Back in June 2007, the Automated Installation Kit offered palpable proof straight from Microsoft of the existence of the first Service Pack for Windows Vista. At that time, under Steven Sinofsky, the senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, the Redmond company was not breathing a single word related to the first service pack for Vista. Half a year later and Vista SP1 is nothing more than a mundane reality, which makes it appear absurd that Microsoft has kept it under wraps for so long, gaging all information.

On February 4, 2008, Vista SP1 was released to manufacturing. The service pack will ship immediately to original equipment manufacturers and will be used to produce the first Vista SP1 DVDs. In this manner, when end users will be allowed access to Vista SP1 in mid-March, the service pack will also be readily available on store shelves, as well as preloaded on new machines. Microsoft has made this move in an effort to ensure that Vista SP1 will be made available simultaneously through all channels from retail to OEM and through its Windows Update infrastructure, as well as the Download Center.

And since Vista SP1 will ship first to OEMs, Microsoft needs to ensure that its computer manufacturing partners have the necessary tools to deploy the service pack. This is where the latest version of the Automated Installation Kit comes into play. AIK is designed to support both Windows Vista Service Pack 1, as well as Windows Server 2008. Microsoft's latest server operating system was also released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008.

"The Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) is designed to help corporate IT professionals customize and deploy the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 family of operation systems. By using Windows AIK, you can perform unattended Windows installations, capture Windows images with ImageX, and create Windows PE images," Microsoft revealed, informing that AIK supports the deployment of Windows Vista, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 with KB926044, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and
Windows XP Service Pack 2 with KB926044.

Windows Automated Installation Kit for Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 can be downloaded from here.