Vita SP2 has now been RTM

[crazzeto]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=15003

SP2 is expected in Q2 2009


Windows users are accustomed to patches, fixes, and service packs being released to update Windows and plug security holes. The latest service pack for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 has now been released to manufacturing.

Microsoft says that Vista SP2 is a unified service pack with a single installer for both Windows Server 2008 and Vista computers. SP2 is expected to be available in Q2 2009. Among the notable changes that are included with SP2 are improved Windows Search 4.0 to speed the search and improve relevance in search results. Bluetooth gets updated to 2.1 to support the most recent Bluetooth specifications.

Vista now gets the ability to write to Blu-ray media natively and Windows Connect Now has been added for easier connection to Wi-Fi networks in Vista. SP2 also adds support to Vista for the exFAT file system allowing support for UTC timestamps for file synchronization across time zones.

Along with the new additions to Windows, SP2 will also include all security updates and hot fixes for Vista and Server 2008. Improvements to Hyper-V virtualization are featured with SP2 to make it a fully integrated feature of Server 2008.

Microsoft says that Windows Server 2008 Standard will get one free instance of the Hyper-V environment, Server 2008 Enterprise will get four free instances, and Server 2008 Datacenter will get unlimited free instances.

Other tweaks in SP2 include power management improvements that include group policies to manage improved settings. The service pack will also add backwards compatibility with Terminal Server license keys. Server 2008 changed the keys from 512 bytes to 2,048 bytes causing old Terminal Server versions to fail SP2 fixes the issue.

As SP2 nears, availability Microsoft is also removing the SP1 Service Pack blocker tool so users not running SP1 will be offered SP1 on Windows update. The blocker tool for Windows XP SP3 is set to expire on May 19.

The things I would love to see (though i don't expect) are:

1). Lessons learned with windows 7 development, slim vista mem usage just a bit. I only kind of care about this on 32b for my laptop which maxes out at 2GB. My desktop is happy as a calm at 4gb.

2). Better disc utilization with Wnidows Search, this process can murder system performance.

MS did work magic with Office SP2, I'll give them credit. I didn't expect performance increases of between 25% to 35% in outlook to pan out, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if my outlook didn't get one hell of a lot snappier after installing SP2.

[Trekker4Life]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=15003



The things I would love to see (though i don't expect) are:

1). Lessons learned with windows 7 development, slim vista mem usage just a bit. I only kind of care about this on 32b for my laptop which maxes out at 2GB. My desktop is happy as a calm at 4gb.

2). Better disc utilization with Wnidows Search, this process can murder system performance.

MS did work magic with Office SP2, I'll give them credit. I didn't expect performance increases of between 25% to 35% in outlook to pan out, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if my outlook didn't get one hell of a lot snappier after installing SP2.

I installed it yesterday... so far so good. My Vista works better now, but of course it worked better for awhile after I installed SP1 too. I immediately noticed an improvement with networking (sharing, discovery, etc.)

[crazzeto]

File/copy is one of the major improvements, so it's no wonder you've seen improvements there. One of the biggest things I've noticed is being able to switch wireless networks very quickly. The connect process isn't faster, but what is a billion times faster is pulling up the wireless networks dialog. That used to take at least a minute or two, now it's down to seconds.

[Maxx_75]

I find that my computer leaks less memory than before and is generaly snapier. It also wakes from sleep and screensaver MUCH better now. My wireless worked well before so I cant really comment on that.

[crazzeto]

Did you switch networks a lot previously? That's really where you noticed it.

[Trekker4Life]

I find that my computer leaks less memory than before and is generaly snapier. It also wakes from sleep and screensaver MUCH better now. My wireless worked well before so I cant really comment on that.

That sounds reasonable. I'm running IE8 with 2 pages open, Google Chrome, 2 instant messengers, Roboform, NOD32, Outlook 2007, a software VPN/SSL client, and of course Vista itself... and I'm only using 50% of my memory (1Gb of 2Gb) and it's still very fast.