First rule about Windows Vista Service Pack 1: you do not talk about Vista SP1. Second rule of... well you get the point. Sinofsky is not a Windows vice president known to play well with others. And this explains his latest pet project, Windows Omerta codename Translucency - nothing but dead silence about Vista SP1, XP SP3, Windows 7 (Seven), Windows Fiji, and all future releases, however remotely connected with the operating system. Microsoft gagged all the effervescent details related to Windows Vista SP1 for example. And somehow, just somehow, the Redmond company still managed to leak information.

In mid July, Microsoft dropped a pre-beta test build of Windows Vista in the laps of a select pool of testers. Information about the release immediately got out. Additionally, the actual Service Pack was leaked to torrent trackers and is available for download. You would think that Sinofsky has learned his lesson, but that is obviously not the case. And since it was revealed that Microsoft India is working hard on both XP SP3 and Windows 7, it also became clear that details for the developing Windows projects would not come from Redmond but from Asia. This is the case of the first Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Overview, via Long Zheng.

"Windows Vista SP1 will be an update to Windows Vista that will improve security and reliability for all users of the operating system. It will include all previously released updates, including security updates. Windows Vista SP1 will also contain new updates that improve the issues that affect customers the most, addressing key reliability, performance, application compatibility, and device compatibility issues. In this session we will talk about the areas improved upon in Service Pack 1 and discuss some representative examples of these improvements. We will also discuss best practices for testing and deploying Service Pack 1," reads the synopsis of the Vista session presented by Microsoft Malaysia's Jeff Low at the TechEd South East Asia 2007.