Some in the media have received the final SP1 code too, as evidenced by reviews online, with an article at PC World showing mixed performance results with SP1, with ‘file copy performance notably improved’, yet with some tests showing Vista pre-SP1 actually faster than SP1 itself.
The Vista SP1 debacle continues, with TechNet and MSDN subscribers unable to download the final RTM code of SP1, despite around 15,000 SP1 beta testers having been confirmed by Computerworld as having received the final SP1 code, weeks before the general public.
Another article at Computerworld shows Vista SP1 to be 20% slower at copying files than pre-SP1, while the ‘old’ Windows XP beats both Vista pre-SP1 and SP1 at copying files by a wide margin.
This has forced Microsoft to delay SP1’s release to the general public to give themselves and hardware manufacturers some additional time to iron out the driver bugs, something that, ironically, was Vista’s original problem, something that was meant to be fixed with the release of SP1 itself.
What is clear is that SP1, despite having reached ‘release to manufacturing’ or RTM status, still isn’t 100% finished. What’s holding things up is Microsoft’s discovery, thanks to the beta testers, that some PC manufacturers have loaded drivers onto their machines which SP1 just doesn’t like.
Microsoft will actually delay some users getting Vista SP1 until April, as it uses the Windows Update software built into Vista to determine which machines might be affected by the SP1 driver issues.
Microsoft should never have told the world SP1 was ready when it plainly wasn’t, but as they have, the bad PR onslaught has been massive, with some TechNet and MSDN subscribers wondering if they will be re-subscribing to the services when they next come up for renewal. All in all, it’s a big mess