Windows Vista Service Pack 3 gets its first hotfix from Microsoft. Yes, Service Pack 3, and yes, the error lies with Microsoft. The Redmond company is offering a hotfix designed to fix Event Viewer crashes associated with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 opening large event log files and attempting to sort log entries by a single column. But when it comes down to actually downloading the fix, the software giant offers it for the 32-bit, 64-bit and Itanium flavors of Windows Vista SP3. It is highly improbable that at this point in time Microsoft has debuted testing of Vista SP3 bits, and in this regard, the SP3 references are nothing more than an error. (via Neowin)

The Redmond company has recently wrapped up the code for Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista. The SP2 RTM bits are so “fresh” that they haven't yet been served to Vista users, and Microsoft only pointed to the second quarter of 2009 for the availability of the second service pack for Vista, while not offering any specific deadline. The Redmond company announced that it had released Vista SP2 to manufacturing on April 28, 2009. MSDN and TechNet subscribers already got access to SP2 RTM, and the bits have even been leaked in the wild. Still, the public will only get Vista SP2 in Q2 2009.

With Vista SP2 finalized it makes sense for Microsoft to start planning ahead. Because of the extended support for Windows Vista, additional service packs will undoubtedly be released. The next logical step in the evolution of Windows 7's precursor is of course Service Pack 3. Still, the mention of Vista SP3 for the 957414 hotfix is bound to be nothing more than a mistake.

“Consider the following scenario: you open a saved event log file in Event Viewer on a computer that runs Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. The log file is very large. For example, the file is larger than 2 megabytes. You sort log entries by clicking the header of a column. In this scenario, an exception occurs and Event Viewer crashes. This problem is more likely to occur when you click a column header multiple times in a quick succession,” reads the Symptoms section of the 957414 knowledge base article.