Walt Mossberg’s verdict on Vista SP1: Where’s the Beef?

mossberg The Wall St. Journal’s Walt Mossberg (subscription required) has a review of Microsoft’s update to its much-discussed operating system in today’s paper and it’s not great news.

Mossberg’s major beefs with the 65MB free update to Vista are as follows:

Nonetheless, Mossberg says it’s worth installing. Some of the positives include the fact Vista is faster now recovering from sleep or hibernation mode back to an active state. The other improvements he says are all under the hood and not visible to most users. He also seems irritated by Vista’s embedded security features. He concludes by saying users will find to it to be a "step forward" after a couple of days of use but not a "big one."

Mossberg, David Pogue of the New York Times and Ed Baig of USA Today, by virtue of the fact they work for three of the largest and most influential publications in the U.S., are usually given, er loaned, the latest gadgets first so people turn to them first for opinions which makes them key influencers.

Anyways, Mossberg for one misses the point on a couple of issues at least. Service packs aren’t meant to be complete redesigns of operating systems or software. They’re meant to enhance performance and fix problems of previous versions of Vista or past operating systems. His expectations were unrealistic.

Microsoft will probably try to sell to more aggressively sell its own A/V software in future which is exactly why it’s not embedded in SP1.

Overall, the Vista adoption cycle looks like a typical Microsoft product release. The company has gathered feedback from users after the release and has incorporated some if not all of them into SP1. I have yet to try SP1 but if history holds true this is the time when widespread adoption of the operating system will commence.

February 14, 2008 | Filed Under News Items and Commentary 

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