On December 2, 2008, Microsoft has announced the availability of Beta release of Windows Vista Service Pack 2. It is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers through a blog post to the Windows Team Blog, Windows Server Blog, and the TechNet home page.

Microsoft is working with the software and a hardware vendor to help them deliver and to improve compatibility, reliability, and performance of the system. I think this would be the continuous improvement towards the Windows Vista by providing constant updates. The hardware and software partners of Microsoft directly provide these updates. You can also update the same directly from the Microsoft update site. Please note that updates to the Windows are also delivered directly to some affected customers and preinstalled by the PC manufactures.

Keeping in mind, to all the previously released updates, Service pack 2 contains lots of changes, which is focused on addressing reliability and performance issues; it may also support new types of hardware. As per Microsoft Service Pack 2 will also help and make easier for IT administrator to deploy and manage large installations of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

- You need to have Service Pack 1 installed on your Windows Vista computer.
- The second requirement is that, you need to have “Servicing Stack” update; an additional component handles installation and removal of software updates, language packs, and optional windows features. This update is necessary to install and uninstall the service pack successfully. It also improves the performance and reliability of the service pack installations. For your information, it is a standalone update package and offered as a separate package on Windows update.

Let’s talk about the Improvements:
We have seen that there are lots of application that is not compatible with Windows Vista. Microsoft has used and shared their customer’s information to the software vendor partner to improve the performance; in the other hand it’s also respecting their personal information. By release of Windows Vista SP2 and other application compatibility updates, it is noted to work more applications flawlessly for the end users.

Windows Search 4.0 which helps to search and preview documents, e-mail messages, music files, photos and other relevant items on the computer. In the other hand search engine Windows Search 4.0 is also used by Microsoft Office application. Now after the release of Windows Vista SP2 updates it will improves Windows Media Center (WMC) in Content protection for TV.

In Windows Vista Service Pack 2, Microsoft has included the ability to detect an incompatible driver and block service pack installation or notify users of any potential loss of functionality. What I know is, it also provides better error management and explanatory error message where possible with secure installation experience.

Other new feature and improvements added in Windows Vista Service Pack 2:
- Windows Vista Service pack 2 has most recent specification of Bluetooth Technology, it has Bluetooth 2.1 feature.
- SP2 has ability to record data on Blu-Ray media.
- Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.
- Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

Finally good thing is that Service Pack 2 includes a Service Pack Clean-up tool (Compcln.exe) which helps restore the hard disk space by permanently deleting the previous versions of the files (RTM and SP1) that are being serviced by SP2. The Pack Clean up tool can also be run offline while creating slipstream images to reduce the size of the image.

Microsoft is planning to ship Windows Vista Service Pack 2 for general public in the first half of 2009. So it seems SP3 and SP4 will soon be released and if you are lucky (or unlucky) you will get that in the same 2009. Microsoft might be plannng to release maximum number of servce pack for Vista. In my opinion, rather than utilizing resources for releasing service pack for Vista, Microsoft should devote time for Windows 7 to compensate the demerit of Vista.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!