THE MUCH- AWAITED service pack for Vista could be out any day now, according to the dark satanic rumour mill.
Yesterday a Taiwanse news outfit said that SP1 would be released on February 15. According to PC World that date is not unlikely.
Microsoft is refusing to confirm the rumours other than saying it would be in the first quarter.
Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft said it was possible and it could be out tomorrow.
Other analysts have heard the February 15 date but think the Vole will not confirm it because the current SP1 release candidate is out there and it wants to make sure that there are no problems with it.
In fact, SP1 RC is fairly basic and not really much of a development on Vista itself. Those playing around with it say it is a strong release and it really caused them little trouble so there is nothing to stop the Vole letting it go.
Some analysts think that SP1 might encourage those who had been holding back from Vista adoption to sign up.
Another school of thought says that Microsoft had tainted the whole release and big business will probably wait for Windows 7.
More here. µ
Seems like the Vole wants to slip something in to these Service Packs in typical backdoor MS fashion.
Release SP3 for XP then SP1 for Vista would be the logical course for these packs IF
nothing sneaky was happening behind the curtain.
What are the "wizards" of MS up to ?
SP3 should be a simple affair and it will not impact Vista sales.
Vista sales were set on the current path when they chose to introduce it after the Christmas buying season ,it was available to businesses before that season.
As they've just released SP1 RC Refresh 2...

Still, refresh 1 was completely painless for me. Fast, stable, and as far as I could see : bug free.
Does this mean Windows Server 2009 has or will RTM before Feb 15th? Microsoft is supposidly developing Vista SP1 and WS 2009 hand in hand (or is that hand in foot?, or foot in mouth?)
I don't know what you get out of it if Vista would fail but sorry to disappoint you - it is here to stay. 

Large corporations are not holding off more than usual. It always takes >1y to roll out major changes like an entirely new OS. My client, one of the largest banks, very conservative, 1000000s of employees is going forward this year. So will many others. Such corporations btw lease their equipment typically on a 2y cycle - and will be in position to run whatever Vista demands within such a period on every desk...
Others report RC2 is out so they probably got confused with that release and final may be due next month instead.
Completely destroyed performance on several applications. Broke some applications completely

uninstalled and reinstalled apps and it worked fine again.

I have to say I am feeling like using XP as my development environment and Vista only when I have no choice. 

Vista's constant writing to the hard disk, or lack of memory if you turn everything off is just too much now. (and thats with 2 gig)