Vista SP2 is Available

[Insurrectionist]

Looks like the just released the service pack yesterday.

Get it here.

[Burlyman]

Yes!

I noticed they just released SP2 for Windows Server 2008 as well as I was looking at the screen. lol

[Insurrectionist]

Guess I should have posted the link for the 64 bit version too I have 32 and 64bit versions of Vista.

64BIT

[AlphaDoG]

Is there a SP4 for XP yet?

[Warlock]

Is there a SP4 for XP yet?

there wont be

[BUBBALOU]

Vista SP2 vain attempt to validate it's use

Stable Vista Download

[Burlyman]

Vista probably is valid by now. I don't want to wait for \"Se7en\" if I don't have to. ^_~

[Admiral LSD]

I think MS have mostly given up on pushing Vista at this point. SP1 fixed most of the major issues with it, \"validating its use\", but it wasn't enough to shake off the stigma attached to it. Couple that with the netbook explosion and it never stood a chance. SP2 mostly seems like an XP SP3-style update: roll all the post-SP1 updates into a convenient package and deliver only token updates between now and EOL.

7 is where MS are focusing their attention and resources so if you haven't yet moved to Vista and are thinking about it, you're better off waiting for that. It's not going to be too much longer (people are predicting a release later in the year but I suspect that's just the RTM date, I'm not banking on normal people being able to get their hands on it until early next year) and the RC build is mostly good enough to use now with an expiration date that should see you through to retail availability of the full version.

[Tunnelcat]

Haven't you guessed? XP has been 'Vistafied' by the forced update to IE8! Now XP is almost as slow as Vista which will have the added benefit that people won't see a difference between Vista and XP anymore.

[Jeff250]

If you're suggesting that IE6 or 7 is better, then you're obviously blessed enough to have never developed Web applications whose target user base includes IE users. I don't have to use Windows except for testing, so I couldn't care less about IE8's user experience or how Microsoft continually alienates all of its customers. All I care about is when Windows users click on the \"big e\" that it opens something that can grok CSS and Javascript, and IE8 actually succeeds at doing that, at least for a Microsoft browser. Maybe in five years, if we're lucky, IE6 and 7 users will make up a negligible enough of a user base such that no one will have to develop for them anymore, and then we will see the life expectancy of Web developers increasing by up to ten years, maybe even into the early 60's.

So please, the next time you think that you have it so bad for using Internet Explorer, be grateful that you don't have to develop for it.

P.S. You should be using (Firefox|Opera|Konqueror|Safari) anyways.

[Spidey]

IE8 is super fast on my Vista box, and just a little faster than IE7 on my XP box. And I mean Super Fast!

[JMEaT]

I was at a conference by Microsoft for institutions higher education this week. Win7 by the Holidays at the latest but they said don't be surprised if it's a lot sooner. They wouldn't give hard dates.

I've been using the RC since release and I have it on several of my machines. It's fast and stable.

Currently posting from the x64 flavor.

[Warlock]

Iv been useing win7 on my 2nd computer and its running smooth.

64bit is the only way to go way faster and hella stable

[Tunnelcat]

If you're suggesting that IE6 or 7 is better, then you're obviously blessed enough to have never developed Web applications whose target user base includes IE users. I don't have to use Windows except for testing, so I couldn't care less about IE8's user experience or how Microsoft continually alienates all of its customers. All I care about is when Windows users click on the "big e" that it opens something that can grok CSS and Javascript, and IE8 actually succeeds at doing that, at least for a Microsoft browser. Maybe in five years, if we're lucky, IE6 and 7 users will make up a negligible enough of a user base such that no one will have to develop for them anymore, and then we will see the life expectancy of Web developers increasing by up to ten years, maybe even into the early 60's.

So please, the next time you think that you have it so bad for using Internet Explorer, be grateful that you don't have to develop for it.

P.S. You should be using (Firefox|Opera|Konqueror|Safari) anyways.

I DO use Firefox on my older Win 98 computer. IE 6 is now worthless, unsupported security hole! In fact, I'm stuck with Firefox 2.0 since 3.0 won't work on Win 98SE. It's my husband that is using IE8 on our newer computer and he's waiting a little bit for Google Chrome to get ironed out. He doesn't like IE8 either and might just switch to Firefox as well after working with IE8 for awhile. I'm not a software developer, but just using or MAINTAINING Microsoft products is enough to tell me that I definitely wouldn't want to try to develop ANYTHING for ANY Microsquish product!

I didn't say the IE7 was better than IE8. I just said that it seemed SLOWER on our XP single-core, 3.4Ghz, 2G RAM, four year old Dell computer. I agree that IE in any form factor just plain SUCKS! I also think that Microsoft has been slowly Vistafying XP with all their security patches and the addition of IE8. There are just certain operations that have gotten slower over time as Microsoft patches things in XP. I too can't wait for Win 7 final since we really need a new 'puter and I want to steer clear of Vista.