Microsoft readying Vista SP2 beta: blogs

LATEST NEWS

Computerworld is New Zealand's only specialised information systems fortnightly.
Subscribe now for $100 (23 issues) and save more than 37% off the cover price!

Get the latest news from Computerworld delivered via email.
Sign up now

New service pack rumoured to be near

By Gregg Keizer | Framingham | Monday, 27 October, 2008

Microsoft will begin beta testing the next service pack update for Windows Vista within weeks, according to a Windows enthusiast website.

Testers have received invitations to beta test Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2), reported Neowin.net earlier this month. Betas are expected to be released to invited testers, but not to the general public, in approximately four weeks, Neowin.net says, citing multiple tipsters.

Service packs typically consist of collections of the patches, hotfixes and reliability updates released since the original edition of the OS, or its last service pack, whichever came last. At times, however, the company introduces new features to its software via such packs.

Among those features, reported Neowin.net, Vista SP2 will include Windows Search 4, Bluetooth 2.1 wireless support, and support for Via Technologies' 64-bit processor. Currently, Via is best known for its C7 chip, which powers some ultra-light "netbook" laptops, including Hewlett-Packard's Mini-Note.

Windows Search 4.0 is the newest version of Microsoft's desktop search engine, and was issued to current Vista users via Windows Update last July.

Vista SP1, the single service pack released thus far, went final in February, just over a year after the operating system debuted in retail and was made available to consumers. The highly-anticipated SP1, however, suffered a bumpy launch, as users complained that they weren't able to upgrade and others reported that their PCs were crippled by endless reboots.

Earlier this month, speculation that Microsoft would soon seed select testers with a beta of Vista SP2 began after users noticed that the company had added a placeholder to its support database for the service packs for both Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Others, including blogger Mary-Jo Foley, have confirmed the Neowin.net reports. In a post earlier this month, Foley said that a few testers had already received Vista SP2 betas, and that Microsoft wanted to issue the service pack before it released Windows 7, Vista's successor.