We are excited to announce that the Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate (RC) build is now available for download! This build is also available on Windows Update for download and install. Find the new WU redirection script here and get Windows Vista SP1 RC after 4 simple steps. http://connect.microsoft.com/windows/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=9979 Vista SP1 RC will be released in batches. Standalone packages and WU release are currently available. Other deliverables (such as slipstream builds) will be released within the next couple of days. Thank you for your feedback thus far; it is an invaluable part of our beta program. In this build, you will see many elements of your feedback have been incorporated. Please download the Windows Vista SP1 RC and continue to test SP1 aggressively.

Uninstall Instructions for Windows Vista Windows Vista SP1 does not support build-to-build upgrades. Therefore, if you have installed a previously release build on your machine, you have to uninstall this old build before installing the next build of Windows Vista SP1. Prerequisite packages (KB935509, KB937287 and KB938371) for Windows Vista SP1 are permanent and uninstall of these packages is disabled by design. During the installation of Windows Vista SP1, the installer detects the version of the prerequisite package on your machine and updates the package if required. Here are the steps on how to uninstall Windows Vista SP1 from your machine:

Product Support All support for this release is handled via the newsgroups. We strongly encourage our participants to utilize this mechanism for interaction with the product groups and other beta participants. The following newsgroups are currently available and more will be added as the need arises. Please use discretion when selecting a newsgroup for posting. You will need to create a newsgroup account here (https://connect.microsoft.com/windows/messageboards/community.aspx) and allow 4-6 hours for the permissions to propagate after creating your account.

Bugs and Feedback While bugs are tracked via Connect the initial submission must be via the Microsoft Beta Client (MBC) (http://connect.microsoft.com/windows/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=7336). This tool allows you to submit more robust bugs as well as collects certain log files that assist our triage and product teams in reproducing your bug. NOTE: You must download the new version of the MBC in order to submit bugs for SP1. Please ensure that the MBC for this program is branded with "Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1". You may continue to use the old MBC for any Windows Server 2008 bugs.

Keys Beta keys will *not* be provided for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC release. Participants will need to have a valid volume license key, Windows Vista RTM key, or do a 30-day PID-less install by clicking next at the key dialog and you may re-arm. You may re-arm your system 3 times by completing the following steps: · In order to run slmgr /rearm, open regedit.exe and navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SL. Verify that value "skiprearm" is set to '0'. If this value is non-zero, the re-arm function will not reset the system activation timers.

After verifying that the "skiprearm" registry value equals zero (0), run slmgr /rearm from an elevated command prompt. Wait for the notice that the process has completed. This can take a minute or two. Once complete, follow the prompt to shutdown the computer. Upon restart, the computer will be running in OOB Grace and will have another 30 days in which to activate. No other changes will be made to the system by this process. Important note: This section contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 256986 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986/) Description of the Microsoft Windows registry. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at SP1Beta@microsoft.com. We look forward to hearing what you have to say!!! Regards, The Windows Beta Team