The first public Release Candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not all What it's cranked up to be. But at the same time, it is all a matter of perspective. After it introduced the pre-beta versions of Vista SP1 in mid 2007, Microsoft moved rapidly through various development milestones. The fast pace at which Vista SP1 was put together reflected the pragmatic and deadline oriented development process imposed at the Windows project by Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group. With Sinofsky at the helm, Vista SP1 will be delivered by the end of the first quarter of 2008.

But, is the Service Pack rushed to the market? Does it need more work? Well, as I have said, it is all a matter of perspective. Nick White, Microsoft Product Manager working with the Vista launch team, revealed that the service pack is almost ready to go. "The release candidate phase of beta software is typically the final phase before the RTM (release-to-manufacturing) of a product and indicates that the code has attained a significant level of performance and stability", White stated. (emphasis added)

At the same time, Eric Nelson, working with Microsoft UK Development for .NET Framework for ISVs, failed to share White's perspective: "Last week we announced that RC1 of Vista Service Pack 1 was now available broadly to MSDN and Technet subscribers. I decided to give it a whirl as my main notebook has been feeling rather sickly of late (To be fair it is loaded with beta and alpha Microsoft software). The good news - SP1 installed without issue and in less than an hour. My machine is definitely more stable and various operations are now much more responsive. The bad news - it still isn't a 100% stable machine. But - I am happy overall as it is a step in the right direction and I suspect my machine would be very stable if I rebuilt it from scratch with SP1 and resisted putting on so much beta software", he stated. (emphasis added)

While without a doubt the quality of the software installed in an operating system directly impacts the performance, the reliability and stability of the platform, the conclusion that stability is not a guaranteed aspect of Vista SP1 RC1, the final stage before RTM is worrisome to say the least. At the same time, there will still some work to be done on the service pack, as Nelson revealed, promising that Microsoft would reduce the large number of restarts associated with the deployment of Vista SP1 by RTM.