Windows

Just thought I would offer this tip. Once you’ve installed SP1 and everything is running well, AND you are absolutely 100% sure you do not want to uninstall it, AND you have backed up your system…
You can run this command vsp1cln.exe. This will allow you to reclaim significant disk space.
To do this press the Windows + R keys and type vsp1cln.exe in the run box.
or if you prefer using the command line:
press the Windows + R keys and type cmd then type vsp1cln.exe.

More info from Microsoft:

Windows Vista SP1 File Removal tool (Vsp1cln.exe). Vsp1cln.exe is an optional tool that you can run after you install SP1. This tool removes older versions of components that have been updated in SP1, which are stored during the installation in case you need to uninstall SP1 later. Saving these older components increases the amount of disk space that is used. Typically, you should run Vsp1cln.exe if you want to reclaim this disk space after applying SP1 and if you will not need to uninstall SP1. Note, however, that you cannot uninstall SP1 after you run this tool. You can use this tool both online and offline, but you must have SP1 installed and you must use the correct version of the tool. If you are running this file on an offline image, you should use the Vsp1cln.exe included in the Windows OPK or AIK. However, if you are running this file online (on a computer that you are booted into), you should use the Vsp1cln.exe file located at %windir%\system32\vsp1cln.exe.

Please do not whine at me if you run into problems and you haven’t backed up your computer!

This is now available via Windows Update (it was only 66.9 MB on my machine via Windows Update).
Full file downloads:
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone (KB936330) 434.5 MB
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems (KB936330) 726.5 MB

If you don’t see it in Windows Update by days end, see:
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not available for installation from Windows Update and is not offered by Automatic Updates

Updated release notes:
Release Notes for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (v3.2, 3/18/2008)

Also see the Windows Vista Team Blog post:
Windows Vista SP1 Released to Windows Update

New Site for Vista Ultimate Users: http://ultimatepc.com/
Are Exclusives and Extras the Ultimate?
Ummm, nope, not even close…

For those in the U.S., Microsoft is cutting prices only on the higher-end versions of Vista, and only for the upgrade version used to move from an earlier copy of Vista. The suggested price for Vista Ultimate drops to $219 from $299, while Home Premium falls to $129, from $159.

Microsoft chops Vista retail prices

A must-have for all Geeks!
TCP/IP Registry Values for Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

This white paper describes the registry values for the TCP/IP protocol stack in Microsoft® Windows Vista™ and Windows Server® 2008. The intended audience for this paper is network engineers and support professionals who are already familiar with TCP/IP (both IP version 4 [IPv4] and IP version 6 [IPv6]).

The Vista SP1 benchmarking silliness keeps getting, well, sillier…
MS commissioned a company to run and report on: Responsiveness of Windows Vista, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows XP on common home / office tasks
Immediately it was picked up by several places as news.

The results are in — XP trumps Vista in benchmark tests
How embarassing — Microsoft commissions tests that compare Vista and XP, with the goal no doubt being to show how much better the new version is. Except that’s not what the test results prove.
Principled Technologies Inc., which performed the tests on the vendor’s behalf, showed Vista SP1 actually lagged XP on about 46 per cent of the business-oriented operations it measured. (The gap was 61 per cent on the consumer-oriented tests, but that’s not primarily what we’re concerned with here.)

Microsoft: Windows XP faster than Vista SP1 in some cases Windows XP is faster than the new Windows Vista Service Pack 1 in completing common consumer and business tasks on PCs coming out of sleep mode, according to tests commissioned by Microsoft Corp.

Report: Vista on par with XP performance; SP1 is fasterIn any event, if you download the above linked reports (the first two are new while the next two are from last year), you’ll discover, surprise surprise, that “overall, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP performed comparably on most test operations [but] Windows Vista SP1 was notably more responsive after rebooting than Windows XP on several common home operations.” This was true for both common home and business tasks.
Gentlemen, start your complaining.

First you’ll notice the articles seem to have completely different spins on the same info. (XP faster, XP a little faster, XP not faster)
Second, this study was PAYED FOR BY MICROSOFT.

🙄

Comments anyone???

AnandTech has a great review of Vista SP1. A few interesting Quotes:
[Read more…] about A Second Shot: Windows Vista SP1

I picked up this story from Neowin. It claims Vista SP1 adds a whole 6 minutes of battery life to a laptop. Meanwhile this is what it does to one of my desktops (from the error log):
[Read more…] about Power efficiency enhancements in Vista SP1

Windows Vista SP1’s rocky ride to market has no doubt turned the stomachs of many advanced users.

A recap of this weeks SP1 Charlie Foxtrot. Article