All About Windows Vista Service Pack 1
Microsoft has announced a change log for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (A major update to Windows Vista) just a week before its release of Release candidate for testers, putting in detail clearly what are significant changes made out to Windows Vista. This document contains 17 pages which describes many changes that the Windows Vista SP1 has undergone, compared to the final version of Vista which was released earlier in 2007.
The features and enhancements are,
Windows Vista with SP1 adds enhanced support to the new hardware devices. It adds support for new UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) which allows Vista to install, detect GPT format disks.
SP1 also adds support for x86 EFI network boot.
Adds support for exFAT, which enables one to make use of large capacity and large files, which will be used in Flash memory storages.
Adds support for the creation of a single DVD media which boots on PCs with either BIOS or EFL.
Significant changes to icons for identifying the high density drives such as DVD and Blue-ray drives.
Introduced support for enabling new types of Windows Media Center Extensions such as digital televisions and networked DVD players which enables connect to Windows Media Center PCs.
Improves the MPEG 2 decoder for supporting content protection across Media Center systems which are configured with Digital Cable Tuner hardware. This also enables higher levels of hardware decoder acceleration for commercial DVD playback on some hardware.
Vista Service Pack 1 improves reliability by preventing data-loss while ejecting the NTFS-formatted removable-media, this means hopefully one need not bother about clicking Safely Remove Device while removing it physically.
Improves the built-in backup solutions to EFS encryption files in backup.
Provides an improved SRT (Startup Repair Tool) can now fix certain missing OS files required for booting, etc.
Improves overall performance of adding to and extracting files from ZIP compressed folders.
Improves the speed of moving a directory with many files in it.
Improves the time to read the images by approximately 50%.
Vista Service Pack1 provides improved network browsing, file sharing by consuming less bandwidth.
Fixes a major problem of chipsets which are not allowing to go into sleep state.
Vista Service Pack 1 makes improvements in file copying progress dialogs. The calculation of estimation time to copy files is also improved.
Improves security of Data Execution Protection (DEP) a memory protection feature, which was first, came into light with Windows XP, by adding a new set of Win32 APIs to allow programmatic control over a processs Data Execution Protection Policy. This helps to gain a better control over a processs DEP settings for security, testability, compatibility and reliability.
Vista SP1 will enhance and improves the BitLocker Drive Encryption by offering an additional multi-factor authentication method. This method will combine a key protected by the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) with a Startup Key stored on a USB storage device and a user-generated Personal Identification Number (PIN).
Enable support for new technologies and standards. For instance, Vista SP1 will add full support for the latest IEEE draft of 802.11n wireless networking solutions.
Enhances Windows Firewall and IPsec to use the new cryptographic algorithms that are Suite B compliant.
Updated drivers are delivered primarily via Windows Update and directly from hardware vendors, not as part of a service pack. However, a small number of critical drivers are included as a part of Windows Vista (e.g., display drivers, audio drivers) and some of these have been updated.
Allows administrator and user to determine the volume on which the disk defragmenter should run on.
Enables support for hot patching a reboot reduction technology which saves time taken by unnecessary reboots. It works by allowing a process to continue running; even its important component is being updated.
Improves OS deployment by enabling 64 bit version of Windows Vista to be installed from a 32 bit OS.
The MSN Connection Center Dial-up internet access connector got removed from the Windows Vista Connection Wizard.
This is perhaps the most significant changes Vista SP1 undergone. With SP1, Vista will show the amount system memory (RAM) installed in your computer, rather than the amount of memory available to the vista operating system. Suppose you have 4 GB of RAM installed in the computer. The Vista with SP1 will report 4 GB instead of 3.76 GB, which was in earlier case. However, this significant change will work up to its perfection, depending on the type of BIOS installed in the computer by the manufacturer. Some manufacturers provide upgraded version of BIOS. One has to consult PC manufacturer for getting the upgraded BIOS.
Service Pack 1 will reduce the number of prompts of 4 to 1, in the User Account Control while creating or renaming folder in the password protected locations.
Vista SP1 will bring improvement in Licensing User Interface and User Experience included more details about it in the help system about activation, and describes in detail what happens if activation is not done within the given time. Error codes are replaced with more descriptive text messages.
SP1 will open Explorer window rather than opening Windows Photo Gallery when a photo image is scanned with the Vista scanning experience.
While installing SP1, during initial setup itself, the users are required to enter a password hint by default. The administrator account is turned off by default. People often forget the password. So, Microsoft decided to make password hint as mandatory.
There are many more published in the official website of Microsoft, www.microsoft.com But, in my point of view, updates mentioned here are basic ones. However, you can go through the list at the Microsoft's web site.
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