Folks,
Microsoft Technet are hosting a page loaded with Windows Vista SP1 documentation
You've got deployment guides, Notable changes, bundled hotfixes and Release Notes to peruse at your leisure
I've been running vista on a new Asus G1S laptop for several months now. I have to admit, i'm not a Vista fan really. I'd consider myself unique in my likes and dislikes of an Operating System, and go beyond the general user usage needs ... for example, I stayed with Windows 2000 Pro for well over a year beyond Windows XP's release. When I did upgrade, Windows XP was a lot more stable, hotfixes and service pack released et al which pretty much bedded XP in. I'm a heavy user of the keyboard, usually only giving the mouse a flick to get me to areas where i need to grab focus to type or highlight, but i've found with Vista that my use of Explorer has slowed right down due to the change in TAB selections (remember those?) and shortcut keys (yes they do exist for most functions!). I'm wary of using Vista, I'm so old-hat and use to Windows XP that sometimes I actually rush through some keystrokes or mouse clicks only to find i've selected something I didn't want too, or chose a dialog option which looked like an XP dialog but actually had buttons reversed, or set in different positions. I'm reluctant to switch Vista back to the XP look-feel as I must plow on and get use to the product.
So, slowly i'm changing over to the "Vista Experience", but what about most of my clients? They are still using Windows XP at the moment, so as an engineer i'm literally stuck between two main OS releases, which degrades my performance slightly due to their radical difference in UI. I don't like this, but Windows Vista is growing on me. Visually, some of the features are nice but I cannot help feeling that they could have been retro'd in to WinXP. Under the hood, Vista doesn't feel that much faster to me than Windows XP. I know if I put XP on to my laptop i'd get a marked improvement in performance. I also know that the Vista code went through an extremely radical change\rewrite; that there has been a lot of effort put in to new approaches (to starting up, shutting down, file usage, performance boosts ...) that should reveal themselves to the end user as performance increases and usability enhancements. Though, I'm not seeing those. But, to be fair, I don't do the things I do with WinXP with Vista yet, mostly due to my clients not using Vista on the desktop. At home, I use Vista as a Lab\Office\Gaming platform and I can get things done, so I cannot complain much really. The odd issue I put down to non-SP for the OS or Vendors getting use to writing new types of Drivers (remember how painful driver updates where from W2K to WinXP, groan!), and I realise these things will change and it'll get a whole lot better and more usable over time.
Some people refer to Windows Vista as Windows ME 2007. Harsh, kind of unfair, but too the point. I'm not too sure what to make of Microsofts commitment to Vista. Whether it will be replaced in the next couple of years by another BIG desktop replacement. Requiring machines with bulging muscles just to show the OS logo, performance dropping rather than increasing; who knows, but I sure do hope that the next big Desktop upgrade is shown more developer time, "it's done when it's done" as they say and not "it's done when marketing cannot hold back anymore".
There are a lot of articles about the Vista SP1 Beta and leaked RC not increasing performance. This does seem to be true (with qoutes of 2/3% performance increase noted). Check out the Notable changes to get a feel for what is going on with this upgrade.
And take a look at the release notes, with one of the big problems listed right away as "unfixed", sigh
Display (Release notes)
In some cases, computers that use multiple monitors may display black screens when the display mode is changed after resuming from sleep. This issue can also affect laptop computers connected to an external monitor. Display mode changes may occur in any of the following circumstances:
To avoid this, do not use multiple monitors, or do not allow the computer to sleep or change the display mode.
If this has already occurred, restart the computer.
What? Remove my second monitor, stop Vista sleeping (disable a feature to stop another feature from breaking???). Come on Microsoft I didn't buy, make space, setup and plug in a second monitor so that I can use Vista and switch it off? LOL You'd think this would be on the top 10 things to fix, how many of you use dual-monitors? Microsoft recommends ... selling second monitors on Ebay until they fix the feature which has been around in Windows XP for god knows how long! (of course, that is not their recommendation, there's is stay-tuned-while-we-fix-this-issue-sometime-in-2008\2009)
General Improvements and Enhancements (Notable changes)
With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4BG in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change.
LoL an OS that implies to the user that it is using 4GB of memory but doesn't. Come on, Vista isn't geared up for an advanced user, Microsoft aim this at computer-newbies, hence why the UI has gone from slick\advanced\cool to dumbed down and idiot proof so what will they believe? That 4GB of their memory is being used. Wrong thing to do entirely. Report things as they are, and do not report misleading information Mr Microsoft! Newbies believe what they read, and often don't understand what they read, but reach some kind of understanding from seeing common acronyms and values (Memory, 4GB) in the market-place.
DX 10.1 is installed. Nice, give it a year and there will be some games supporting this newer vesion of [WIKIPEDIA:DirectX] (time to throw out those new video cards and buy a new video card that supports DX10.1?)
Aside from all of these mumbles, and slanted and often personal observations, Windows Vista is definately coming along; and reaching what is in my eyes a usable, RTM product. Well done Microsoft for finally getting an SP out of the door (Q1 of 2008?) ... i'm keen to see the Beta\RC Release notes for SP2 when it starts to appear. Cannot wait to see whether there are significant changes\fixes or just tweaks\twiddles and retro-fitting in DRM et al and whether WinFS will get a look-in!