The final release of the first Service Pack for Windows Vista has been officially confirmed by the Redmond company for sometime after February 2008. Microsoft will not touch the subject of the exact availability date of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 even with a ten-foot pole. Keeping customers and the media in the dark is the backbone of the company's new Windows strategy, underpromise and overachievement in the era of Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group.

But Microsoft did manage to leak a few details. Not much, not anything consistent or comprehensive, just a few crumbs from the Vista SP1 feast. But the last piece of information from Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting 2007 possibly points out to a post February 2007 availability date for Vista SP1.

The image at the bottom was extracted from Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, Steve Ballmer's PowerPoint presentation from the Financial Analyst Meeting. It is a roadmap for various Microsoft products and services for the fiscal year 2008. Of course that the focus is on the operating systems. And we have Windows Server 2008, Windows Small Business Server codenamed Cougar, Windows Server codenamed Centro, Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008 Update Release and Windows Server 2008 SP1.

Now, just to be clear on this: Microsoft's 2008 fiscal year began on July 1 2007 and will end on June 30, 2008. The Redmond company currently plans to make all the products mentioned above and in the presentation available by the summer of 2008. Still, it is simply curious the way that Microsoft has chosen to present the Windows releases of FY08. The hierarchy is not in alphabetical order, it is instead associated with the timetable of the actual release date. In this context, Windows Server 2008 Update Release and Windows Server 2008 SP1, both scheduled for launch by mid 2008, follow the availability of Windows Server 2008, formerly codenamed Longhorn.

In this case, Windows Vista SP1 will also follow Windows Server 2008 to the market. Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer confirmed that Windows Server 2008 will be released on February 27, 2008. This possibly points out to Vista SP1's availability sometime between February and June 2008. Up until now, Microsoft has only informed that a private beta of the service pack is already under way to select testers and that a public beta will drop by the end of 2007, possibly in November.