back to article Vista SP1 downloaders bite back

Windows Vista customers have been complaining about problems with installing Microsoft’s first service pack for the unloved operating system. SP1 was made available as a manual download on the Windows Update site earlier this week, although the company also admitted that there were a staggering number of reasons why many users …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Optimism ?

    "The firm hopes to address that problem next month, when the real test for Vista SP1 begins in earnest as it is finally pumped out automatically to the masses. That’s assuming Microsoft delivers on its promise and isn’t hit by further delays, of course."

    That's also assuming there'll be a viable (l)user population for Vista in a month's time too, not ?

    I pity those on lappies without a real OS choice.

  2. Peter Isserlis
    Stop

    Works fine here...

    Vista Home Premium, nVidia 8800GTS, nForce motherboard, no problems at all - has speeded up boot & copying etc.

    So, um... non-story?

  3. Jamie
    Linux

    Honestly

    Is anyone actually surprised at this.

    It is called the MS curse.

    95 crap

    98

    2000

    ME crap

    XP

    2003

    Vista crap

    Anyone else see a pattern.

  4. Drinky
    Unhappy

    Doesn't like nVidia SATA RAID Controllers

    Stuck SP1 on my vista ultimate, its buggered it totally.

    PC now boots to a black screen happily telling me

    ntoskrnl.exe is corrupt with status code: 0x0000098

    The startup fix tool on the install CD acknowledges the problem and then says cant fix it. And the system restore cant roll it back becuase there are no restore points. There were restore points before I ran the update :)

    Googleing has shown a few others with this problem, and I suspect more to come :)

  5. adnim

    m$

    should just throw in the towel as far as vista is concerned appologise, and give its victims their money back.

  6. Chris Miller

    Sorry to disappoint

    I installed SP1 with absolutely no problems - despite having an nVidia 8800GTX.

    Microsoft Update will (apparently) identify potential driver conflicts, offer updated versions where available and, if not, deny access to SP1 until such time as they appear.

  7. Daniel Silver badge

    @ Jamie

    Genius :-)

    Never realised it before but now you mention it ....

  8. Laxman

    Switching back to linux...

    ... 99% of the people who will say that will be linux fanboys anyway. For which btw, Every 6-month release breaks something (hardware or software)

  9. ReadyPeople
    Happy

    Survived SP1 Black Screen of death

    My Vista PC was mis-behaving anyway, so backed up the important stuff and downloaded the standalone Vista SP1 update. After about an hour I got a black screen with a single filename with explanation marks flickering - thats it! If you do experience this - drop me an email @ gerald@readypeople.eu and I'll tell you how I got around it. However - since this minor embuggerance was fixed, SP1 has been behaving like a stable OS - staving off my inclination to revert to XP!

    Happy Easter!

  10. Tony Paulazzo
    Thumb Up

    Testing, testing...

    Well I backed up everything, onto usb stick, onto cd and online, then gingerly double clicked that SP1 update file - half expecting the laptop to start smoking. It said it might take an hour or so to finish, and reboot a few times, so I went off and did some other IT tinkering I had to do, made a coffee and came back to a fully updated laptop.

    Nvidia 6150 graphics card - no probs, tho' I always let the update do it's job so it'd have the latest graphic n sound drivers, ac97 sound etc etc all still working fine.

    Haven't really noticed a difference, but I run Vista pretty pared down anyway. Copying files is def. improved tho'.

    TFP

  11. Daniel Silver badge

    @ Drinky

    Love the way you describe a problem that would have most users getting in the car and driving over to Bill's place to kick his teeth in, then finish with not one smiley, but two!

  12. Mad Dog

    required title

    Doesn't like my factory-supplied BlueTooth drivers either.

  13. Ishkandar
    Happy

    Oh, the number of masochists around will have the Marquis De Sade...

    ...writhing in orgasm !! Don't expect to make a concrete wall by piling crap on top of crap !!

    Come back, DOS 3.3 !! All is forgiven !!

  14. J
    IT Angle

    Yay!

    "the real test for Vista SP1 begins in earnest as it is finally pumped out automatically to the masses"

    Can't wait to see what that will bring forth...

    @ Works fine here...

    Sure. But you believe it's a non-story just because your install worked... The words narcissistic navel gazer come to mind for some obscure reason.

  15. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    Redesignated my performance rating.

    My Dell Latitude D410 has an Intel 915 chipset. Prior to SP1, my performance rating was 2.3. Now it's 1.0. Interesting...

    Paris, for the performance rating...

  16. Kwac
    Happy

    @Peter Isserlis

    "Vista Home Premium, nVidia 8800GTS, nForce motherboard, no problems at all - has speeded up boot & copying etc."

    Now *THAT* is what I do call a news story.

  17. tim chubb
    Jobs Horns

    have some sense...

    dont install an ms OS untill they are shipping a version of the OS with the first sp integrated!

    seriously, never had a problem that way

    e.g.

    the upgrade from 3.11 to 95 only happened with 97 aka 95SE

    95SE to 2000 sp1

    personally im skipping vista unless they make ie8 a vista only thing, and by the time thats out will have a server 2008 box anyway

    cant say i can recomend linux unless you enjoy spending 8 hours trying to get the back and fwd buttons on your mouse to work

  18. Phil Rigby
    Paris Hilton

    No issues here

    Dell Latitude D600, 512mb RAM, 60 GB Hitachi drive, Vista runs ok, slapped on SP1, no issues - downloaded, rebooted a few times(?) and everything seems fine and dandy. Not noticed any difference to be honest - not slower nor faster, all devices recognised.

  19. b shubin
    Pirate

    MS-induced solipsism

    @ Peter and others soon to come (where's Webster?)

    "it works for me, therefore it works everywhere, and there are no problems. reports to the contrary must be lies."

    love it. well done. dovetails nicely with the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" philosophy of your preferred vendor. please put head back in sand, and return to your slumber. your work is done here.

  20. Beezle Bob
    Unhappy

    Vista SP1 killed my wife's laptop

    My wife has a Compaq Presario C300 with Vista Premium. Installed SP1 and it failed after reboot. It rebooted again and now I get a BSOD everytime. I even get a BSOD by booting from the orginal Vista DVD - very odd.

    She is now denying me any hot-love until I get it fixed. Looks like I'll be spending the bank holiday weekend locked away in my home office trying to get clean up this mess.

    Not good.

  21. Simon Neill

    When will people learn?

    Never EVER be the first to try technology. Especially if its microsoft.

  22. Richard Mumolo
    Alert

    Make it open source

    Make all Windows operating systems open source, then Microsoft can't ram these new operating systems down our throats.

    My notebook came pre-installed with Vista Home Premium, and I can't any older OS to install, even after doing a government wipe of the hard drive.

    Microsoft is now in the business of selling protections for it's OS. Let them compete in that area, and let every at the source code, so that we can get a real OS.

  23. Will
    Thumb Down

    "It begs the question"

    It doesn't actually 'beg the question', it rather 'leads us to the question', they're rather different in meaning.

  24. Ruarc Sorensen

    woah!

    quoting someone with the username of a high-ranking Nazi general who (I think) was tried for war crimes is brave! doesn't offend me but some might not like it...

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Off-topic, but...

    There is a poster called SeppDietrich? So the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler is installing Microsoft service packs now? A fitting damnation.

  26. Tom

    Not a service pack...

    This is a Marketing Pack.

    People - Vista sucks, wait for SP1.

    MS Marketing - Quick release something and call it a service pack...

    When you get something that works we can call it SP1a just like the old NT days.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    No Problems Here

    I installed SP1 36 hours ago on Vista Ultimate and it's working fine. No problems or issues with anything. My wife's install of SP1 on her Vista Home Premium machine is also working just fine.

    My experience in IT has shown me that anytime there's a major release it will totally blow up some users machines. I've also noticed it tends to always be the same users with these problem. So, most of the time it's PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair).

  28. Matt
    Happy

    Installed like a (long) dream...

    Took 25 mins to install here - no immediate problems that I could see. Although when I tried many of those 'made for XP but works with Vista' tools such as Acronis Disk Director, these are now blocked until I get updates :-(

    Not too shabby though, lets hope my customers are more willing to buy the Vista-loaded PCs now SP1 has arrived instead of asking for an XP reload. If MS manage to iron out these problems and perhaps speed up Vista a little more, it could finally be as good as XP became 3 years after it was released...

    (look back at the forums in 2002 -2003 to see what I mean!!)

  29. Matt
    Flame

    The unsilent minority

    I know a lot of people with Vista. And while a few of them don't like it (just a dislike of change more than anything), none of the manyfold 'problems' have cropped up - with the exception of the stupid copying time problem.

    Perhaps the people, I know are just extraordinary, but they did stupid things when the bought Vista, like check if their hardware was compatble and if drivers were available for peripherals they had...

    Every OS has its bluescreen moments (and yes, even linux -- I've run at least one linux box in some form or another for the last 14 years, ah slackware, I hated you so much!) And windows has more of them than most. But lets face, find another OS with as much driver support as windows, and drivers are the real culprit for most instability. Probably percentage-wise there's not much difference, but incident-wise, obviosuly Windows appears to have more.

    Blame MS for a bad driver model by all means, but quit the 'I have problems so Vista is crud' comments.

  30. Ashtonian
    Jobs Halo

    Should it be ignored

    It's great!

    I can't wait for it to make my system faster and safer.

  31. Chad H.
    Unhappy

    I guess we just all have to wait

    For Vista SP1 Service Pack 1... A Service pack for a service pack would definately be in MS style

  32. Jeremy

    No troubles here.

    "Vista Home Premium, nVidia 8800GTS, nForce motherboard, no problems at all - has speeded up boot & copying etc.

    So, um... non-story?"

    Vista business 32 (64bit processor, though), 8800GTS, nForce motherboard. No problems so far, feels snappier overall. Remember, people without problems usually don't post.

  33. ben edwards

    People are dreamin

    Vista x64 Ultimate, nvidia 8600gts (sli), not a single problem. At all.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ...finally got it working after big scare

    Installed SP1 last night from WUpdate. When it restarted, said no driver for my multimedia video controller? The screen was all pasty and jagged but everything worked-said something about PCI #3 not working(which is my sound card-not video controller) so I shut down-took out sound card-restarted and shazam-everything OK -put sound card back in-everything still OK..No more problems

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Optimism?

    There's always a 'real' OS choice. Before you make any derogatory comments about Linux, note that HP is set to ship SuSE boxes, and Dell has been selling Ubuntu systems for nearly a year.

  36. Morten Bjoernsvik
    Thumb Down

    Still haven't touched it

    I've yet to put my fingers on a computer running Vista. I do not see the fuzz.

    I build my own stuff and run various linux distros. I have vmware and a

    winxp image for running games and visio. The overhead is only around 5% even for heavy dirextX rendering. Even Crysis works ok.

  37. Enormous Cowturd
    Happy

    @Richard Mumolo

    It's on it's way (in spite of Microsoft!) http://www.reactos.org/

  38. Giacomo Bruzzo
    Boffin

    I must say

    Had Vista Ultimate since release, only had trouble once when upgrading Ram (not an abstract issue, a matter of price), repeated BSODs because of an ancient Wifi driver.

    Matter then solved.

    System has always been rock solid and quite zippy. SP1 installed without a hitch, file copying is now faster (although it never was a major issue for me in the first place).

    All in all, I am not displeased at all.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Macbook Pro

    Vista on Macbook Pro via bootcamp.

    installed SP1 on it yesterday. no problems. vista score of 5.4 too

    one of the best laptops to run vista on AFAIK. pity that

    you get OSX on it by default! ;-)

    Paris Hilton cos she's as clueless as most MacOSX users ;-)

    (pity we can't have 2 icons. i'd stick the flames on too!)

  40. Bob

    No problems here...

    I just installed Vista SP1 on an nForce motherboard with nvidia SATA, nvidial 8800GTS, realtek audio drivers, and an intel processor. No problems here. The boot seems 10 seconds or so slower, but everything else seems to be responding normally or better.

  41. Walter Francis
    Thumb Down

    @tim chubb

    Glad you picked Ballmer for your icon, because he's a complete dolt too.

  42. Morely Dotes
    Flame

    @ tim chubb

    "cant say i can recomend linux unless you enjoy spending 8 hours trying to get the back and fwd buttons on your mouse to work"

    Frankly, tim if it's taken you that long to get something that works by default in modern Linux distros, you ought to be using an Etch-A-Sketch(tm).

    The Dell Optiplex 745 on my desk here came with Vista Ultimate. I successfully downloaded SP1, but having read this artivle and checked my device manager, I think I'll wait to install it. Looks like practically every chip in it is Intel, and I *need* my USB and LAN to work.

  43. Anonymous Bastard
    Joke

    @Beezle Bob

    "She is now denying me any hot-love until I get it fixed. Looks like I'll be spending the bank holiday weekend locked away in my home office trying to get clean up this mess."

    I assume you mean the mess of the laptop, not any sort of love substitution normally done behind locked doors!

  44. Bill

    For Gods Sake

    Having spent 30 years in the IT industry it still gets to me why people expect an OS too work on every single permutation of hardware regardless of age, market penetration or quality of support. The only relatively stable operating systems have been those on proprietary hardware such as the IBM mainframe.

    Wake up people, MS does a reasonable job at making complex software run on a myriad of different systems. Few would do it better and still offer the choice. Now I will get back to my FreeBSD system.

  45. Steven Shuster

    @ Laxman

    "Switching back to linux... ... 99% of the people who will say that will be linux fanboys anyway. For which btw, Every 6-month release breaks something (hardware or software)"

    Interesting statistics, especially that last bit, where did you pull them out of? I'd like to know, cause I haven't seen it. And before you call me a Linux fanboy, note I do make a living administrating both Windows and Linux systems.

    "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics"

    -Benjamin Disraeli

  46. Stuart Jones

    Er.....

    How many people managed to get everything working first time with every new Linux release? Or even OS/X release?

    E.g. The first time I tried to install Ubuntu (latest version, 3 weeks ago), I couldn't get past an early install screen because on my default 800*600 resolution the next button didn't fit on screen. Now that's polished. Not.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    Failure

    Vista has never worked for me, its a dog that has multiple failures and just does not work properly. Now I find SP1 makes things worse rather than fixing the multiple problems that obviously exist.

    Screw this, I see no reason why Microsoft should not pay damages for the problems they create. No other manufacturer would get away with this level of crass incompetence and I have certainly never agreed to give them absolution.

    Put the crocks in the dock.

  48. Daniel Wilkie
    Coat

    So far so good...

    I've installed it on my office desktop for testing in the hope it will help with a little documented problem to do with the fingerprint scanners on the Tosh R500 and Offline Files (Why it breaks it I have no idea, but there you go, answers on a postcard). All seems to work fine so far. The only problem I've experienced is that network performance slowed to a crawl as was the case when I originally installed it out the box. However a quick check showed that it had changed my autotuninglevel=disabled setting to autotuninglevel=highlyrestricted - I set that back and I have to say it's made a heck of a difference.

    All those users who have noticed improved file copying though, try turning the autotuning level to disabled and you'll notice its faster still. SP1 restricts it over a vanilla vista install, but it seems to be much faster without it.

    Sorry if this makes no sense, I may be mildly intoxicated...

    Flibble.

  49. Jason
    Go

    @She is now denying me any hot-love until I get it fixed.

    You should sue...

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OMG!!!

    If you can't figure out how to install device drivers don't install the service pack! MS was very clear on the release day, about why SP1 was not made publicly available after RTM! DRIVER PROBLEMS!!! Stop bitching!

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.