In theory, a 32-bit operating system should be able to support 2³² bytes = 4GB memory. Thus the first reaction usually is that the memory chips or with the mainboard has a hardware defect. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Vista can indeed address 4GB of memory. However, the maximum amount of RAM that can be used by the system and applications is 3.12 GB.

The cause for this is the so-called memory-mapped I/O (MMIO). Some devices need a dedicated space in memory. A typical example is a video card that utilizes the system memory. Now, you might object that your video card has its own memory and you didn’t install any additional devices that could occupy so much RAM.

Well, for compatibility reasons Vista reserves memory for devices even if they don’t exist in your computer. That means that if you have 4GB RAM in your computer and Vista displays only 3.12 GB available memory, about 1GB is indeed not used by the OS. You might as well remove it. That is quite strange, isn’t it? I am not a system programmer, but for me that seems to be a design error, probably one that is very old.

There is a KB article about this issue which offers a “workaround” though. All you have to do is to install Vista x64 instead of Vista x86. Vista’s 64-bit edition is indeed capable of handling more memory. Note that it is not possible to upgrade Vista x86 to Vista x64. That’s why I find it somehow funny that they sell this solution as a workaround. I will post some articles about the Vista x86 vs. Vista x64 issue very soon. So if you think of going this route, you might as well wait some more days before you make up your mind. In the meantime you can read a former article about the Vista x86 vs. Vista x64 issue.

You might think that Microsoft found an even better workaround, though. It is Service Pack 1. I have read about this before, but today I tried it myself. I installed Vista on a brand new HP PC with 4GB RAM. As expected Vista’s System Properties only displayed about 3 GB RAM. After I installed SP1, the amount of RAM was increased as if by a miracle (see screenshots) to 4GB. You might think that Microsoft corrected this design error, but unfortunately that is not the case.

All they did is to change what is displayed in the System Properties. I guess this problem kept the support personal of PC vendors around the globe busy. And since RAM is getting cheaper every day, the situation would have become worse soon. So Microsoft decided to solve this issue the easy way. System Properties and also the Welcome Center, which is the first place you go to check the amount of memory, simply displays 4GB and so everyone is happy now.

The only problem is that those who are unaware of Vista’s 3.12 GB limit just wasted their money. If you really want to know how much memory Vista actually uses, you have to use Vista’s System Information tool. To do so, go to Vista’s Start prompt and type Msinfo32. The new System Information tool in Vista SP1 distinguishes between “Installed Physical Memory (RAM)” and “Total Physical Memory”. The latter one is the amount of memory you can really use, and the first one indicates how much money you just have wasted if you put 4GB in your PC. You can read more about this issue in this KB article.

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Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

First of all, this is a blog for Windows admins. You would expect a somewhat more positive attitude towards Vista. Considering that more than one third said that their organization will wait for Windows 7 and 19% even plans to move to another OS means that the majority of IT pros are quite dissatisfied with Vista.

Perhaps Vista SP1 will change this attitude a little. But I doubt that we will see major shifts here within the next year. However, I also believe that some organization will change their view when they have to buy new hardware. Since most companies stick with the Windows version once it is deployed on new hardware, it would mean that they had to live with XP for the next 3 to 5 years. And for their employees that would entail working soon with an OS that is more than 10 years old.

Most surprising, certainly, is that 19% are planning to move to another OS. In my original article about this poll, I asked them to choose this answer if Windows is the major desktop OS in their organization. I don’t know how many voters really read this article, though. Anyway, if those plans are put into action then Microsoft market share in the desktop OS market would drop far below 80%. It is hard to believe somehow that this would really happen. I guess it is quite enticing to express ones dissatisfaction with Vista in such a poll, but to actually change your whole infrastructure just because one of your printers isn’t supported anymore or because UAC gets on your nerves is somewhat different.

18% already deployed Vista which is not too bad considering the bad press coverage and 13% are planning to do so within this year. My guess is that the majority of them waited for SP1. The other 16% who want to move to Vista in 2009 probably would wait until they have to buy new PCs.

The result of this poll indicates that there are basically two groups among my readers. One group is quite dissatisfied with Vista. Most of them will probably not change their mind anymore. They will do everything to avoid Vista. The other group probably consists of two subgroups. Some like Vista, but for the majority it is just business as usual. Due to the lack of alternatives, they just go ahead and deploy Microsoft’s latest OS whenever they are ready for it. All in all, this confirms the impression I got when I talked with other IT pros about Vista in the last months.

You want to know to which group I belong? If you are a long term reader, you will know that I like Vista although I admit that it has quite a few downsides. At the moment, we only have a couple of Vista machines in my organization, but we will start the first major roll-out as soon as we get a large number of new PCs. We have been planning this for some months now. Actually, we are just waiting for the money. But in the public sector, these things are often hard to predict.

• Windows Vista vs. Windows XP – Systems Management (4)
• FREE: Compatibility Administrator – Configure legacy apps for Vista (7)
• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)

1 Try to make sure the problem is really related to Vista SP1

If your problems occurred immediately after you installed SP1 the probability is very high that you just successfully messed up your system. However, even then SP1 might not be the real culprit. It seems to me that many of the problems are related to sloppy programmed drivers or applications. So the first thing to check is the third party vendor’s site to see if your problem is known there. Maybe you are lucky and there is already an update. If there isn’t, I would try to uninstall the failing driver or program and install it again.

2 Search in Microsoft’s Knowledge Base

Some problems are already confirmed and Microsoft posted solutions or workarounds for them. My article about Vista SP1 issues lists some of them. Meanwhile, the search for Vista Service Pack1 gets 75 hits. But since SP1 is relatively new, I wouldn’t spend too much time there. The Knowledge Base is a great place to search for issues with products that are already available for some time.

3 Search in the Vista SP1 Technet Forum

The next place to go is Microsoft’s Technet Forum. There is a forum dedicated for Vista SP1. You’ll see that you’re not the only one who regrets to be an early adopter. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. Before you ask your question, you should search for your problem there. Sometimes a search via Google is more successful than using Technet’s search function. To use Google to search in the Technet forums you can limit your search with site:forums.microsoft.com.

4 Get support from Microsoft

There are three ways to get direct support from Microsoft: via E-Mail, chat and phone. The Vista SP1 support page has more details. I guess the toll-free number only works for calls within the US though. It is not the first time that Microsoft offered this kind of support for a service pack. You probably remember that SP2 for Windows XP caused even more problems than Vista SP1. Microsoft’s Satisfy Me blog (what a promising name for a blog) has some tips of how to deal with the operators.

5 Uninstall Vista SP1

I am sorry to hear that you didn’t solve your problem. I guess you only want to get rid of Vista SP1 by now. There are several ways to uninstall Service Pack 1. If your problems occurred immediately after the update, you might just want to restore the image of your system drive you created before the update. You didn’t make a backup? I admire your confidence in Microsoft!

Uninstalling SP1 is another option. You can do that via the Control Panel. Note that this might not solve your problem if SP1 damaged the installation of third party software.

Yet another option is to roll back your system using Vista’s System Restore feature. Technically, this is the most complicated option and that means that other things can go wrong here. The last two options are described in detail in this KB article. Gregg Keizer from Computerworld posted a useful FAQ of how to dump Vista SP1.

Which option is best for you depends on your problem and your skills. If there are only minor problems I would just uninstall SP1. If this doesn’t solve your problem then I would restore a backup or use the System Restore feature. If you trust in your backup method, I wouldn’t waste time with the other two options and restore the backup image. This way, you can be sure that your system is exactly in the state prior to SP1. If you created your image with Vista’s backup tool you might want to try first if the backup was successful by mounting it in Virtual PC.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)
• List of Vista SP1 problems – be careful with Service Pack 1 (90)

Based on the media coverage Vista got this way, you might be inclined to answer this question with yes. On the other hand, all this stir and confusion about Vista SP1 left a very unprofessional impression in the corporate world. It is quite obvious that Microsoft is still struggling with Vista.

The driver issue, the reason why Microsoft had to postpone the public release of SP1, is still not fixed. It seems they only found some ways to block systems affected by this problem. Since Vista SP1 was available for most corporate customers, these changes can’t be part of the service pack. So all they accomplished in those six weeks is to modify Windows Update to prevent users from messing up their systems with SP1.

And that means that it is absolutely necessary to run detailed tests before deploying SP1. You might have heard about this list of applications that Vista SP1 will break. Greg Shields has another one. I also published a small list of known Vista SP1 problems. Feel free to add your own experiences in a comment. Putting together all I read, I still recommend being cautious with this service pack.

Here are some links that are of interest regarding Vista SP1:

• Vista SP1 standalone package – x86
• Vista SP1 standalone package – x64
• Release Notes for Windows Vista Service Pack 1
• Overview of Windows Vista Service Pack 1
• Notable Changes in Windows Vista Service Pack 1
• Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Deployment Guide

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)
• List of Vista SP1 problems – be careful with Service Pack 1 (90)

They have a complete review about Service Pack 1 and the performance is only a small part of it. Since I already discussed most of the other things, I only want to share the results of their performance comparison. Their test machine was a modern PC: Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4600+, 2GB RAM.

They used five different benchmarks for their tests: BAPCo-Sysmark (business applications), 3DMark 2001/2003/2005 (DirectX performance of graphics cards), Cinebench (3D animation), Auquamark3 (gaming), Nero (CD/DVD speed). They also tried Vista SP1 with some famous games.

They measured an improved performance for Vista SP1 only with the BAPCo benchmark. Vista SP1 was 10% faster than Vista RTM in this discipline. With all other benchmarks, Service Pack 1 didn’t improve Vista’s performance significantly.

10% performance improvement for business apps is more than I expected. However, you probably won’t notice the difference most of the time. If you wait 10 seconds or 9 seconds for an Excel calculation doesn’t really matter. Furthermore, if you run Vista on an old PC that doesn’t have enough hardware resources, then SP1 certainly won’t be the solution to your performance problems.

However, there might be certain tasks where Vista SP1 feels quicker. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes ran a couple for performance test with Vista SP1. I blogged about his comparison of Windows XP SP1 with Vista SP1. He just published another article about this topic where he comes to the conclusion that Vista SP1 is indeed faster than Vista RTM.

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Vista SP1 is officially only available for enterprise customers, but the reports about problems caused by this service pack are piling up. This post contains a list of all SP1 issues I am aware of.

I have discussed some of them before, but I thought it might be a good idea to create a list of all known Vista SP1 issues to keep track of them. I will update this post whenever I encounter new ones.

Device driver problems

This issue was the reason why Microsoft postponed the general release of SP1 to mid-march. It seems not to be a big problem for tech savvy Vista users. This article (KB 948187) has more.

Programs that have problems with Vista SP1

I mentioned before that Vista SP1 doesn’t solve compatibility problems, but it causes new ones. This article (KB935796) lists all known programs that don’t work properly with Vista SP1. I suggest you check them out before you install this service pack. Please, let us know if you experienced troubles with other apps that are not in this list.

The endless reboot issue

This problem of Vista SP1 is causing a lot of stir. A pre-requisite update (KB937287) triggers endless reboots on some machines. Microsoft suspended the automatic distribution of this update. I installed this update before, but I didn’t experience this problem. I just checked Windows Update and it was available again. Before that, I was able to install Vista SP1 without this patch anyway. So it seems like this issue is not as bad as it seemed at first. KB949358 has details on how to solve this problem if you are affected.

The sleep mode problem

Milo reports that some systems with SP1 crash when attempting to wake up their PC from sleep mode. I have experienced the same problem on some Vista machine without SP1. A BIOS update might be of help in such cases. However, I don’t know if the problem described by Milo is a new one. He thinks that it might be related to the reboot issue. However, I think it must be something different because the reboot problem isn’t about sleep mode.

The Windows Mobile Device Center issue

There are reports that Vista x64 SP1 has been released accidentally to Windows Update. ITWire received emails from users who experienced problems after installing SP1. One is that the memory and performance rating is not displayed anymore, and the other one is about the Windows Mobile Device Center. Based on the screenshot they published, the latter one looks familiar to me. I got the same meaningless error message sometimes when I connected my Windows Mobile 6 device to different desktops running the Windows Mobile Device Center. The only solution I found was to reset Windows Mobile. I don’t know if this is really the same problem, but it could be that SP1 causes an authentication problem which probably was the reason for the error message in my case.

GPMC (Group Policy Management Console) will be uninstalled

If you manage Group Polices for Vista machines in your PC, then I wouldn’t install SP1 because GPMC will be removed after the installation. Microsoft plans to release a new version, but as far as I know, this is not yet the case.

The sound problem

The German Windows Vista blog and Aaron discovered a problem with the sound system. It seems that this is related to the driver problem discussed above. However, Microsoft dedicated a particular article (KB948481) to it.

Even though some media are making a big deal out of this SP1 issues, I don’t think that they are really serious so far. Of course, those who are affected might have a different view about it. But do you remember about the troubles that service pack 2 for Windows XP caused? Well, XP is everybody’s darling now.

Are you aware of other Vista SP1 problems? Please, let us know.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

Paul is more pro Vista than me. And I have already been accused of being too Microsoft friendly. For example he wrote:

The truth, as I demonstrated back in May 2007 in Hot or Not? Measuring the Success of Vista’s First 100 Days, is that Vista is the most compatible version of Windows that Microsoft has ever shipped.

Even though I didn’t encounter any serious compatibility problems with Vista, I wouldn’t go that far. If you look at the discussion forums, you’ll find countless Vista users suffering from compatibility problems. I think it is rather pointless to count supported devices and applications. I seriously doubt that anyone really knows about all the applications out there. In the end, the only thing that counts is if your applications and devices work or not.

He also supports my view regarding the performance comparisons with Windows XP that I discussed a few days ago:

While it’s unclear why this is notable or even newsworthy, you shouldn’t be surprised to discover that while Vista with SP1 outperforms or at least equals the original version of Vista from a performance perspective, neither version outperforms its predecessor, Windows XP. Obviously. This has been the case with every modern version of Windows since, I don’t know, 1995.

What I find strange is that never before people were complaining so much about the performance of a new Windows version. It must have something to do with this Vista bashing virus.

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What I like about this test is that the he used a relatively new PC for his benchmark tests: 3.4Ghz, 4GB, 2x250GB. I think it doesn’t make much sense to measure Vista’s performance on an outdated machine. In my opinion, a PC that is more than three years old is simply not “Vista compatible” even if you manage to get all device drivers.

These are the results of the test. “-“ signifies that Vista SP1 was slower than XP SP2, “+” that it was faster.

• Boot-up time: -13.3%
• Drive to drive copy – single file/ multiple files: +216.7%/-23.4%
• Add to compressed folder – single file/ multiple files: -9.9%/-19.7%
• Extract files from compressed folder – single file/ multiple files: -64.8%/75.4%
• Push files to a network share over a 1Gb Ethernet connection – single file/ multiple files: +7.1%/6.3%
• Pull files over a network share over a 1Gb Ethernet connection – single file/ multiple files: 0%/0%
• Push files to an external USB hard drive – single file/ multiple files: -6.3%/-29.5%
• Pull files from an external USB hard drive – single file/ multiple files: -36.4%/-36.4%

Quite impressive numbers! Don’t you think so? Drive-to-drive-copy of a single file is much faster with Vista SP1, single file copy to a network share is also a little faster. Although in most categories XP proved to be the better performing file shuffler.

You might wonder how this is possible. Copying a file from one place to another can’t be too difficult. After all, you just grab the file and shove it to its new destination. Why is Vista so slow with such an easy task?

It is interesting to note that Adrian Kingsley-Hughes doesn’t even try to explain his test outcome. He delivered the results the crowd wanted to hear:

Looking at the data there’s only one conclusion that can be drawn – Windows XP SP2 is faster than Windows Vista SP1. End of story.

End of story, mission accomplished?

First of all, he didn’t really run a complete performance test as he says. He just examined file copy processes. Of course there are myriads of other tasks an operating system has to accomplish. I don’t want to claim that Vista would do a better job in other performance disciplines, though. Most likely it would not. However, from this performance test alone you can’t conclude that Vista is slower than XP.

Second, his results are not really surprising. This is exactly what you would expect from a new operating system. The more complex an OS gets, the more resources it needs for every task. Some days ago, I linked to an article of Mark Russinovich where he outlined some of the considerations one has to take into account when it comes to file copy. In the section “Vista improvements to File Copy”, he gave some examples of problems Microsoft’s developers had to face. For instance, he touches some issues of the Windows Cache-Manager. Copy processes can waste a lot of memory and CPU resources. Since Vista generally has a higher demand of these resources, improvements were necessary here.

In the mean time, Adrian reacted to critics. It seems as if some also referred to Mark’s article. So Adrian ran another test to prove his point that Vista SP1 is always slower no matter from what angle you look at it. However, my objection to his test comes from a different dimension. In my view, it is rather pointless to compare the performance of a new operating system with one that was developed five years ago.

With every new line of code you add to an OS, you make it slower, too. Of course! So if Vista would really be faster than XP, I would suggest asking your money back. The point is that not only software is improving over time, but hardware also. Advances in operating systems are only possible because hardware is getting faster, too. So if you really want to know if XP or Vista is faster, you should compare your 6 year old PC running XP with Vista on a computer you bought a year ago. Which one do you think is faster? Good guess!

Update: Ed Bott gets completely different results in his performance test: “Vista SP1 was consistently as fast as or faster than XP SP2″. I am now thinking of getting my money back.

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What I found interesting is that Microsoft makes a difference between MSDN and Volume License customers. On MSDN I was able to get the 32-bit and the 64-bit version. The Volume License Center only offered me 32-bit. Instead of SP1 for Vista x64, Windows Vista Business N w/SP1 showed up. That is a special version for the European Union which likely will only be downloaded by some bureaucrats in Brussels who don’t like the Media Player.

I found a few interesting articles about Vista SP1 today which I’d like to share:

ZDNet: A Vista SP1 FAQ

Ed Bott has a list of visible changes. I didn’t know that the user interface of the RDP client was redesigned. I had a quick look at it, but didn’t find any changes. Please, let me know, if you have more information about this. It is interesting to note that this list is quite short considering the many new features this SP has. There is a follow-up article discussing some more FAQs. As an admin you might be interested to hear that you can’t slipstream this SP. He also explains how to uninstall SP1. It seems a lot of his readers wanted to know this. And before you ask, no – SP1 doesn’t have a “downgrade to XP” feature.

TechWorld: SP1 does nothing for Vista compatibility

I have been mentioning before that Vista SP1 won’t improve compatibility to XP. There is further proof for this educated guess now. AppDNA tested 500 corporate applications and found that 18% failed to work without help. They got the same results for Vista RTM and Vista SP1.

Windows Networking: Deploying Vista: Understanding the Windows AIK

This article is the first in a series. The author, Mitch Tulloch, is known to write about complicated technical matters in an understandable way. I discussed his book about Windows Server 2008 some time ago. This series isn’t specifically about SP1, but it already includes information about it. You might have noticed that WAIK 1.1 (Windows Automated Installation Kit) has been released some days ago. Its most important new feature is its support for Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. Maybe you belong to those who have been waiting for this SP before even considering moving to Vista. Well, no more excuses. It’s time to find out how Vista is deployed. After reading Mitch’s first article you’ll realize that there are many new things to learn.

Mark Russinovich: Inside Vista SP1 File Copy Improvements

This is a rather technical article who might appeal more to developers than admins. Supposedly, you would like to hear how much faster file copy really is now. He wasn’t really specific about this. However, he does say that in some cases SP1 even slows down file copying, for instance when you copy from Windows Server 2003 over slow network or when you copy large files on the same volume. Well, next time you have to wait for a file to be copied, you can read Mark’s articles in the meantime. Then, you would know at least why you are actually waiting.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

First, you have to install a BitTorrent client if you don’t have one yet. There are many, the one I usually use is ABC. Next you go to one of the BitTorrent tracker sites such as Pirate Bay and search for “Vista SP1 RTM”. The file size should be 434,46MB. You will get several hits; take the one which has the most seeders (SE) and leechers (LE).

To make sure that you haven’t downloaded an altered version, you should check the MD5 hash of the exe file. Several bloggers have created the hash code from the original disc. You can use the MD5 Checksum Verifier for this purpose. For the 32 bit version of Vista SP1 the hash code should be d597866e93bc8f80ecca234c4e9ce5a2. The hash for the 64-bit version is supposed to be 983308426e8ee7649f53b41f4e5c42d4.

Technically, this method makes absolutely sure that you have downloaded a file that is identical to the one the hash code was created from. The other consideration is if you could trust those sites who published the hash. You can google for the code to see how many already had posted it. Since I don’t have the original version yet, I can’t guarantee that the hash code is correct. So I highly recommend installing it only in a test environment with no network connection.

WinBeta reported that there is another way to download Vista SP1 from Microsoft’s OEM site. I started to download it, but after some minutes it stopped. I guess Microsoft closed this hole by now.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

New Hotfixes and Security Updates

This page lists all hotfixes and security updates that are included in SP1. Microsoft was friendly enough to mark those updates which were not publicly available before.

New features

The number of new features can be obtained from a white paper about the notable changes in SP1. Most of them are only minor enhancements. However, I recommend skimming over this paper. Maybe you find one or two features that are important for your environment.

Microsoft enhanced Vista in several areas. The numbers in parentheses signify the number of new features that were added: Hardware Ecosystem Support and Enhancements (11), Reliability Improvements (9), Performance and Power Consumption (29), Security Improvements (16), Support for New Technologies and Standards (11), Desktop Administration and Management (14), Setup and Deployment Improvements (15), Interoperability Improvements (2), Feature or API Changes (3), General Improvements and Enhancements (10)

Compatibility

One of the major reasons why Vista adoption is slow are its hardware and software compatibility issues. I often heard people saying that they want to wait for SP1 in the hope that it will fix their compatibility problem. This is a big misunderstanding. If you have hardware that is not supported by Vista, then SP1 won’t most likely be of help, either. Most new drivers were already made available thru Windows Update. There are a few new drivers in SP1, but they are only for “critical devices” such as video cards.

SP1 probably also won’t solve software compatibility problems. Microsoft already released a couple of compatibility updates before SP1 came out. From what I have read, there are no further improvements with respect to compatibility in this service pack. There even is a certain chance that the compatibility of Vista SP1 got worse. Any new operating system version always affects compatibility. This is also true for SP1. Microsoft officials have no problems in admitting this:

Applications that have compatibility issues with Windows Vista today will most likely continue to have the same issues with Windows Vista with SP1.

And in the same document:

There is a chance that some applications ultimately will not run on the final version of Windows Vista SP1, even though they run on Windows Vista today.

Performance

I think rumors about Vista’s bad performance is the number 2 reason after its compatibility issues for the slow Vista adoption. Many hoped that SP1 will improve Vista’s performance. There are indeed a couple of features in SP1 that might remedy some common problems. As far as I can see, these improvements affect network-related performance issues and also improve the general responsiveness of the operating system.

There have been contradicting reports about the performance gains of Vista SP1. The list below is just a small collection:

Computerworld: Slowing down Vista with SP1 PCWORLD: Vista SP1 no faster than stock OS, say testing experts APC magazine: LEAKED: Vista SP1 analysed in-depth Windows Now: Windows Vista SP1 Performance – The Real First Look

However, I doubt somehow that the overall performance of your Vista machine will improve if the hardware is not powerful enough. So the best way to boost-up performance is to equip your PC with 2GB RAM. If Vista still seems to be slow and your hard disk is busy all the time I recommend disabling Vista Search. These two measures probably will be much more helpful than SP1 with regards to performance.

Size

As usual, this SP will be available through Windows Update and as standalone installer. Which version you need depends on the way you deploy service packs. You should just know that the standalone file is really big this time. The reason is that different languages are included. There is one version with 450MB containing 5 languages, and one coming with all available languages which has 550MB. I suppose the huge size is also caused by what Microsoft calls “alignment with Windows Server 2008″. Vista and Server 2008 share about 70% code base. That means changes in Server 2008 often affect DLLs in Vista even though these enhancements are irrelevant on desktop.

If you get SP1 via Windows Update you just have to download about 65MB. The size is relatively small because with Windows Update you have to download changed bytes only. That is, if only a few bytes have changed in DLL, then only those bytes will be transferred, but not the complete file. If you use WSUS to deploy SP1 you can use the “Express Installation Files” feature (sometimes called delta delivery) to reduce bandwidth usage between your WSUS server and the clients.

You can find further information about Vista SP1 in the Windows Vista SP1 Guides for IT Professionals.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

The term “RTM” makes this more than clear. The software is ready, so the manufacturing, that is the production of the real thing, the DVDs, can start now. But who really cares about the DVDs nowadays? In my view, “release to manufacturing” of software is done by compiling the final version. Then you copy it to your download servers, and that’s it. So why do we have to wait for another 6 weeks?

Mike Nash tries to give the reason. Some hardware vendors released drivers which do not follow the guidelines for driver installation. These drivers have to be reinstalled after Vista has been updated to SP1. Microsoft needs some more time to convince those hardware vendors to do their homework.

It seems like there is only a small set of drivers affected. So the rest of the world has to wait for another six weeks just because some hardware vendors did sloppy work? It is hard to believe. Wouldn’t it make more sense to notify users before they try to install the service pack? Then, they can decide if they want to wait until new drivers are available or just reinstall them afterwards.

Anyway, in my opinion there still is no Vista SP1 RTM. “Manufacturing” nowadays is done by a single click. Just upload the exe to your Web servers and “manufacturing” is done. So, SP1 will be released to “manufacturing” only in mid-March.

This is really disappointing because SP1 is far more important than Microsoft tries to make us believe for months. I am going to post something about this point these days. Ah yes, there is another reason why I am so grumpy. It seems the MS guys really forgot my birthday.

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• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

On the one hand that would make sense, because it is my birthday. I mean after all the free promotion for Vista on this blog that would just be a suitable birthday present. Don’t you think so? On the other hand, it is not very probable that Microsoft publishes release notes for a release candidate just a few days before the real thing is about to be pushed out. So I am afraid that the MS guys will just forget my birthday again.

Noteworthy about these release notes is the fact that SP1 will uninstall GPMC (Group Policy Management Console). That is already known for some time, but I expected that the new version would be available for download as soon as SP1 comes out. It seems you can’t count on that. If you want to configure Vista specific Group Policies or if you work with ADMX templates you need the Vista version of GPMC. So keep that in mind if SP1 really shows up on Monday.

It is still a complete mystery to me why this SP uninstalls GPMC without installing the new version. It is such an important tool for every system administrator. I found it quite useful that it is always available on every Vista machine I logon. My guess is that it will be a part of RSAT for Vista. Though that still doesn’t explain why RSAT isn’t also included in SP1. I suppose with such a move, Microsoft would have made some friends among Windows admins.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

Digitimes cites a DRAM vendor talking about the Feb. 15 as the launch date of Service Pack 1:

But the PC market will rebound in the second quarter, he said. The launch of an updated version of Microsoft Vista on February 15, if its prices do not go up too much compared to its previous version, may help boost DRAM sales, Pai added.

And InfoWorld mentions the same date. According to their source, software industry analysts also have heard of Feb. 15 as the target date for SP1.

As usual, Microsoft officials did not confirm anything. I’ve mentioned it before on this blog. I find Microsoft’s information policy about release dates quite vexing. Release dates of such importance play a central role in the planning of any bigger IT department. I wonder how many organizations did not even start thinking about deploying Vista simply because the release date of Service Pack 1 is still unknown.

In my opinion, the exact launch date of a Windows service pack should be publicly known at least three months in advance. I know that it is not easy to determine when exactly a software product is ready. However, I think that it is possible if you only add a generous time allowance to your schedule. If you are done earlier, you can just do some extra testing before releasing the product.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

I find it a bit strange that false release dates about Microsoft products are published, often. Usually, the authors claim to have this information from Microsoft insiders. Are they just inventing those release dates or are even Microsoft employees sometimes confused about them? The fact that McClaws, a Microsoft employee, mentioned the false ship date in his blog, is an indication for the latter. When he removed this post, I already suspected that it was just a hoax.

Since Service Pack 1 for Vista will probably be released together with Windows Server 2008, I suppose, it will also be available only at the end of February. I think there is a fair chance that Windows XP SP3 will come out around the same time.

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On the 64-bit machine, he measured a 15% performance increase and on the 32-bit computer 11%. Considering that there have already been a couple of patches that are supposed to improve performance, this is not too bad. He mentioned the machines (Dell XPs 410 / Samsung Q1 Ultra), but doesn’t say anything about their hardware equipment. I am pretty sure that you won’t see the same improvements on every PC. However, I think it could be a proof that Vista SP1 performs a little better than Vista RTM.

At the peril of being accused again as a Vista fan boy, I have to say that I had no performance issues with Vista so far. Of course, I am running it only on hardware that is powerful enough. That is, all my Vista machines have at least 2GB RAM. Only when I test it under VMware Workstation, do I work with 1GB which is enough if you only run a tool or 2 simultaneously.

McLaws also seems to have information that Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 will go to RTM tomorrow. Peder linked to an article over at Bink.nu mentioned the same release date (Jan. 16). It was already published 11 days ago. I am still a bit skeptic, but it would certainly be great if Microsoft releases these two products earlier than planned.

Update: McLaws just removed the article. Was it because he mentioned the release dates?

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I installed it on a test machine which hasn’t been online for some time. So I had to install some updates, first. The new SP was displayed only after 2 days. Even clicking on “Check for updates” multiple times didn’t help. I find this method of installing software for testing quite cumbersome. Why doesn’t Microsoft just offer an exe?

It seems that Microsoft will be able to stick to the schedule and release Vista SP1 at the end of February. There are rumors that there will be no new release candidate for Windows Server 2008, anymore. That could be another hint that SP1 will become available soon because it is believed that it will be released together with Server 2008. I have been playing with Server 2008 for quite a while now and it made a very stable impression on me. At least, if I compare it with the beta versions of Vista.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

These are the links to download SP1 RC:

• Instructions for download Vista SP1 RC via Windows Update
• Vista x86 SP1 RC in English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish
• Vista x64 SP1 RC in English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish
• Vista x86 SP1 RC all languages
• Vista x64 SP1 RC all languages

I recommend reading the instructions on the download page. It might save you some time, if things don’t work out smoothly as expected. I wonder why it is called “Service Pack 1 RC” and not RC1 as with the beta of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP? Does this mean that there will be no Vista SP1 RC2?

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)

Overview of Windows Vista SP1

I don’t recommend reading this one. It seems to be mostly advertisement for Vista. It discusses some of the new features of SP1, but there is a more detailed description in the next paper.

Notable Changes in Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate

The list of these notable changes is quite long. If you have a special problem with Vista, you might have a look at this document, just to see if it has been solved. But maybe it is faster to just download the release candidate and try it.

Hotfixes and Security Updates in Windows Vista SP1

This document just lists previously released updates that are included in this service pack. Unless one of those updates caused problems in your environment, you probably won’t find this paper too thrilling.

Enterprise Guidance for Application Compatibility Testing and Windows Vista SP1

I found some passages in this text quite interesting. I have to cite them otherwise you might not believe me:

Microsoft expects that nearly all applications that run on Windows Vista® today will continue to run on Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1). Applications that have compatibility issues with Windows Vista today will most likely continue to have the same issues with Windows Vista with SP1. The changes made in the Windows Vista release that enhance security, reliability, and networking that might cause earlier versions of applications to break are being carried forward in Windows Vista SP1.

One of the major reasons, why many organizations didn’t deploy Vista yet, is because of the many compatibility issues. So if you take this paragraph seriously, you could come to the conclusion that it might make sense to skip Vista altogether and just wait for Windows 7. However, after you read the next sentence, you will get a clearer view about the real intention of the writer of this document:

Microsoft recommends that all enterprise customers begin testing their applications on the currently available version of Windows Vista.

SP1 will probably be released only at the end of February. Since Vista adoption is so slow, Microsoft obviously wants to encourage organizations to move to Vista as soon as possible. The sheer number of changes in this service pack proves the above sentence wrong. If you start your compatibility tests now, you probably have to start from scratch after the release of this SP. The next citation is from the very same document and obviously a contradiction to Microsoft’s recommendation from above:

There is a chance that some applications ultimately will not run on the final version of Windows Vista SP1, even though they run on Windows Vista today. Microsoft will publish a list of these known applications with the release of SP1.

I wonder if this has been written by one and the same author. If you take this one seriously, then you have to believe that it can only get worse with this SP. So my personal recommendation is to just wait until SP1 is out, and then test Vista again, to see if it is an option for your network or not.

Deployment Guide for the RC1 Version of Windows Vista SP1

This white paper probably won’t contain much new information for you if you deployed service packs before. It is too early anyway to think about deploying SP1 now. You might want to come back to this document in March or April next year.

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I found this hack at Helmers Blog. He links to a rar file which is a bit cumbersome to download. So I converted it into a zip which you can download here.Vista SP1 RC1 I hope Microsoft won’t sue me for this. Like before, you have to start a script which will create some Registry entries. Note that you have to uninstall SP1 Beta first. Check out the word file that comes with the script.

When I ran the script on a test machine, Windows Update offered me two other updates. After installing them and rebooting twice, the Service Pack was still not visible in Windows Update. I had to click several times on the “Check for updates” link until it finally showed up. The download was extremely slow. It seems the interest in this SP is huge.

From a system administrator’s point of view, it is interesting to know that the schedule still stands, i.e. SP1 is slated in the first quarter of 2008. Microsoft will release Vista SP1 in two waves. In the first wave, SP1 will be available only in English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. The second wave will launch 8-12 weeks later and will contain all other remaining languages. I find it a bit strange that there are still different language versions. Why not just one version with different language packs?

It is important to know that there is a service pack blocker tool that will prevent installation of SP1 via Windows Update. So if you have already deployed Vista and want to test this SP before it gets installed automatically, you should get this tool. It also works for Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows XP SP3.

The Vista team blog describes the changes in RC1 in detail. You might also be interested in this post at the Windows Team blog where the author shares some experiences he made when he deployed Vista SP1.

• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)
• Vista SP1 performance comparison with Vista RTM (1)