Vista SP1 - Do You Need It? - Comments

Just installed Vista SP1. My network is gone and internet is not connecting. now I am seriously thinking to go back to XP.

I installed Vista SP1 and am extremely happy with it. I do notice a significant performance increase all around. My start up seems a bit faster and I have not had a single message saying "this program has stopped working".

Reply to Nikhil:
Don't go back to XP. Vista is not a bad OS. It is a newer OS. It is nowhere near as bad as everyone says it is. Sure, there are some annoyances, but most of them are just that, annoyances. Your comment above makes it sound like you are holding Microsoft accountable for your computer glitching. But, in order for you to install SP1 you had to read about 5 times how much Microsoft suggests that you wait until they push it through the automatic update system.

Part of installing service updates early is taking the risk of messing things up. But, if you are doing that then you should create a back up of your entire system so if something goes wrong you can go back.

Like I said, I had no issues whatsoever with SP1 and am happy with the update. Bring it on SP2!

I tried to install SP1 from Windows update. Got message, "Service Pack did not install. Reverting changes." Tried a second time and got same result.

I have upgraded to Vista SP 1 and am very happy. I did this on two machines, one an XP upgrade, and the other a new computer with Vista pre-installed. The XP upgrade machine proved to be a challenge. Windows update did not give me the option to upgrade, so after reading info about why, I found out that I had old soundcard files that were in-compatable. I tried inplace updating those files which led to blue screens. I finally deleted all of the old soundcard files, installed the new drivers, and SP1 suddenly became available. The update went very smoothly and my systems perform very reliably. My suggestion is: Make sure your computer is ready for the upgrade before just trying. If I had tried the upgrade without updating the soundcard drivers, I'm sure I would of had major problems to deal with.

I have an HP laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium the SP1 was offered to me on the 19 March 08.. The download and install took 1 hour, so far all seems to work perfectly, the boot up time is much shorted than before....

EDITOR'S NOTE: Interesting... it was released on 3/18, and MS said the rollout would be in about a month. Maybe the Vista Premium installs get priority.

Ever since Vista came out, people have been talking about waiting until the first service pack to upgrade. Now people are talking about SP1 like it's the devil and you really need to wait until SP2. It's really ridiculous.
Like it has always been, most of the people who have problems with OS upgrades are those who have problems to begin with. I was an early adopter of Vista last February, and I installed the service pack on the day it became available for download. Performance is better, and I wouldn't wait around for SP2. If you have Vista already, get the service pack.

Just finished installing SP1 on an HP slimline that I purchased with Vista installed (Ultimate). This is a dual processor machine and was never as quick feeling on normal operations as my single processor machine running XP pro. After downloading the drivers as suggested on MS site, the install went smoothly. I didn't notice any difference in performance, but noticed that the True Image backup image was over 1 gig larger. I ran the cleaner and still the image at the max compression would not fit on a DVD, even though the pre SP1 image left 700meg on a DVD. I rely on burned backups, so I decided to install XP pro on the HP slimline, against HP advice. The drivers were not all that hard to find and now I have turned a mediocre performing machine into a fairly quick machine. For the same function, ie all programs to deliver the vista capability, the XP pro (SP2) image leaves about 1.5 gig an a DVD. This started as an experiment, but I think I'll just leave it as is. Vista is not that much different to use and is fairly easy once you find out where everything has been moved. To sum up, the vista SP went smoothly, but made an unacceptable (for me) sized image and didn't increase performance. In my case the "upgrade" to XP was a better choice and I was able to find the right drivers.

Vista (Business) Service Pack 1 was just installed on my computer by Microsoft Update and now I cannot connect my CISCO VPN as I always get an Error: "Secure VPN Connection terminated locally by the Client. Reason 414: Failed to establish a TCP connection." I have tried reinstalling the VPN Client version 5.0.02.0090-k9 which did not help. I am currently without a solution to this problem.

I've installed SP1 on two systems running Vista - one is a notebook running Vista Home Premium and the other a desktop running Vista Ultimate. Both seem to be running OK after a week with absolutely no problems. I will mention that I ensured that I had all the current drivers for both systems before I ran the SP1 update.

I downloaded Vista SP1 for Home Premium on March 23. I installed stage 1 of 3 OK, but stage 2 stopped and said it was unable to continue. The changes were backed out and the system was restored to the original state. I contacted Microsoft for help via e-mail. They responded March 24 with very detailed instructions. They said to go to Start and type msconfig. On the services tab, disable all. On the startup tab, disable all. After the system restart, the download and install was flawless -- took about and hour and forty five minutes for complete process. I suspect the culprit may have been the security service (firewall) that I subscribe to monthly. I restored the services and startup items I desired and have had no problems. P.S. Microsoft also gave instructions of how to capture error messages via PrintScreen, system information, and CBS.log if further help was needed. The help was FREE.