Vista SP2 RC 1

Microsoft has released this in 4 flavours.

1. DVD x86 MSDN iso SP2-Escrow integrated.
2. DVD x64 MSDN iso SP2 -Escrow integrated.
3. Stand alone x86 installer.
4. Stand alone x64 installer.

I am using x64, so I will be talking about this one.



The standalone update is this one : Windows6.0-KB948465-X64. If you get your hand on it, make sure you have this file. Otherwise, you will install previous versions. Removing them will only screw up your registry.



Installer is typical Microsoft. It states it will take more than an hour but it is not true. On my U6 it took less than 20 minutes.


1. First Impressions :





It still takes more memory at startup than W7 Beta 1 but not by much. Memory has been improved and I shaved more than 100 megs from Sp1. My laptop is more responsive and I noticed something when loading my usual apps. This RC loads apps in the following fashion :

1. Imagine you open a webpage.
2. You can have two ways of loading the page : step by step until it loads completely.
3. Or, you don't see anything but when you see the whole thing loads.

SP2 acts in a similar fashion. It launches the app entirely and not in steps like SP1 or the previous SP2.


It is still codename Longhorn .







No updates available after install.


What should I check for you guys???

 

Thanks for the info + pics

does it feel more snappy when say opening various options and browsing folders and such

Also, how are HD transfer speeds compared to SP1

Thanks man

 

Exploring more ....


2. Network Center :

 

Spot on with snappy. Everything opens faster and browsing is like on W7. IE has a cold start-up to envy now.



Don't like the way it copies.... . I lost around 15 % speed ....THis contradicts how my laptop behaves. I can feel the speed when using Vista.

I will run HD Tune just in case. Maybe it was the file I used to copy....

 

Thanks man

Post any other differences you find

 

Once again I have contradicting results. My HDD speeds have decreased in some areas and increased in others but overall they are way lower than on SP1 .






This is annoying. My HDD speed is lower yet my laptop is faster than before. Why?

 

There was a question if it is still WM-ed. There you go...

 

Hi. Could you tell us how much processes you have running and how much memory the sp2 is using. I'm at 59 processes and 1.04GB memory usage and CPU is 4-7% on a duo 2.4(this is practically idle by the way). Thanks in advance.

 

I wonder how much improvement I'd see in my system, which has a whopping 100+ processes, at which chews up close to 2.5 GB of memory at start up. (I don't mind that, since I have 8 GB to play with on my desktop.)

 

Holy crap. 100+? did you do a clean install? 2.5GB of memory is not so bad...on a desktop with 8GB of RAM. I have 3GB memory running on my laptop though, so that's why I want to know memory usage of sp2.

 

My TM report at Start up...



New Intel Driver for my Chipset, different speed. I am using the W7 one.

 

It was a clean install, but this is after I added a bunch of stuff to my system. I run virtual machines to test out the software I write, and have a boat-load of other tools that decide to have background processes running.

One of these days I'll have to go through the programs and uninstall the ones I rarely use. The only slow-down I have is when booting up, since it takes about 5 minutes to load all these processes. I actually am wondering how Windows 7 improves the boot time when someone like me has a ton of applications that open at startup. I'm just too lazy to create a partition to test it out .

 

LOL, same here

@ Wishmaker
Thanks for all the screenies
I guess I'll just try it myself once it is officially out and see what happens

 

Some more news.

I noticed random speed spikes on my Wi-Fi since I installed this SP2 version. This was not happening on my previous Sp2 or SP1.


So this RC has 2 negative points so far :

1. HDD speed decreaed.
2. Poor Wi-Fi perfomance.

 

Cool

Hopefully MS should work out the kinks before releasing them so these issues should be taken care of

 

USB Speed is horrible . I think its uninstall time .

 

USB speed is a big issue for me
Not good MS

 

Yikes.

I have a question. I've always heard from a couple of IT guys that I know that you should wait half a year or so before installing a new big update to an OS, in order to make sure that the bugs have been worked out. First off, LOL, who does that? (Kidding.)

But the main question; does Microsoft actually go back and update the final builds for big updates like IE 7, WMP 11, Service Pack x, and so on if people had been encountering bugs? Like maybe, they at least update the installer to make the upgrade process go smoother? Or were these IT guys just refferring to how the security vulnerabilities and performance and compatibility bugs get patched through Windows Update after release?

 

It works, although I was not able to install a lite version of Windows which lacks the winnt32.exe file, maybe a tweak or two.

Nice guide!

 

I think they mean both security patches and bug fixes, but they'd be released as such (i.e., they're not going to re-release a Service Pack to include a fix). The whole point of a SP is to combine patches into one, so they following fixes would be included in the next SP.

 

Kind of neglected the thread. After uninstalling I noticed a hit in performance on my SP1 . My x64 Ultimate was behaving weird. Speed in file transfers were spiking. From very high to very low. I had to format and put x64 sp1 from scratch .

 

Yesterday I decide to perform a full backup of my machine so I can try out Vista SP2. After that, I began the installation which took about an hour or so (wasn't timing it).

I have to say that it went off perfectly. The machine boots up a bit quicker, and I am noticing my big applications opening up quicker (Visual Studio 2008, Outlook 2007, VMWare Workstation). I haven't tried file copying to see if that is handled better now.

 

I would just leave it, and let the final SP do what it wants with it...that's what I did with SP1 RC.

EDIT: I'm going to W7 anyway, so any clean install I do will be done then

 

So excited for the RTM version