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If you have been waiting for Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, well, you can now mark your calender. We just received word that Microsoft has scheduled Windows Vista Service Pack 1 for release to manufacturer (RTM) on Monday, February 4, 2008. That's just 3 days away! The OEMs will also receive Windows Vista Service Pack 1 during that week.
Microsoft will be deploying Service Pack 1 in two "waves". Wave 0, which is the one released on February 4, will only include five languages - English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. The second wave, Wave 1, is scheduled for release 1-2 weeks later, and will cover all 36 basic languages, including Chinese.
Microsoft claims Windows Vista SP1 will provide key improvements on the security, performance and reliability of Windows Vista by providing :
* All previously released updates since RTM
* Performance and reliability improvements in core scenarios such as file copy, network browsing, and improved response time to resume from sleep.
* Support for new types of hardware, and several emerging standards.
* There are improvements to the administration experience. One of the most important changes we’re making is that BitLocker now supports encrypting for multiple volumes.
Of course, Service Pack 1 will also disable two common methods of hacking Windows Vista, namely the OEM BIOS exploit and the Grace Timer exploit.
Windows Vista Service Pack 1
When Microsoft launched Windows Vista, many users felt it was rushed into production before it was truly ready. Yes, it was easier to install and looked much prettier than Windows XP, but there were many kinks to iron out. Even hardware support was a problem, especially for printers and sound cards. A service pack would be necessary to make Windows Vista the operating system Microsoft promised it would be.
Microsoft is fully aware of how much of a premature baby Windows Vista was and had been working hard on Service Pack 1. In this article, we will take a look at what the upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will consist of. The following are Microsoft's latest lists of improvements and enhancements in Service Pack 1.
Hardware Support & Enhancements
* Adds support for new UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) industry standard PC firmware for 64-bit systems with functional parity with legacy BIOS firmware, which allows Windows Vista SP1 to install to GPT format disks, boot and resume from hibernate using UEFI firmware.
* Adds support for x64 EFI network boot.
* Adds support for Direct3D® 10.1, an update to Direct3D 10 that extends the API to support new hardware features, enabling 3D application and game developers to make more complete and efficient use of the upcoming generations of graphics hardware.
* 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.
* Adds support for SD Advanced DMA (ADMA) on compliant SD standard host controllers. This new transfer mechanism, which is expected to be supported in SD controllers soon, will improve transfer performance and decrease CPU utilization.
* Adds support for creating a single DVD media that boots on PCs with either BIOS or EFI.
* 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.
* Adds support to enable new types of Windows Media Center Extenders, such as digital televisions and networked DVD players, to connect to Windows Media Center PCs.
General Improvements & Enhancements
Default Desktop Search
SP1 includes a number of changes which allow computer manufacturers and consumers to select a default desktop search program similar to the way they currently select defaults for third-party web browsers and media players.
That means that in addition to the numerous ways a user could access a third party search solution in Windows Vista, they can now get to their preferred search results from additional entry points in the Start Menu and Explorer Windows in Windows Vista with SP1.
Third party software vendors simply need to register their search application using the newly provided protocol in Windows Vista SP1 to enable these options for their customers.
Reported Size Of System Memory
With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4GB in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change.
User Account Control (UAC) Prompts
SP1 reduces the number of UAC (User Account Control) prompts from 4 to 1 when creating or renaming a folder at a protected location.
Licensing User Interface & User Experience
Improvements in the Licensing User Interface and User Experience including more details in the help about activation and what happens if user does not activate; more detailed and descriptive dialog text; raw error codes replaced with easily comprehensible text.
Ultimate Extras Control Panel
SP1 modifies the text in the Ultimate Extras Control Panel to describe the Ultimate Extras program in more general terms.
Vista Scanning Experience
Upon scanning a photo with the Vista scanning experience, SP1 will open Explorer rather than opening Windows Photo Gallery.
Password Hint
Users are now required to enter a password hint during the initial setup of Windows Vista SP1. This change was made based on feedback from top PC manufactures that many customers frequently do not remember their password and because the administrator account is turned off by default on Windows Vista, these users do not have a way to access to their PCs. A password hint helps avoid this frustrating scenario.
Compatibility With Third Party Diagnostic Tools
Improves compatibility with 3rd party diagnostic tools that rely on raw sockets by applying the same delivery logic to control (ICMP v4 and v6) and regular packages.
Windows Genuine Advantage
While not reflected in the initial release candidate, we will also be making changes effective with SP1 in how we differentiate the experience customers have using non-genuine versions of our software. This is based on feedback we heard from volume license customers in particular as part of our Windows Genuine Advantage program.
Anti-Hack Patches
Also coming with SP1 but not in the current release candidate, we will also be including updates that deal with two exploits we have seen, which can affect system stability for our customers –
* The OEM BIOS exploit, which involves modifying system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to mimic a type of product activation performed on copies of Windows that are pre-installed by OEMs in the factory.
* The Grace Timer exploit, which attempts to reset the "grace time" limit between installation and activation to something like the year 2099 in some cases.
Setup & Deployment Improvements
* Enables global organizations to more easily deploy SP1 in a multi-lingual environment, as SP1 includes all 36 language packs. However, this change contributes to the increased size of the standalone package.
* Enables users to get updated Help content via a separate downloadable package. This package will be released around SP1 release.
* Enables support for hotpatching, a reboot-reduction servicing technology designed to maximize uptime. It works by allowing Windows components to be updated (or "patched") while they are still in use by a running process. Hotpatch-enabled update packages are installed via the same methods as traditional update packages, and will not trigger a system reboot.
* Improves migration and upgrade scenarios relating to the component that allows alternate text input "modalities" like speech, handwriting, and multi-byte character input editors in applications that were not written specifically to support them.
* Improves OS deployment by enabling 64-bit versions of Windows Vista to be installed from a 32-bit OS. This will allow IT professionals to maintain just a single WinPE image.
* Improves OS deployment by supporting the installation of offline boot critical storage drivers. WinPE will automatically look to a hidden partition for drivers. It will search that partition recursively, and if boot critical drivers are present they will be loaded. Non-boot critical drivers will be picked up and staged, but not loaded prior to the OS coming online.
* Improves patch deployment by retrying failed updates in cases where multiple updates are pending and the failure of one update causes other updates to fail as well.
* Enables reliable OS installation by optimizing OS installers so that they are run only when required during patch installation. Fewer installers operating results in fewer points of potential failure during installation, which leads to more robust and reliable installation.
* Improves overall install time for updates by optimizing the query for installed OS updates.
* Improves robustness during the patch installation by being resilient to transient errors such as sharing violations or access violations.
* Improves robustness of transient failures during the disk cleanup of old OS files after install.
* Improves the uninstallation experience for OS updates by improving the uninstallation routines in custom OS installation code.
* Improves reliability of OS updates by making them more resilient to unexpected interruptions, such as power failure.
* Improved instrumentation allows additional data to be sent to Microsoft via the CEIP (Customer Experience Improvement Program) when enabled. This telemetry data led to the identification of numerous issues that are addressed in SP1 and resulted in improvement in the reliability of OS servicing. (CEIP is respectful of personally identifiable information and adheres to terms discussed in the EULA.)
* After the SP1 version of the OPK (OEM pre-installation kit) is installed, further OPK updates will not be required if a servicing stack update is issued. (The servicing stack is the underlying set of binaries used to update the system). Post SP1, offline images may be updated using the servicing stack binaries contained in the image rather than the servicing stack binaries in the OPK.
Security Improvements
* Windows Vista SP1 includes all previously released Security Bulletin fixes which affect Windows Vista.
* SP1 includes Secure Development Lifecycle process updates, where Microsoft identifies the root cause of each security bulletin and improves our internal tools to eliminate code patterns that could lead to future vulnerabilities.
* Data Execution Protection (DEP) is a memory-protection feature available beginning with Windows XP and Server 2003. SP1 improves security with a new set of Win32 APIs to allow programmatic control over a process's DEP policy. This will provide application developers with finer control on a process's DEP settings for security, testability, compatibility, and reliability.
* Improves the trustworthiness of data presented in Windows Security Center (WSC) by ensuring that only authenticated security applications can communicate with WSC.
* Improves security on wired networks by enabling single sign on (SSO) for authenticated wired networks. The single sign on experience presents the user with a single point of credential entry rather than being double prompted for local and network logon.
* The cryptographic random number generation is improved to gather seed entropy from more sources, including a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) when available, and replaces the general purpose pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) with an AES-256 counter mode PRNG for both user and kernel mode.
* Improves security in smart card scenarios:
o Introduction of a new PIN channel to securely collect smart card PINs via a PC. This new capability mitigates a number of attacks that today would require using an external PIN reader to prevent.
o Enables smart cards that use biometric authentication instead of a PIN.
* Improves security over Teredo interface by blocking unsolicited traffic by default. This has already been addressed in a Security Update for Windows Vista (KB935807).
* Improves BitLocker Drive Encryption by offering an additional multi-factor authentication method that combines a key protected by the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) with a Startup Key stored on a USB storage device and a user-generated Personal Identification Number (PIN).
* Enhanced the BitLocker encryption support to volumes other than bootable volumes in Windows Vista (for Enterprise and Ultimate SKUs).
* Enables a standard user to invoke the CompletePC Backup application, provided that user can supply administrator credentials. Previously, only administrators could launch the application.
* The Remote Desktop client in Windows Vista SP1 provides user interface improvements for user and server authentication. The RDP client streamlines the multiple steps end users must follow to providing their credentials to Windows Server 2003 (or earlier) Terminal Servers, and simplifies the management of previously saved credentials.
Alignment With Windows Server 2008
Windows Vista is aligned with Windows Server 2008, meaning that many files are common to both products. A result of this design is that there are cases where a common binary is modified to enable a server scenario that has limited or no effect on Windows Vista SP1 capabilities. Here are few examples:
File Sharing
The file sharing subsystem on Windows Vista only allows 10 concurrent inbound connections. Windows Server 2008 must scale to support thousands of concurrent connections.
During the testing and customer feedback phase of Windows Server 2008 development, the file sharing subsystems are tuned and refined to optimize the file sharing stack for performance, scalability and reliability. This level of tuning and refinement are not typically applicable on a 10-connection limit client, but are critical to a file server role.
Changes like this are done primarily for the server scenarios, although these changes may also benefit Windows Vista SP1.
IIS 7
IIS was included in some Windows Vista SKUs to enable web-based developers to write and test their applications. IIS in Windows Server 2008 is a significant server role which requires Internet-level scalability and performance requirements.
The IIS7 components have gone through significant performance and reliability enhancements since Windows Vista originally shipped, in order to be a large-scale server component. These changes do not affect most Windows Vista users who do not even have the IIS7 components installed.
However, because a Windows Vista and Windows Server are aligned, these changes are included in Windows Vista SP1.
Concurrent User Support
Key subsystems such as the Windows Logon process and the core kernel need only support user-switching scenarios on Windows Vista. However, on Windows Server 2008, where a Terminal Server may have thousands of users logged in simultaneously, these subsystems must be tuned for maximum performance and reliability. Changes like this are done primarily for the server scenarios, although they may also benefit Windows Vista SP1.
Reliability Improvements
Reliability improvements vary from PC to PC based on hardware, environment, and usage. Customers will experience varying levels of benefit.
* 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.
* Improves reliability by preventing data-loss while ejecting NTFS-formatted removable-media.
* Improves reliability of IPSec connections over IPv6 by ensuring by ensuring that all Neighbor Discovery RFC traffic is IPsec exempted.
* Improves certain problem scenarios where a driver goes to sleep with incomplete packet transmissions by ensuring the driver is given enough time to transmit or discard any outstanding packets before going to sleep.
* Improves the success of peer-to-peer connections, such as Windows Meeting Space or Remote Assistance applications, when both PCs are behind symmetric firewalls.
* Improves Windows Vista's built-in file backup solution to include EFS encrypted files in the backup.
* Improves Windows Vista's built-in file backup solution to include EFS encrypted files in the backup.
* Windows Vista SP1 introduces a public hang reporting API that can be used by applications to report hangs.
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to for this information:
As a matter of interest I believe that SP1 will allow you to uninstall. Full instructions (amongst other VERY interesting goodies) are provided at the Windows Vista Forums.
Such a shame, they coulda made this a kick ass service pack.
Not much done in the way of user experience enhancements imo.
Bitlocker, who really cares or uses bitlocker?
No added ultimate extra's?
Has there been any mention at all about any media center improvements at all?
