In the meantime, Microsoft is rolling out SP1 regardless of the problems it knows about, but is doing so in a way that it hopes will bypass them. These issues were discovered by SP1 beta testers late in the beta testing process, which apparently did have an arbitrary stop point, despite protestations to the contrary about quality.
It turns out that a "small set of device drivers" causes issues with the final code for SP1, so Microsoft will work with its hardware partners over the next few months to resolve the problem. Think again: The proof is in Microsoft's slipshod deployment strategy for SP1. Surely, Microsoft would wait to get this one right.
No, SP1 isn't a huge OS update like Vista itself, or Windows 2008, but that's almost beside the point when you consider how important this release has become to the success of Vista. In fact, as recently as six months ago, Microsoft insisted publicly that it wasn't even sure it would need to release a service pack for Vista, which it said was so reliable, secure, and stable that the company was still considering its options. So the past several months have been exceedingly calm on the Server side: After all, this product was in the can a long time ago, and Microsoft has been able to focus on fit and finish work, finely tuning the product for its final release. However, Windows 2008 has been in active development for about five years. PST on Monday) so that Microsoft could announce the completion of both products together.
So here's what the company has done: Developed side-by-side with Windows Server 2008 because they share the same code base, Windows Vista SP1 was steamrolled through the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) process over the past weekend (the official announcement came at the unlikely time of 6:00 A.M.
(See my Vista SP1 FAQ for a full list of how SP1 improves Windows Vista.) Most important to business customers, of course, is the fact that Microsoft eliminated a whopping 150 enterprise application blockers, which Microsoft defines as applications that previously prevented one or more corporations from upgrading to Vista.
Vista SP1, after all, improves the Vista experience in a number of key ways, including hardware and software compatibility, reliability, file copy operation performance, Sleep and Hibernation resume speed, and even security. I know, it's astonishing, but with Vista selling far fewer licenses in its first year than originally expected, Microsoft was clearly under a lot of pressure to deliver an update that many feel will jumpstart critical business deployments. Sadly, they've done it again, this time with Windows Vista SP1.
However, over the years, I've watched as the company has announced the "completion" of a software product in order to meet an arbitrary internal schedule. Microsoft allegedly adheres to this policy, frequently stating how it will review tester feedback from pre-release versions of its software before deciding when and how it will ship a final version of the product in question. (If it didn't, it was certainly popularized there.) It goes something like this: "We'll ship the next version of our software when it's ready." The implications of this simple statement are obvious: Rather than adhere to some arbitrary schedule, companies that make software can and should deliver code to customers only when it's ready (i.e., when it passes rigidly enforced testing milestones and is judged to be of high enough quality to withstand real world use.) In such cases you may have to insert the Driver CD or USB for installing the correct model specific drivers.There's a saying in the software business that, I believe, originated with the geniuses at game maker Id Software.
But many of them fails to even get recognized by Windows so even the generic drivers will not get installed for them. Most of the plug and play hardware works with the Windows plug and play drivers. This is because the hardware manufacturer wants to give many more features than what the generic windows plug and play drivers can give your hardware. However, some hardware like Plug and Play USB Devices, Printers, Modems, Phones, scanners, external hard disks or storage mediums like cd roms, dvd roms etc may come with their own Device Driver files. Today Windows XP/Vista and Windows 7 comes preloaded with most of the Plug and Play Device Drivers. But soon hardware manufacturers started making changes to their Plug and Play or USB hardware and the generic drivers that comes packed with Windows failed to run them or could not give all the designed features to the user because of the limitations of the generic device drivers.