Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC1 Available Next Week!

At long last, the public will be able to get its mitts on the long-awaited Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Some details: It is now available to developers and will be posted on the Microsoft website next week for the public to download. This is not the final version of SP1 but it's not really a beta, either: It's Release Candidate 1, which essentially means a late-stage beta that's ready for general consumption. Release Candidates are usually followed quickly by the RTM (release to manufacturing, or final) version of the code, which I'd expect in early January at the very latest.

Microsoft reports that a few things have changed since the last beta of Vista SP1 dropped. Notably, download size is considerably smaller, by 30 to 50 percent depending on which language(s) you need. Required disk space is also smaller, though Microsoft doesn't say by how much. The RC1 version of the beta also cleans up about 1GB of detritus that the earlier betas left behind. And, of course, Microsoft is claiming the Service Pack installs with fewer errors than ever.

Microsoft offers a full white paper on SP1 if you're itching for technical details, but the gist is the same as always: Better security, reliability, and performance (though this is debatable), with special attention to device driver and old application support. And of course, farewell to the kill switch.

I'll create a blog post when the public version of Vista SP1 RC1 arrives, along with my installation experience. Stay tuned!

LINK: Announcing Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate (RC)