Windows Vista SP1 has been out in the wild for some time now. Though SP1 has brought about a lot of improvements in Windows Vista, there still remain a few problems that need to be ironed out. When I first installed SP1 even though it said it installed correctly, I kept having random crashes from time to time. I reinstalled it and everything is running fine now.

While I was randomly searching around the net, I found that Microsoft is officially providing Free Support to all Windows Vista SP1 users. Microsoft Support provides you with email, chat, or telephone support where you can talk to a Microsoft Support Agent to assist in troubleshooting your installation issue.

If you are looking for some Official Microsoft Support follow the link below :

https://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?prid=11274

I have personally not tried the service, but its nice to see Microsoft owning upto its mistakes in the past, and supporting the customers through out.

What do you think about the service? Did you try it?

You surely must have heard about the imminent arrival of Windows Vista SP1. Looks like at the grand party of the release of SP1, it is going to disappoint some apps. Yes you heard that right, SP1 will break support for some apps, just like Vista did on a larger scale when it first came out.

The biggest problem that Vista had when it first came out was the large amount of software incompatibilities. Most people held back from upgrading to Vista fearing that their favorite software or app wouldn’t work on Microsoft’s flagship OS. Things aren’t looking any brighter at the moment with an official Knowledgebase article stating the apps that would break with Windows Vista SP1.

The official list is rather short in my opinion, and I have a feeling that even more apps will break when SP1 comes out. Microsoft doesn’t seem to understand the situation here. If apps continue to break like this with every other release of a service pack, enterprise users are surely going to be in for a big disappointment.

The first service pack is expected to revive Vista, since it received a rather lukewarm response so far. Many business users have been waiting for SP1, hoping that Vista would be more stable. But at the moment, the business users need to hang on.

And about us home users, its even more difficult. What if your favorite app breaks with the arrival of SP1, and you happen to be a tech noob and you can’t figure out what went wrong after upgrading to SP1. Surely we don’t want all this mess, do we? Come on Microsoft, you guys can do better than this!

From my side, all I can say is Best of Luck Microsoft!

Further Reading : Knowledgebase Article | News.com

With the first release candidate of  Windows Vista SP1 just a few days away, Microsoft is now finally opening up and revealing what can be expected in the first service pack to Microsoft’s flagship operating system, Windows Vista.

Simply put, Windows Vista SP1 will add tons of added hardware compatibility, loads of compatibility, better system reliability, and Ofcourse better performance and better energy saving for laptops etc.. The standalone installer will come in at about 450MB, but if you were to download Service Pack 1 through Windows Update, it would take only about 65MB. The reason is quite obvious enough, you might have already downloaded many of the hotfixes, security updates and other features that are included in Service Pack 1.

Well here are the few features in SP1 that make me get really excited, and should probably get you excited too…

• Adds support for Direct3D® 10.1, an update to Direct3D 10 that extends the API to support new hardware features.
• SP1 addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. These include issues relating to Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and a number of drivers included with Windows Vista.
• Adds support for exFAT, a new file system supporting larger overall capacity and larger files, which will be used in Flash memory storage and consumer devices.
• Enhances support for high density drives by adding new icons and labels that will identify HD-DVD and Blu-ray Drives as high density drives.
• Improves power consumption and battery life.
• Improves the speed of adding and extracting files to and from a compressed (zipped) folder.
• Improves the speed of copying files, folders, and other media.
• Improves startup and resume times when using ReadyBoost.
• Users can control which volumes the disk defragmenter runs on.

via iStartedSomething and DownloadSquad

Well there are two options for you to install Vista SP1, one is the legal way and the other illegal way. Illegal way involves downloading the service pack from torrents, which I am not going to tell you about here. Rather lets focus on the way Microsoft wants it beta testers to download the Service Pack .Well someone on demonoid posted a Windows Update Hack that would allow anyone running a legal Vista installation to install SP1.

Well the trick is pretty much straightforward, so grab yourself a coffee as you do this. Sure this won’t take much time.

• Download this file (SP1Beta_Hack.cmd – Right Click and Save as to Download) and run it with the Administrator Privileges. You should see a successful message displayed on screen in Command Prompt.
• Once you are done, run Windows Update and Check for updates. It should show you the KB935509 hotfix. Download it and restart your computer.
• Again Fire up Windows Update and Check for updates. This time around you should find another update called KB937287 waiting for you to download it. Once done downloading it, restart and run Windows Update again and you should find KB938371 waiting. Download it and believe me this is the last step to glory!
• Now restart the computer and fire up Windows Update for the last time. Check for updates. Windows update may not present you with SP1 at the first instance so try a few times and you will find it.
• Once you find SP1 you should find something similar to the screenshots below.

• Download the Service Pack and you will now be running a legal copy of Windows Vista SP1.

Once you are done with the installation of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista you will a see a tiny but irritating Watermark at the bottom right corner of your Dekstop saying ‘Evaluation copy, Build 6001′. If you want to get rid of the watermark follow the instructions below :

• Download this Zip file (RemoveWatermark.zip). Extract it in any convenient location.
• Install watermark_fix.reg file
• Take ownership of user32.dll.mui file in C:\Windows\System32\en-US\
• Rename file to user32.dll.mui.bak
• copy downloaded user32.dll.mui to folder
• Reboot!
• Voila! The Watermark is now gone.

Drop in your comments to let us know if this works for you.

Via Nero’s Club