Ahh, question mark ending headlines.
Word is getting round that Microsoft is ready to release a beta version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 the week of 16th July.
Word (from various sources who asked not to be named) is Microsoft is gearing up to drop Vista SP1 some time the week of July 16. And despite what Microsoft seemingly led Google, the U.S. Department of Justice and other company watchers to believe, the final version of Vista SP1 is sounding like November 2007.
Usually service packs have a whole heap of patches and fixes all in one go that justifies that 150MB+ file size, with a couple of new features thrown in. There is already word of new replacement products that we may see:
- Windows Mail is to be replaced with Windows Live Mail, currently in beta (and looking good too for a basic email app) and does a couple of changes in Vista (such as hiding the Contacts folder in favour of the Address Book in WLM).
- Windows Instant Search is to be replaced with Windows Live Search Center, or Windows Search 4.0 (to be released for both Windows XP and Vista).
- Internet Explorer 8 beta is rumoured to be out the same time SP1 is.
Changes are yet to be announced.
Windows XP was released in October 2001, to have its first service pack released in September 2002.
