Windows Vista Service Pack 1

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Vista SP1 as it is commonly known has finally gone gold. Despite Microsoft’s elusive and evasive predictions about when SP1 would be released, it has made its way out of the factory doors. Speculatively, it is rumored that SP1 had compatibility issues that were discovered as beta testing progressed. Nevertheless, it is now there in the market as a full fledged solution, standing stronger than ever!

Unlike windows XP SP2 which included several brand new features, Vista SP1 is a regular old-model service pack. This means that it has no new features, no user interface changes or anything coming closer to that sort of gimmick. So you may ask “what does it have, anyway?” It’s mostly concerned about improving security and enhancing performance with most other changes under the hood.

The most important feature in this release would be Microsoft’s attempt to block a couple of methods used by hackers to pirate Vista and get around its activation mechanism. The trick was to put all pirate copies of vista that were upgraded to SP1 on a non-activated 15 day trial status. Ironically, benchmarking SP1 release, a patch was released by a hacker to combat the new anti-pirate policy even before SP1’s final official release.

Another interesting breakthrough for Microsoft is changing its policy on how non-activated Vista copies are handled. Prior to SP1, any copy of vista which was not activated beyond 15 day or 30 day trial period was put in to reduced functionality mode where the user cannot do anything much on the machine except to activate or purchase Vista. In SP1, this process has been abolished in replacement of more lenient measures. So now, the consequence for any user who does not activate their Vista would be to have a black and white background on the desktop and an hourly prompt which warns that they are using an illegal copy of Vista.

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