So, About That Vista Service Pack 1 Beta...

Earlier reports that we'd shortly see Vista's first beta of its first Service Pack appear to be a little overblown: The beta, if it's being released now at all, is being distributed only to Microsoft's very small, core group of loyalist beta testers and not to the general public or even the larger group of people invited to test the company's products in advance.

To make it even clearer, Microsoft says "A public version of the Beta is not being released this week, nor next, nor in July, nor anytime in the immediate future.”

Well, that's a bit of a shift. Blogger Mary Jo Foley, who broke the original news, has been earnestly backpedaling from her earlier report that implied we'd be swimming in a Vista SP1 beta by now by noting that she never mentioned the word "public." Oh well.

Bummer. I know that many users out there are waiting for this Service Pack in order to even think about installing Vista, and I don't blame them.

Microsoft would of course like you to know that you need not wait for a service pack to give its wonderful new OS a try. Says the company (per the link above): "Service packs are just one example of the work we do to constantly improve the Windows experience. We also deliver improvements to Windows via Windows Update, which is an excellent channel for providing our customers with the most significant updates as they happen... We think customers will have a great experience using Windows Vista today."

Riiiiiiight...