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Redmond, Wash — Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released to manufacturing on Monday, Feb 04, and will start being available to customers in March, starting with Microsoft Volume Licensing customers.

Windows Server 2008 was also released to manufacturing today and will be available for purchase to new customers on March 1. Microsoft Volume Licensing customers with active Microsoft Software Assurance coverage or an Enterprise Agreement will be able to download the server software toward the end of February as part of the joint Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 “Heroes Happen Here” launch event.

Windows Vista SP1 includes quality improvements that help enhance reliability, security and performance. Windows Server 2008 builds on the success and strengths of past server solutions and helps give organizations a solid foundation for their information technology (IT) infrastructure. Organizations using Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 together can see a number of improvements for IT professionals, including benefits in security and manageability, overall system performance, and streamlined planning and deployment.

More at Microsoft, WindowsVistaBlog.

On Tuesday, Dec 18, Microsoft has publicly released Service Pack 3 Release Candidate for Windows XP and is available at Microsoft here.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system.

What Is In Service Pack 3
Windows XP SP3 includes all previously released Windows XP updates, including security updates and hotfixes, and select out-of-band releases. For example, the service pack includes functionality previously released as updates, such as the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0 and the Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0 (MSXML6).

Microsoft is not adding significant functionality from newer versions of Windows, such as Windows Vista, to Windows XP through XP SP3. For instance, Windows XP SP3 does not include Windows Internet Explorer 7, although Windows XP SP3 does include updates to both Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, and it will update whichever version is installed on the computer.

One notable exception is that, SP3 does include Network Access Protection (NAP) to help organizations that use Windows XP to take advantage of new features in the Windows Server 2008 operating system.

More info about Internet Explorer 7 is available at Microsoft here. Knowledge Base article 936929 lists all other all Knowledge Base articles associated with updates that are included in Windows XP SP3.

More at Windows XP Service Pack 3 White Paper (in pdf), Release Notes.

Dec 12, ‘07 — Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 (Release Candidate) for its flagship Windows Vista on Tuesday, Dec 11.

Microsoft also announced shipment of Service Pack 1 for the 2007 Microsoft Office system, which includes both client and server products under the Office umbrella. More at Microsoft here and here.

 Neil Randall of PCMag writes a detailed preview with nice screenshots of Microsoft’s flagship Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta,

” Windows lives and dies by its service packs. I can’t recall the last initial release of any Windows product that didn’t have at least some problems. Microsoft has often used the service packs for some serious after-release polishing of the OS. In the case of Windows XP, the first service pack made a difference in speed and software compatibility, with a few nods to security. But XP really took off with the release of Service Pack 2 (SP2)—effectively a rethinking of the entire security underpinning of the OS that bought Microsoft extra time to get Vista ready for release. Now, roughly nine months after Vista started hitting desktops, Service Pack 1 (SP1) has started its beta run. The latest iteration of the SP1 beta, which is closed to the public, reveals a useful set of OS updates, but one that’s not as critical as SP2 was for XP.”

More at PCMag…