There will be no public beta of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 “anytime soon”. Only a small “select” group of testers will receive the early build. And Microsoft doesn’t have a timeline for when a public beta will be released.

Microsoft announces :

There will be a Windows Vista service pack and our current expectation is that a beta will be made available sometime this year. Service packs are part of the traditional software lifecycle — they’re something we do for all Microsoft products as part of our commitment to continuous improvement, and providing early test builds is a standard practice that helps us incorporate customer feedback and improve the overall quality of the product.

Service packs are just one example of the work we do to constantly improve the Windows experience. We also deliver improvements to Windows via Windows Update, which is an excellent channel for providing our customers with the most significant updates as they happen. And, since Windows Vista launched, we have continued working with partners to improve overall device coverage and application compatibility. There are now more than 2.1 million supported devices and more than 2,000 logoed applications for Windows Vista. We think customers will have a great experience using Windows Vista today.

We’ll hang on in there, then.

We were expecting an extended period before the first beta release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Microsoft has surprised us all with news of a mid-July release.

Mary Jo Foley says, “Word (from various sources who asked not to be named) is Microsoft is gearing up to drop Vista SP1 some time the week of July 16. And despite what Microsoft seemingly led Google, the U.S. Department of Justice and other company watchers to believe, the final version of Vista SP1 is sounding like November 2007. If Vista SP1 is released in November, the Windows client team will be sticking to a schedule company officials outlined a year ago, when the official plan of record was to release Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn Server) simultaneously.”

This will be a very short beta period, reduced from a year or more, and may result in users shunning the eventual release, as happened with the massive SP2 for Windows XP.

So what’s likely to be in Vista SP1? It’s expected to be more about fixes than new features, with elements enhancing or supplmenting features that are already there.

As well as required desktop-search modifications, other factors may be :

* Performance tweaks lessening the amount of time it takes to copy files and shut down Vista machines.
* Improved transfer performance and decreased CPU utilization via support for SD Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA)
* Support for ExFat, the Windows file format for flash memory storage and other consumer devices
* Improvements to BitLocker Drive Encryption to allow not just encryption of the whole Vista volume, but also locally created data volumes
* The ability to boot Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) on an x64 machine
* Improved success rate for firewalled MeetingSpace and Remote Assistance connections.

The above is just a provisional list, so don’t be surprised if it’s incomplete.

With continuing delays to the consumer editions of Windows Vista, most of us are making the best of XP.

But weren’t we promised Service Pack 3 (SP 3) for Windows XP before the end of 2006? Well, it hasn’t arrived yet.

I checked the Windows site and found this cryptic notice for the much needed Service Pack :

“SP3 for Windows XP Home Edition is currently planned for 1H CY2008. This date is preliminary.”

Do they really mean 2008? They’ve clearly encoded the precise date of release because they don’t know themselves.

The other consideration is that they may have realized that to release a booster for XP now might impact the (presumed) imminent release of Windows Vista to the consumer market.

Maybe Microsoft could firm up that date a little — at the very least remove the code and give us some transparency.

Even, “we don’t know yet” would be preferable to gobbledegook.

I submit a few bugs to Microsoft, they give me a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate. Sweet! I’ll add that to my existing copy of Windows Vista RTM! Aint it nice to get free stuff when Microsoft products are so expensive.

In fact, it seems that any invited beta tester (who logged in to Microsoft Connect) who submitted a bug got a free copy. Unfortunately, beta testers who were part of the broader Customer Preview Program (CPP) don’t get a free copy (which sucks, but as someone who was a beta tester for Office 2007, submitted bugs and got squat, I know how you feel).