14 DAY TRIAL // At this point in time Microsoft officially confirmed that it is hard at work developing both the first Service Pack for Windows Vista and the third Service Pack for Windows XP. And that is about it. The Redmond company subsequently dodged any additional details related to the two refreshes. So what good does it do to confirm both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 and then go completely mute?
The new Microsoft strategy under Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, in charge of the Windows project seems to be the creation of an apex of user frustration by underpromising before finally overachieving. And there is little choice than to play Sinofsky's masochistic game. The alternative is obviously the tradition of repeated delays. Also a cause of frustration. Considering that Microsoft is right on track to hitting 1 billion Windows users by 2008, that is going to be a whole lot of frustration...
Official confirmations of Vista SP1 and XP SP3 were breaths of fresh air due to the fact that Microsoft seemed at different points ready to discontinue both refreshes. With XP SP3, following postponements in 2006 and 2007, the release looked rather improbable when it was pushed all the way back to the first half of 2008. But fear not, SP3 is indeed coming. Microsoft even managed to leak a few details related to the contents of the third Service Pack for XP in a U.S. Justice department filing in June. There is even talk that Windows SP3 will be made available by the end of 2007 and not the first half of the upcoming year as Microsoft officially claims.
And things are even worse with Windows Vista SP1. With Microsoft considering focusing exclusively on the Windows Update infrastructure, the Service Pack's faith hung in the balance. Still, at this time Microsoft is dogfooding the refresh, and a beta build is already under way to select testers, none of whom managed to leak it. The availability date is unknown, but with Microsoft admitting that Vista SP1 public beta will be delivered by the end of the year, it is possible that the final release will slip into 2008.