14 DAY TRIAL // Want a taste of the new level of reliability and performance that Service Pack 1 will deliver to Windows Vista in the first quarter of 2008? Well, thanks to the Windows Update infrastructure Vista, users are able to access in advance a slice of Vista SP1. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft is delivering a preview of a reliability and performance update coming to Vista in January 2008. As such, the refresh is not yet available via Windows Update, but it can be grabbed through the Microsoft Download Center. Nick White, Windows Vista Product Manager, unveiled the preview one day before the official delivery of the first public build of Vista SP1, namely Release Candidate 1.
"This update improves performance, responsiveness, and reliability of Windows Vista in various scenarios. This update resolves the following issues on a Windows Vista-based computer: you receive a 'Stop 0x000000A0' error when you try to switch the computer to the hibernate state; you receive a 'Stop 0x0000009f' error when you switch the computer to the hibernate state or to the standby state. Or, you receive this Stop error when you resume the computer from the hibernate state or from the standby state. This problem occurs on a computer that has a wireless network connection; and the disk does not spin down after a specified time of inactivity", reads a fragment of the Knowledge Base article 943899.
The update will also serve to boost Vista's performance when the operating system manages operations involving large disk I/O. Microsoft emphasized the fact that end users would experience consistent improvements in terms of performance, especially when the operating system would deal with copying large files. "We have released an update preview release for Windows Vista on the Microsoft Download Center. The update release preview is targeted toward improving reliability and performance in Windows Vista. The Windows Serviceability Team is releasing this preview to get customer feedback before our planned Windows Update release expected to be in January", revealed a member of the Microsoft Update team.