A little over a year after the first appearance of Vista, Service Pack 1 (SP1) is nearly ready for download. [There have been a couple of release snafus, including the accidental release, on 2/21/08, of the 64-bit version.–Editor]. SP1 is a useful but not crucial update to the OS, and one that won't greatly affect your computing day, at least not outwardly. The bulk of the development effort has gone toward upgrading security subsystems—elements that enterprise clients find appealing but consumers and small-business users won't really notice (although they'll feel better knowing about them). The bottom line is that there's absolutely no reason not to download SP1 (which you'll receive automatically if you have AutoUpdate turned on), so it's almost a given that it will become the standard in the very near future.

Installation

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On new systems, SP1 will ship as part of Vista when it becomes available. Users already running the new OS will find SP1 (once Microsoft finalizes it in March) as a download from Windows Update (WU). If you don't have WU configured to notify you automatically about available updates, open Control Panel and launch Windows Update from there, clicking on Check for Updates if SP1 doesn't appear automatically in the upda