Microsoft Windows Vista - Rumor - No Big Service Packs

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
by Ron Schenone

For the past several months as Vista was being dissected, evaluated, criticized, and praised there was a common belief that the smart money was waiting until Microsoft released a service pack or two before adopting the newest operating system. Most believed that what has happened with Windows 2000 and Windows XP would continue, and that Microsoft would combine super patches all rolled into one big fix called service packs.
Well that might not be the case with this release. Seems that Microsoft is very satisfied with Vista thus far. And that they may choose to provide fixes as needed via Windows update. The thinking is two fold:

Smaller doses of updates would not be so disruptive as was the case with Windows XP - SP1. Many PC owners found themselves with slow running systems. And Windows XP - SP2 had some problems if I recall, in that some Dell systems were very problematic after applying the service pack.
Cost - providing bandwidth for millions of downloads for service packs is costly to Microsoft as is sending out updating CD’s.

But who knows. Microsoft could change their minds and still provide service packs in the future.

What do you think? Will a Vista service pack be in our future, or will small doses of fixes via Windows updates take its place?

Comments welcome.

[tags]vista, microsoft, service packs, updates, [/tags]

7 Comments

steve

April 4th, 2007
at 10:55am

Small doses all the way for me. From a security point of view I’d certainly like to have the latest fixes ASAP, and from a geek point of view, I’d love to have those annoying bugfixes out ASAP too.

This IS the high-speed digital age, so ASAP is in, and “wait 6 months” is most definately OUT!

Ron Schenone

April 4th, 2007
at 1:03pm

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your comments. I’m am tending also to go for the quick fix idea as well. But maybe MS could also provide all of the updates on CD every year or so just in case we need to redo Vista. I know it would be hard to believe that Vista would even require a reinstall, but call me jaded! LOL

Thanks again, Ron

Dirk Cleenwerck

April 4th, 2007
at 2:43pm

Brilliant, now reinstalling Vista in about a year will take just as long as Windows 2000 and Windows XP. That is, installing requires about 45 minutes, and applying patches about 1.5 hours (including download of the patches of course, i have a cable connection after all).

I am waiting for XP SP3 so I won’t need to install all those seperate patches anymore.

Ron Schenone

April 5th, 2007
at 3:48am

Hello Dick,
Thanks for your comments. As I stated,I’m hoping MS will still release service packs on disk, just in case of a reinstall. I unfortunately had to do a reinstall on one of my daughters system that was so screwed up from spyware a repair didn’t work. I used XP slipstreamed with SP2. The updates using cable actually took me 2 hours since they are delivered in ‘chunks’. What took the longest was waiting for the install to take place and having to reboot. So I do hear you.

Thanks again, Ron

Cody

April 20th, 2007
at 5:23am

If installing Windows Vista on your machine takes longer than 20 minutes; there is something wrong with your system. Windows XP takes 45+ minutes - not Vista.

I would like to see both the quick Windows Updates fixes, and service packs. Service Packs contain more than what Microsoft releases via Windows Update. Windows XP SP2 contained features, not just hot-fixes.

Ron Schenone

April 20th, 2007
at 12:29pm

Hi Cody,
Thanks for your comments.
Ron

LAUNIE

August 29th, 2007
at 2:25pm

DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THERE IS AN ISSUE BETWEEN OUTLOOK 2003 AND VISTA?

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