Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RTM is without a doubt in sight. But the fact that the service pack's availability is contouring on the immediate horizon, and is now but a month away, provides little comfort for the users of Windows Vista RTM. With the general release of Vista SP1 RTM pushed back to mid-March, Microsoft is feeding end users only crumbs from the operating system service pack's feast. And as OEM, the beta participants, Volume Licensing customers, MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers will be getting their hands early on the gold bits of Vista SP1, Microsoft is also keeping end users "amused" until next month with two performance, responsiveness, and reliability updates for Windows Vista.

As far as KB943899 is concerned, you can read more about it and access the download via this link. But on February 12, 2008, Microsoft also dropped the KB946041 performance, responsiveness, and reliability update for Vista. Well, in all fairness it's no Vista SP1, but unless you are keen to access the final bits of the service pack for the latest Windows client via a torrent website, a move which is not advisable, then you will have to make do with what Microsoft is offering. KB946041 can be downloaded from here.

"This update improves the performance, responsiveness, and reliability of Windows Vista in various scenarios. For example, this update includes [three ] improvements on a Windows Vista-based computer. This update improves the reliability of certain portable computers when you resume the computers from sleep by opening the lid. This update improves the reliability of updates that are installed in the system, and it addresses error code 0x8007000b. This update addresses some crash situations that occur when the computer is running media playback programs that use several popular codecs," Microsoft stated.