Vista Service Pack 2 gets mixed response
Online reaction to the beta edition of Vista’s Service Pack 2 has been mixed at best. Testing suggest it does offer some performance improvements, but visible changes to everyday use appear underwhelming.
Blorge’s own Jonathan Schaffler wrote his thoughts yesterday, reporting “It does add a few features but won’t exactly knock your socks off.” He pointed out that most of the totally new features will be of little use to the majority of users. That’s a conclusion I share: many of the additions are more about being extremely useful to a very niche market.
InfoWorld put Service Pack 2 under its OfficeBench testing, which runs a series of common tasks from the Office Suite. It’s designed to measure how well an edition of Windows runs under practical use. The tests showed Service Pack 2 performed around 3% better than Service Pack 1 (which didn’t show any increase on the original Vista release).
The site argues the most significant aspect of Service Pack 2 is that Microsoft believes software and drivers which work on this version of Vista will be fine for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008.
PCMag reports that Blu-ray burning worked, albeit far from smoothly; curiously Windows DVD maker doesn’t support the format even after the update. The site also found wireless networking much easier but reports several glitches with the Bluetooth support.
VNUNet was pleased to report no major application incompatibility issues with Service Pack 2 but still found driver problems. It also complained that there was no fix for a Vista problem which means you can’t safely unplug a USB drive which is being browsed. That’s not a major issue, but is the type of minor niggle which you’d expect a Service Pack to address.
New Zealand’s PCWorld had the most muted response, concluding that the average user really won’t notice much difference to how Vista behaves. Given the inherent unpredictability of a beta edition, the site recommends all but the ultra-curious should wait until the final release.
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December 11th, 2008
“but visible changes to everyday use appear underwhelming.”
It’s a service pack! What are you expecting – a whole new operating system?
Duh! Talk about trying to create news where there is no story..
December 12th, 2008
Tone said: “It’s a service pack! What are you expecting – a whole new operating system?”
I would have thought that a service pack would have addressed some of the more problematic issues with Vista, one of which is that it runs like a three-legged dog. Hapless Vista users would have been hoping to see something more than a 3% improvement in performance – but of course, some of us predicted that SP2 was going to be the equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on a compound fracture (are we looking prescient yet?).
And yes, Microsoft being in decline is indeed news. (Ironically, this decline is for many resulting in a “whole new operating system”, usually Linux or OSX … ).
December 12th, 2008
“one of which is that it runs like a three-legged dog”
does it really? show me.
March 16th, 2009
Looks like Jonathan doesn’t really has a glue what the service pack is in Microsofts lineup. And 3% improvement sounds nice as the Vista is already as fast as Win7 in everyday use and much more responsible than XP.
The topic on this news was addressing that the SP2 doesn’t offer anything but it turned out that this will be great update. Funny…
May 7th, 2009
IDK all I know is Micorsoft sells this crap, and then we spend our valuabel gamign time instaling updates and service packs, and what for? My bigest complaint is how my pictures come out now, they look horible, would be nice if this service pack fixed stuff like that, is it worth 2 hours of my life updating or service packing, no, I am done, I just want to enjoy my computer for a change.
June 2nd, 2009
I tested the service pack on my laptop top and i have to say it cause problems for me right off the start. Slower start up time, would not recognize my video card and would not let me install the update for my video card! This service pack has cause nothing but more head achs for me. Not worth the time. I have been backing up vista but i can’t this time for this update.
June 2nd, 2009
I tested the service pack on my laptop and i have to say it cause problems for me right off the start. Slower start up time, would not recognize my video card and would not let me install the update for my video card! This service pack has cause nothing but more head achs for me. Not worth the time. I have been backing up vista but i can’t this time for this update.
July 8th, 2009
Nothing but problems with service pack 2. I tryed it in betta and again a couple of months ago. No improvements I found. Microsoft must just be working on 7 and cut their losses on the whole vista operating system. (and I do not blame them)