as how they fit.
Stop it. You’re not helping.
December 4th, 2008
Ken said “The only way to bump MS off is to have computers come with Linux installed.”
Wrong, Ken. There are a number of factors that are contributing to the decline of Microsoft:
a) The release of Vista – an OS that is so awful that it encourages people to explore alternatives.
b) The availability of viable alternatives such as Linux and Mac.
c) A global economic downturn that makes people reconsider outlaying money to purchase an overpriced MS operating system that brings no tangible benefits.
d) The increasing uptake of OpenOffice.
e) The proliferation of web-based (and therefore OS-agnostic) applications.
f) The amazing success of Firefox, which is forcing Microsoft, much against their will, to adhere to real standards.
g) The loss of Bill Gates (whatever one might think of him, he was the architect of Microsoft’s success).
h) The presence of Steve Ballmer (ask any Microsoft employee whether Mr Ballmer is an asset or a liability).
i) Loss-making business ventures.
j) Antipathy from customers who don’t like being treated like criminals.
k) Disruptive technologies such as low-end Internet-capable devices that aren’t going to run MS bloatware.
That’s just off the top of my head. For someone who works in I.T., Ken, you seem to be singularly lacking in critical faculties. Your thinking appears to be one-dimensional, as betrayed by your perception that since Microsoft rose to dominance by controlling the OEM channels, the only way it can be defeated is by having control of those channels wrested away. You should be able to think outside the square, but you seem fixated with this thought that Microsoft can’t die – do you think Microsoft will last for another fifty years, another hundred, another thousand? It seems to me that it is you who are frothing at the mouth, not anyone else. Why get so bent out of shape simply because people take the opportunity to express their opinions? Why don’t you go and take issue with the hordes of Microsoft shills who are out there extolling Vista, with those who take cash for comments?
December 4th, 2008
What about those revenue numbers I tossed out?
People who buy computers will use what is shipped with it. People have issues installing an OS unless it’s preconfigured. None of the things you like to toss out has made a dent in the marketshare MS enjoys.
None of your top of the head anecdotal examples have any quantitative backing. I gave you marketshare percentages, revenue numbers and other hard and verifiable data. You give back nothing like that.
I have an issue with dropping in to crap out Linux babble with absolutely nothing to do with the actual article because I use and like Linux, have switched many people over and have no problem discussing and defending it in the proper venue.
Simply making totally non relevant freetard comments totally off subject makes us all seem like wackjobs who live with our Mothers and took her to the prom. It diminishes the product and furthers the perception that we inhabit a different reality.
The next version of Ubuntu has exactly what in common with a Vista SP? Are waiting for people to slap their foreheads and go “Damn ! I was really looking to get some info on my installed OS, but I’ll blow it off and go download a Live CD.”
A computer purchased will come with OSX or Windows. Quick, what OS has tripled it’s marketshare in 5 years and made a small dip in Windows share?
The small single digit drop from MS went to Apple. One of the few Linux leverage positions, Netbooks, took a hit when XP was offered as an option.
I don’t just work in IT, I’m a Director and just ordered 15 Windows machines with XP. My critical faculties make me consider what the best tool for the company is, MS in this case.
I also have Linux and Solaris and BSD. I never said Microsoft will last forever. I pointed out I don’t see Linux or OSX hurting them much. After Vista SP1 came out, most of the raging went away. It’s not on magazine covers, it’s not topping worse tech lists. I see no reason to believe any of the conditions you tirelessly throw out are having anything but a minor blip effect.
Backup some of your claims with something besides anecdotal blathering and no hard data.
Your blinding hatred of Microsoft taints the points you try to make. It means trying to get people to use Linux is that much harder because of the fanboy fanaticism that makes it seem like the Dungeons and Dragons OS.
I’ve been to Redmond several times. I shook Ballmer’s hand in 2005 at the CIO Seminar for the Dynamics rollout when they decided they liked midsized business again. I drank expensive wine, got numerous free cappuccinos and a dirt cheap bluetooth keyboard and mouse for my Linux HTPC at the company store.
Shooting the breeze with my fellow attendees showed me everyone dislikes Microsoft but since the OS is a tool and our first duty is a fiscal one, we use what makes the most sense at the least cost for a particular task.
Unfortunately, we have to justify the business reasons for what we do. Our apps run under Windows. There is no good reason to run a VM under Linux that’s used 95% of the time.
Firefox is easily the poster child for FOSS, has been out for many years, is functionally superior to IE, simple to find and easy to install and has 20% to 70% IE market share. Safari jumped from 6% percent to 7.1% which follows my logic of people using what comes on the computer.
I call ‘em like I see them. Critical faculties must mean something different in Oceania. In the States you need some hard data to backup your position. I show you MS has been booking increases each quarter over the previous record setting year. When tens of thousands of computers get opened under the tree on December 25th, maybe 20% will be OSX, 2% Linux netbooks and the rest will be Vista.
All these ad hoc knee jerk,” look it’s a Microsoft article let’s drop in a comment that is totally off subject and makes us look like fanatical fanboys” are detrimental. It makes uslook like stupid, cultish idiots. The one dimensional thinking of Microsoft being the devil and worse than Stalin and Mao is the fixation.
Can Microsoft be out of business? Certainly. Will it happen from any of pretzel logic you have posted? I can’t find any hard data verifying it and have already given you my evidence. I don’t like MS. I don’t use it at home. That doesn’t make me blind to reality.
There will be thousands of computers fired up for the first time Christmas Day, 20% Macs and 80% Vista. A tiny slice will be Linux to get a percent one way or the other. The overwhelming majority will never run an OS besides the one on it. You can try to twist it in any shape you want, but them’s the facts.
Yes I get bent out of shape when I see utterly worthless fanboy, kneejerk slogan, off topic comments that make us seem like members of a cult.
The people that agree with you will nod and give an Amen and the Windows users who are reading the article will go WTF? Linux must weaken the mind.
Stop. You’re not helping.
December 6th, 2008
Ken:wrote
“I have an issue with dropping in to crap out Linux babble with absolutely nothing to do with the actual article because I use and like Linux, have switched many people over and have no problem discussing and defending it in the proper venue.
The next version of Ubuntu has exactly what in common with a Vista SP? ”
———————————————-
Vista is a troubled OS regardless if it is SP1 or SP2 or even SP3. It is not Microsoft’s best release, no matter how many people claim otherwise.
So what ARE the alternatives to Vista? Windows XP? Well yes…thats if you purchase a netbook. But beyond that? Windows 7?
As I perceive this…if anyone now comes up with a solution to a problem…..we are now perceived “worthless fanboy, kneejerk slogan, off topic comments that make us seem like members of a cult”.
So now people fed up with Windows and the problems surrounding it are now in a cult? So is that the new game plan from Redmond?
Label people cultists if they do not share the Windows is best view?
Andre (the famous M.S. Shill) isn’t even using that term….yet
Interesting, some of us have been reading paid Microsoft “astroturfers” on various forums saying how great Windows is and how Vista surpassed all sales records and is the greatest OS that company ever put out.
I call them as I see them too and if you want honesty, go ask the actual users of Vista….ask how many want XP back…ask how many are trying out LIVE Linux CDs…ask how many are dual booting with Linux. How many bought Mac machines. I read the Vista forums too, and not everyone is strictly using Windows….why is that?
Most of never got to “shake Ballmer’s hand”, most of us never “bought from the company store”. Most of us giving our opinions have no loyalty to Microsoft or Linux for that matter.
While we get free Linux software…anyone can. I never met Linus Torvalds, Mark Shuttlesworth or Richard Stallman and I doubt anyone else (pro alternative to Windows) people posting here did either.
We use computers and want and expect our machines to run as they are supposed to.
When the software on our new machines fail to run as we expect them, we look elsewhere…and that is what people have been doing. Average users, have found some alternatives to MSFT.
Apple doubled their market share on Vista’s back. Microsoft is in trouble because of Vista and its perceived problems. Microsoft is also in trouble because of open source mandates spreading across the globe but that is for another subject.
Linux desktop does not have a market share because it is free, it is difficult to “track users” when there are no sales figures to back up actual users.
Linux maybe will have that 1 % market share stigma forever when actual usage could be as high as 3 to 4 %.
What is the advertising budget of Linux? $300 Million? $100 Million? $10 Million? None?
How could Linux have a 93 % share in the top super computers 500 computers and yet only a “1% share” on the desktop? Doesn’t that “1 %” figure does seem a bit low.
How many got fed up with Windows altogether and went to Apple? …well at least that figure we know.
You ask “The next version of Ubuntu has exactly what in common with a Vista SP? ”
It is going to run faster and have better performance with less hardware requirements and it will not cost its users one thin dime. Users can use Ubuntu and Windows and have both OS’ and not either or.
It is a alternative to Vista…meaning that users are not stuck with Windows and its virus and malware problems…this isn’t 1998 …it is 2008 and Microsoft is not the only game in town anymore.
Vista SP2 isn’t going to solve anything or change peoples views and people are going to continue looking elsewhere.
I would like to install OS X on my PC if I could, but Mr. Jobs doesn’t allow that. And I don’t have the resources to shell out $1000 to $2000 for a new Mac to run Leopard OS X.
Since Vista is a failure in my book and Mac is beyond our means.
That leaves…?
December 7th, 2008
Ken maintained “People who buy computers will use what is shipped with it.”
Tell that to all the people who have over-written Vista with XP and Linux.
Ken said “Simply making totally non relevant freetard comments totally off subject makes us all seem like wackjobs who live with our Mothers and took her to the prom.”
Is this meant to constitute constructive criticism?
Ken noted “I’m a Director”.
Should I be tugging my forelock whilst I’m replying to your post?
Ken stated “I never said Microsoft will last forever.”
You are quite correct to refrain from saying that, because Microsoft *won’t* last forever.
Ken demanded “Backup some of your claims with something besides anecdotal blathering and no hard data.”
Would you like me to produce something like Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” anti-Linux campaign? (I understand that those ads have been pulled – apparently they didn’t contain anything factual).
Ken complained “Your blinding hatred of Microsoft taints the points you try to make.”
Read my two comments above – can you really discern hatred? Certainly I dislike Microsoft, and it would be accurate to say that I despise them, but hatred? Hatred is a very strong emotion – and not only that, it is a counterproductive one as well. People who hate can end up being consumed – they can actually become physically unwell.
Ken boasted “I’ve been to Redmond several times.”
Well, I’ve been to Darwin several times.
Ken pointed out “I shook Ballmer’s hand”
Did you count your fingers afterwards?
Ken expounded “I call ‘em like I see them.”
And are you the only one who has eyes to see? Are your pronouncements holy writ in the world of I.T.?
You are arguing from a position of weakness. If you are going to engage in vitriolic personal attacks, you really should find a different topic, and perhaps a more appropriate forum as well.
December 7th, 2008
Ralph,
I have OSX86 on my laptop. ;P)
Everyone knows Vista wasn’t the best release, and everyone knows many of the problem were lessened with SP1. Doesn’t mean it is the best.
I do not favor Windows over Linux as a Desktop OS. The cultish fanboy reference has nothing to do with the OS’s.
If a person has a strong belief that Christ is the only answer, it doesn’t mean that walking into Temple and preaching the Gospel is a great idea. The rude behavior is actually counterproductive, it makes anything you say get dismissed.
Asking what Linux has to do with a Vista SP is relevant. Because that is what the people reading the article think.
I wouldn’t have commented if the article was about security, marketshare or criticizing marketing and so on.
Linux is measured, like other OS’s often using web traffic. Not perfect by any stretch, but it has shown a consistent curve.
Apple gained from moving to Intel which lowered the price and the halo effect from the iPod. Vista no doubt did give them additional users, but probably not as much as Jobs genius at marketing.
Hugh,
The claims I was referring to is your MS is doomed, MS has no credibility, MS is on a downslide…..everyone hates Vista.
Marketshare, revenue drop….something-anything, with some hard data. Seriously, look at your points. They are all true in that people do the behavior. What is not true is it’s happening in large enough numbers to actually change anything.
Me didn’t kill MS and neither will Vista. Show me an OS that has bounced an OS, or made any change in marketshare like Linux tossing Windows.
I wasn’t boasting. I was stating fact. Since you brought up asking Microsoft employees, and Balmer, I thought it was pertinent. You often comment on the company, I thought actually being there first hand might matter. When they move to Darwin, please jump in.
Hatred and despise- my bad. So different. The last time you made a positive comment about Microsoft was…..?
I still don’t understand my position of weakness. I call them like I see them meant even though I don’t like some of the business practices of MS, prefer Linux in my personal use, I can’t just ignore the lack of factual evidence they are in any kind of trouble.
You comment on Gate’s parents and upbringing, hanging psychological diagnosis et al. And seemed surprised when I posted his philanthropy.
My Director comment was to show I deal far more than with Desktop OS’s. And, you may not like it, but there is nothing for Microsoft to worry about there. It’s where most of the revenue is generated. Apple wants nothing to do with the Enterprise, the marketing model doesn’t fit. Microsoft could give away the consumer OS and it would hurt Linux far more than MS. That’s why merely focusing on Vista adoption=wounded MS falls off. And why none of the financial info reflects it.
Again, just come up with some actual hard data to back this stuff up.
And yes, not making kneejerk Linux pronouncements as comments in articles like this was constructive.
I’ll cease fire now. I’ve no doubt the Bloggers that write here, or management, want us crapping over the articles and burning bandwidth.
Resume chicken little mode.
May 31st, 2009
Wow…good fight, guys!