Well, I was hoping MS might have corrected their problems with SP1, but
it looks like they are up a creek without a paddle (boating reference).



Windows Vista SP1 Flunks Out At Penn


University of Pennsylvania tech staffers are advising faculty and
students not to upgrade to the new service pack for Microsoft's Windows
Vista operating system.

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek
March 21, 2008 10:53 AM


Windows Vista SP1 Is having a tough time getting into the Ivy League.
University of Pennsylvania tech staffers are advising faculty and
students not to upgrade their computers to the new service pack for
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Windows Vista operating system.

The school's Information Systems & Computing department said it will
support Vista SP1 on new systems where it's pre-installed, but added
that it "strongly recommends that all other users adopt a 'wait and see'
attitude," according to a newly published department bulletin.

Penn's ISC department advised "continuing to use previous versions of
Windows XP and Windows Vista until after the initial bugs in SP1 are
identified and fixed."

Vista SP1 users have reported numerous glitches since the operating
system became widely available on Tuesday.

"I downloaded it via Windows Update, and got a bluescreen on the third
part of the update," wrote "Iggy33", in a comment posted Wednesday on
Microsoft's Vista team blog.

Iggy33 was just one of dozens of posters complaining about Vista Service
Pack 1's effect on their PCs. "What a disaster," wrote "SeppDietrich",
of the update. "It exiled all my Nvidia drivers to the Bermuda Triangle."

"Bikkja" said that "after installing SP1 things seem to go really slow,
even though my computer shouldn't have any problems."

Other troubles reported by Vista SP1 users ranged from a simple
inability to download the software from Microsoft's Windows Update site
to sudden spikes in memory usage.

It's not uncommon for major software patches to cause problems when
first released. Windows XP Service Pack 1 inflicted numerous glitches on
host computers when it shipped in 2002. Microsoft fixed many of the
problems with subsequent patches.

Penn's ISC department said computer users at the Ivy League school
should have systems that employ at least a dual-core or hyperthreading
processor and a minimum of 1.5 GB of RAM before considering an upgrade
to Vista SP1.

That's well above Microsoft's stated minimum requirements for the
operating system. The software maker recommends at least a 1-GHz, single
core processor and 1 GB of RAM for the Premium, Business and Ultimate
versions of Vista.