CompuWorld

Microsoft says that the first public release of Vista SP1 will be out by the end of 2007 but won't confirm the status of SP1. Now they do not need to! Microsoft has shipped SP1 to a select pool of testers and that is confirmed by the secret images release by winbeta.

According to the information that can be extracted from the screenshots, Vista SP1 is now at build 6001.16549. In the About Windows image for example the version of the operating system is 6.0, however, the build is 6001 and Service pack 1 is reverenced with v.165. Additional information about the first beta builds of Vista SP1 reveal the fact that Microsoft is not releasing the refresh as an update but as an ISO image. In July Microsoft served SP1 ISO files weighing in at 3.07GB for Vista 32-bit edition and 4.3GB for Vista 64-Bit edition. Vista SP1 beta was delivered in both 6,000 RTM and 6,001 Windows Server 2008 kernel versions.

Still the Microsoft and beta participants are denying the program's existence, as expected. We'll have to suffer with our malfunctioning Windows Vista installs for just a tad longer.