Today, Microsoft has released officially Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (KB936330) to the general public. This is what Microsofts calls Wave 0, or the first language versions of SP1.

The languages already available are English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese. All are included in the downloaded setup.

Few weeks ago i posted about the new disc images that are probably set to hit the stores in the upcoming days. This is the preferred way to install all service packs, doing a clean install. But for most people this is not possible and that is why there is an Update setup.

I have SP1 already in my laptop and it is running great. My desktop computer is waiting for me to finish doing my unattended setup to install it.

So far, the only Windows Update that appeared post-SP1 is the monthly release of Microsoft’s Malware Removal Tool. Almost all of the highly criticized performance and compatibility issues are gone (for those of you, that, unlike me, have come to experience this issues with Vista).

Read the Overview of Windows Vista SP1, including what’s new, technical details, guidelines and notable changes.

There is one thing to note though. Vista SP1 will be released via Windows Update in the upcoming days and the file size will be smaller because it will only contain the appropriate language. This Wave 0 release if intended for people that don’t want to wait and want to deploy it right away.

Before installing SP1, read Microsoft’s article “Things to Know Before you Download Windows Vista SP1“.

This Wave 0 is available in 32bit & 64bit so choose the appropriate version when downloading.

Download 32bit | 64bit

I read about some users having problems when installing Vista SP1. The problem i had with it was post it here.

Some users ran into problems because they had installed a language pack in windows prior to installing the service pack.

If this is your case, read the following article which describes the error and offers a solution.

I already tried a new disc image that microsoft released with an existing spanish language pack. It worked great but some items were not translated to spanish from the english disc image. This is because some things has changed in SP1 and microsoft will release updated language packs in the near future.

Today, Microsoft released the first Service Pack 1 for Office 2007. It features improved performace and fixes various security vulnerabilities, among other things.

If you need to deploy it in your installations, you can use the Updates folder provided by Microsoft in the office installation source. Just run the Service Pack 1 file with /extract parameter and copy all the MSP files to Updates folder.

office2007sp1-kb936982-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract
When you install Office, this patches are automatically applied, so there is no need to install them separately.

Remember to choose the appropriate language for your installation because this Service Pack is not language neutral.

Download

This past monday, Microsoft released the upcoming 2008 version of its Development IDE.

I will migrate to it as soon as the professional version is available. Right now, there are only two versions availables. Express editions which are free and the Team Suite trial version.

If you are interested in learning to program, the free Express editions are great and they include averything to get you started in program development.

Express Editions MSDN Subscriber Downloads

Some days ago there were reports of a flaw in the Macrovision SafeDisc component in Windows XP and Windows 2003. For those of you who didn’t know SafeDisc is embedded in Windows as a part of the Microsoft DRM security scheme. The vulnerability is not critical as it may seem because it requires a local system account to exploit it.

The component responsible for the flaw is the SafeDisc driver SECDRV.SYS.

Microsoft has said that it will provide an update in the next Patch Tuesday on November 13th. If you want to resolve the issue right away, Macrovision has released an updated driver.

Windows Vista users are not affected by this flaw.

Microsoft Live Labs has released a tech preview of Listas, a site where you can create and share all kinds of lists. Be it bookmarks, to-do lists, notes and more…

They also have a community-shared list so you can share your lists with the world as well as be able to read the lists from others. The lists has tags so they can be easy to find.

In the link below you can read the full description and access the Listas website where you can sign up.

Website

People are already talking about the upcoming Windows 7 While it might be a little early, there is a live demonstration made by Microsoft’s Eric Traut. While thre is a video of that presentation, mostly he talks about virtualization and gives only a glimpse on Windows 7 development.

An interesting thing is that the Core of Windows is only about 25mb. Yes, 25!

Website