Well it's finally here. The new standalone SP1 for vista was released today with 23 Security Fixes and 560 Hotfixes. It's a massive 430 MB download, so unless your on highspeed I would not recommend installing it during the day - instead let it run overnight. SP1 focuses on reliability, performance and compatibility issues. It supports new hardware such as High Defination players (blu-ray). It also syncs the software to be easily communicated with the new Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft corporation has been releasing updates right from the release of Vista, but this service pack brings it all together with massive changes. Some of the significant changes you might notice are:

• More support has been added for third party search tools; rather then replacing the whole search tool, it has allowed programs like Google to be integrated within the current search system. This means you may now use Google Search as the "default". Even though MS has allowed this, the results from Vista's indexer is still showed in Windows Explorer. The third party search can only be initiated by pressing a special button.
  
• User Account Control has been modified to show less prompts. I don't know whether this will compromise Vista's security or make it better. All I know is that it's going to make file copying and deleting much less annoying. (and yes I know you can disable UAC).
  
• If you run a non-legal copy of Windows, it might be harder for you to install this Service Pack, recieve updates, or even run your computer. WGA has been patched for two most popular exploits, which we won't mention here.
  
• Direct X has been updated to be backwords compatible allowing compatibility between both DX9 and DX10.
  
• File copying finally has a real ETA and not "Calculating the time it takes to copy" (paraphrased).
  
• Crashing due to Windows Media player and Windows Calendar have now been patched.
  
• Improves support for IE and javascript intensive sites, bringing performance.

The service pack is only available to certain language users - mainly English, French, German, Japense, and Spanish. Both 32 bit and the 64 bit patches are available directly through Windows Update. It's recommended that you download this service pack through Windows Update, and not as a standalone executable.

For the users who have not caught up in the latest OS by Microsoft, this is the perfect time. Retailers are now selling Vista with SP1 already installed with a bonus price cut.

SP1 was released to RTM in the early days of Feburary but the story never got popular as MS withdrew due to some hardware problems with certain manufacturers. Microsoft announced that it will support these drivers before releasing the update.

As with every new software, SP1 does have its bugs. Users are required to install a prerequisite update due to an error which left the computer in an endloop boot loop. Unforunately, there are more bugs as that was just the beginning. Nothing has been announced yet, but it is expected that more users will find more bugs as the story becomes popular.

A list of notable changes within Vista are outlined in this PDF deployed by Microsoft: Click me