On the February 27 Microsoft officially launched Windows Server 2008 and Windows Visual Studio 2008 and announced SQL Server 2008, which is due to become available in the third quarter of this year. Windows Server 2008 is going to be available in eight different versions with release dates staggered over the year and is designed to run on 32-bit and 64-bit processors from both Intel and AMD.

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Microsoft is due to release Windows Vista SP1 to the general public in mid March, but a separate update will also be released through Windows Update for all copies of Vista, this will seek out illegal copies of the Vista software, so be warned!.The Microsoft MSDN WGA blog, said in a recent post: “in SP1 we will disable two of the most common exploits to our product activation technology. This means that users who have the exploits loaded on their systems will find those exploits disabled by SP1, and they will be asked to activate their copy of Windows Vista.”

The two most common hacks for illegally activating Vista are the “grace timer” which lengthens the Vista trial period by updating the registry to tell Vista not to check for activation until a very distant time in the future and the OEM BIOS hack which tricks Vista into thinking it was activated with a mass license, both these hacks will be deactivated and not work with the Vista SP1 update.

If you don’t activate when you are prompted and log into Vista, here’s what happens according to the WGA blog, there will be no reduced functionality mode instead:

“After the activation grace period has been exceeded the next logon will present the user with a message that directs the customer to activate that copy of Windows. That dialog includes a fifteen second delay before it can be dismissed. If a customer chooses to activate that copy of Windows they will be shown a number of ways to accomplish that. If they want to skip activation at that time they can wait for the fifteen seconds and choose “Activate Later” and they will be logged in to their desktop.”

The background wallpaper colour will then be set to black. This setting will be confirmed and reset every hour meaning that a user can change the wallpaper to a favourite image but each hour after being logged in, the system will reset the desktop background to black. When that happens, a system tray balloon notification will advise the customer to activate their copy of Windows

Conclusion – Buy a legal copy, activate Windows Vista and save the hassle!

The TechNet Windows Vista forum reported that some users began finding the 64 bit edition of Windows Vista SP1 in Windows Update this week, even though it is not being released to the general public until the middle of March

A spokesperson for Microsoft said in a statement to ComputerWorld: “Yesterday, (21 February) a build of SP1 was posted to Windows Update and it was inadvertently made available to a broad group. The build was intended only for our more technically advanced testers, and was meant to only be offered to those with a specific registry key set on their PC.”

Microsoft also reiterated plans to make SP1 broadly available in mid-March and have released a fix for the small number of users who had problems with endless reboots after trying to install the “Vista installer service” update. For details of this see my previous blog post

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Following reports that the distribution of the Windows Vista SP1 prerequisite KB937287 had been suspended after some users experienced problems during or after the prerequisite installation resulting in continuous rebooting Microsoft have released a fix, posted by Nick White as an update on 21 February to his original post on the Windows Vista Team blog

Details of the fix can be found in knowledge base article KB949358 this involves backing up and modifying the registry – so not for the novice user!

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Microsoft has published a knowledge base article with a list of programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a computer running Windows Vista SP1.

In the article Microsoft stated: “Windows Vista SP1 is an important update and contains many security, reliability, and feature updates for Windows Vista. A program may experience a loss of functionality after you install Windows Vista SP1. However, most programs will continue to work as expected after you install Windows Vista SP1”.

They continued “This article should not be considered a comprehensive list of programs that experience loss of functionality when they run on a Windows Vista SP1-based computer”

“If you are using a program that appears in this article, you may have to contact the software vendor for more information”.

For enterprise users with large networks backwards compatibility issues may be experienced and indepth testing may be needed prior to upgrade deployment

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Microsoft’s Nick White yesterday posted an update on the Windows Vista Team blog reporting that the distribution of the Windows Vista SP1 prerequisite KB937287 the servicing stack update, had been suspended following several reports from customers who had experienced problems with it’s installation.

He wrote: “So far, we’ve been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances. We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue.”

He then continued: “Customers who may be experiencing this issue can use system restore to correct it or contact 1-866-PC-Safety for help troubleshooting. Additional guidance will be available via Microsoft’s free Update Support Center soon.”

As I reported in my previous post on the Windows Vista SP1 prerequisites I also know of several people who have also had Windows Vista SP1 prerequisite installation problems, perhaps the problem is not as limited as he suggests.

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Microsoft has just made available Windows Vista SP1 to TechNet and MSDN subscribers.

Because of high demand and for load balancing with the download activity related to Windows Server 2008, don’t look in your Subscriber Downloads & Product Keys section, instead Microsoft has placed it in the Top Downloads section http://technet.microsoft.com/subscriptions.

If you decide to install a standalone version of the service pack, it will include the prerequisite updates listed in my previous post and install them on your system as needed.

For more details, see Kathy Dixons post on the TechNet blog

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I was reading the Microsoft Vista team blog this morning (Thursday) and read a post dated 12 February by Nick White – “Windows Vista SP1 Prerequisites & Non-Security Updates coming via Windows Update” – in this he states that to install SP1 three prerequisites – KB937287, KB938371 (All versions of Vista) & KB935509 (for Windows Vista Ultimate Vista Enterprise systems only) are needed, marked as important updates, these will be installed automatically through Windows Update if enabled.

He writes “I’ve said it before: these updates are just one more example of how we’re continuing to actively invest in improving the Windows Vista experience through Windows Update”

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TIP: I know of several people who have tried installing these updates and have experienced problems – make sure that you remove any previous version (Release Candidate) of SP1 prior to trying to install these updates. You will have to do this anyway to install SP1 (RTM) when it is available to you

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