Feckoff.net

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 was released to manufacturing during the week, but Microsoft won’t be pumping it out over Windows Update until March sometime. They’re catching a lot of flak from IT tech types (such as me) over that decision. Naturally, its been leaked all over the Internet already. You can even download it directly through Windows Update with a little registry hacking.
I installed it this evening on my 64-bit machine. It took about an hour and several reboots to complete. Straight off the bat I have noticed that LAN file transfer speeds have improved dramatically - I’m getting nearly twice the throughput over my wireless LAN. That alone makes this a must-have update! UAC prompts seem to be far less annoying now - the screen doesn’t go black for 2-3 seconds like it used to, its more like half a second now in my case.
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Since I got that nice cheap RAM the other day, I’ve now got more memory than 32-bit operating systems can address. I’m running Windows Vista Home Premium. Fortunately Microsoft allow you to use your Vista CD key for either 32 or 64-bit (not both at once, obviously), but you have to pay them to get the 64-bit disc, unless you have Vista Ultimate. The fee is a mere €10+vat. What was most surprising is that I ordered it yesterday and it arrived today. From Germany. Via UPS. I suspect that cost them more than my tenner! And that’s after their website said to wait up to 28 days for delivery

I’m going to upgrade tonight, so see you later. Unless it doesn’t work. Uh oh.

Update: That went rather well. Everything seems faster. So much so that I’m beginning to think something was wrong with my 32-bit installation!

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