RSSVista SP2 update sent to testers, but is it really an RC?
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published February 20, 2009, 5:17 PM
What really, really looks like a release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 2 -- which first entered beta in December -- is officially being called an "update" this afternoon, after Microsoft declined to give it a more formal title.
A Microsoft spokesperson kinda, sorta confirmed to Betanews this afternoon the release of "an update to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 testers, in an effort to gain additional feedback." The company appears to be officially declining to call it a release candidate, although Ars Technica's Emil Protalinski unearthed evidence yesterday that this is exactly what it is.
Whatever it is, SP2 for both the client and server operating systems should include "rollups" of security hotfixes issued since last March.
While the Microsoft spokesperson told us that the company is continuously engaging with its partners and developers, there's a distinct lack of chatter about Build 6002 -- widely believed to be the first RC build -- on the TechNet Forums where testers using Microsoft Connect generally gather. A few exceptions were recent posts from testers having trouble uninstalling their existing SP2 builds, which is what they would want to do first before installing the latest builds. Most likely, a select group of testers is officially receiving this build now, and the broader-based Connect group will be made aware later.
In early tests a few weeks ago, Cameron Wilmot and the folks at TweakTown got an early peek at Build 6002, and their performance results were actually not very impressive at all. Though load times did improve for some tests, and frame rates for rendering a few games like Crysis improved dramatically -- sometimes more than double -- overall performance scores like PCMark Vantage were actually marginally slower for Build 6002 over Vista SP1 -- by less than one percent.
Of course they are going to call it an "update"; Vista SP2 is Windows 7 and you are going to have to pay for it.
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|Out of curiosity, will the exact same new interface be present? Will some features be absent in Vista SP2 that are in Windows 7 (or vice-versa)? Are you really claiming that every single feature in Windows 7 is going to be in Vista SP2? Where are your supporting arguments?
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|He has none. He's a clueless troll.
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|Service Pack 2 continues to prove that Windows Vista is the best non beta operating system ever released to the general public. Despite what some people think, Vista has never had any showstopper bugs since the RTM version.
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|Vista SP-2 is a POS update. It doesn't have any speed improvements, some links or shortcuts still don't work. SP-2 doesn't even fix one of the most basic thing in any OS, which is to remember network user names and password. I had to write 6 batch files and put them in the startup folder so I can login to my mapped drives at start up. So can someone tell me what these idiots @ MS have been doing all this time?
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|YOu seriously think MS would allow such a basic high-end issue like that go on for so long? Have you possibly considered that the issue is with your setup, and not Vista? I've used Vista on and off a domain, and have never seen that issue.
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|Yes, I seriously think MS would allow such a basic high-end issue like that go on for so long! I have two new computers, a desktop and laptop with Vista Basic and Premium installed. Both have the same problem.
Google "Vista won't remember network passwords" and you can see that it's a well known problem.
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|According to Microsoft, not remembering the password is a feature, not a bug, apparently, it should be remembered only on Business and Ultimate.
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|M$ always calls their ph***-ups features.
Just like pressing ESC and getting access to the computer was a feature in Windows 95/98.
If it's a feature, why put the save password check box that doesn't work?
That's why many people are going for Macs and Linux.
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|Yeah... that's *exactly* why so "many" are switching.
It's hilarious that you fuss about passwords with Windows, yet go on to mention Linux as a better alternative... an OS (any of the umpteen-hundred variants) that requires you to type a password each and every time to do anything but the most mundane and trivial of tasks.
And people whine about UAC... LOL!
He was correct, at least in the sense that it does appear to be limited to the home versions of Windows (which you have already stated that you use)... and not just Vista, but XP Home is affected as well. I would never consider it to be a feature though... but at least there's a workaround.
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|You forget that Linux is free!
So if there are any shortcomings most people will put up with it.
And since Linux is open source, with just a little tweaking Linux can automatically login to a network at startup.
But in my opinion these are basic functions of a OS and should not be restricted. If that's case you can say that networking shouldn't be allowed on any basic or home versions of a OS.
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|Forget? Not so, my friend. How could anyone forget that? It's constantly thrown into our faces on a regular basis, and is quite frankly one of the only really good things it's got going for it. And what has being "free" done for Linux so far?
Linux may have the upper hand on Windows in a few areas, but as far as mainstream desktop use for the majority of the world's users, the shortcomings of Linux far outnumber those of Windows. Hence, the 15+ year (and counting) quest to overtake the desktop.
For those who live in reality and rely on certain trivial things such as application availability, usability, and compatibility (and support for such applications), Windows continues to provide exactly what they expect from their PCs... security issues not withstanding. I'd say that most people are already happy to put up with the shortcomings of an OS they are already familiar with... especially since most users are probably completely oblivious to any shortcomings.
All this in spite of Linux being "free". When average users are staring at their fresh new Linux desktop (after they've tried to figure out why they have at least two to choose from) for the first time wondering "Well, what do I do now?", trying to make the connection between the utterly goofy names that are given to most Linux applications, and what they actually *do*... "free" starts to become not so worth it after all.
And what does "open source" have to do with being able to login automatically to a network? There are several ways to allow Windows to login automatically, though most average users would not know how to allow Windows to do that. To suggest that those same individuals would know how to tweak Linux to do so is ridiculous.
Speaking of tweaking, have you tried TweakUI to allow automatic login? Yes, it's still around, and Microsoft still develops it (yet still does not support it). It even runs under Vista, though TweakVI is a little better for the time being, at least until Microsoft updates their own PowerToy.
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|just release win7 to vista users and call it quits for any future costs expended into vista sp's.
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|Let me recap this since I am kinda slow and jet lagged this morning...
Performance improvements are *not* impressive since some tests (run several times with real scientific diligence to gather meaningful statistics...) show a less than 1% decrease whereas others show more than double the performance? Ohkay....
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|Yawn.
Like the 'name' matters.
If it adds functionality, I don't care what they call it.
(And my only request would be that they document what it is designed to solve and what it may break to the best of their knowledge.)
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|OK kids our lesson today is what is a service pack? a service pack is just a batch of past bugfixes rolled up into one file and SOMETIMES new features are added. so kids do you understand or do i have to dumb this down for you more.
as for Linux i love how people are complaining that there are 8 versions of windows 7 coming out when there are 1000+ versions of linux out there that do not work 100% with one another
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|Dumb it down???
Are you kidding me? You can get 'dumber'?
And just out of curiousity, WTF does your whining have to do with my post?
Well you conclusively demonstrated one thing...you are indeed incredibly stupid.
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