Finally after some time and customer feedback. Microsoft’s long waited Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is finally free for you to download from Windows Update or Microsoft Download Center. According to Microsoft SP1 will address issues related to performance and reliability. Particular gaming compatibility and networking related issues seem to have been fixed.

Download sizes are quite hefty, might take some time for the download to complete (i completed in 15minutes): Another trick is to download the SP1 update via Windows Update which is incredibly small at 65MB.

• Vista SP1 32-bit download (434.5MB)
• Vista SP1 64-bit download (726.5MB)

Here are few of the issues that are fixed in the Vista SP1 update.

• An improved SRT (Startup Repair Tool), which is part of the Windows Recovery environment (WinRE), can now fix PCs unbootable due to certain missing OS files.
• Improves the performance of browsing network file shares by consuming less bandwidth.
• Improves power consumption and battery life by addressing an issue that causes a hard disk to continue spinning when it should spin down, in certain circumstances.
• Improves the speed of adding and extracting files to and from a compressed (zipped) folder.
• Improves performance over Windows Vista’s current performance across the following scenarios:
  • 25% faster when copying files locally on the same disk on the same machine
  • 45% faster when copying files from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system
  • 50% faster when copying files from a remote SP1 system to a local SP1 system
• Improves the copy progress estimation when copying files within Windows Explorer to about two seconds.
• Includes improvements to Windows Superfetch that help to further improve resume times, in many environments.
• Windows Vista SP1 includes a new compression algorithm for the RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) that helps reduce network bandwidth required to send bitmaps or images via RDP. The compression, which can be selected by administrators via Group Policy settings, is transparent to all RDP traffic, and typically reduces the size of the RDP stream by as much as 25-60%, based on preliminary test results.
• Enables support for hotpatching, a reboot-reduction servicing technology designed to maximize uptime. It works by allowing Windows components to be updated (or “patched”) while they are still in use by a running process. Hotpatch-enabled update packages are installed via the same methods as traditional update packages, and will not trigger a system reboot.
• SP1 includes a number of changes which allow computer manufacturers and consumers to select a default desktop search program similar to the way they currently select defaults for third-party web browsers and media players. That means that in addition to the numerous ways a user could access a third party search solution in Windows Vista, they can now get to their preferred search results from additional entry points in the Start Menu and Explorer Windows in Windows Vista with SP1. 3rd party software vendors simply need to register their search application using the newly provided protocol in Windows Vista SP1 to enable these options for their customers.
• With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4GB in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change.