Need A Nerd - Ask us anything techie

Vista one year on

It is now a year since Microsoft released its much heralded Windows Vista Operating System.  Since then there has been a great deal of discussion in chat rooms (and coffee rooms, where they still exist) the world over. So with the benefit of hindsight, now is a useful point to pause, look back and make a brief assessment.
According to Microsoft, Windows Vista has become the fastest selling operating system in history with over 100 million licenses sold (that's about 273,000 a day). The numbers are fairly staggering by any measure but how satisfied are users?

A quick survey around this office drew out the following feedback:
•    'Nothing wrong with it really'
•    'It has been unfairly criticized by the majority of people'
•    'It's getting about the same amount of fallout as XP when it was released - there's a few niggling issues but for the most part its good'
•    'Familiarity is the big issue - once people get to know it there are few problems'

The main gripe seems to be that there is quite a lot of software that still doesn't run on Vista. The issue seems to be that Microsoft certification costs a considerable amount of money, especially for small companies running on the breadline.  That said, Microsoft states that the number of Vista certified applications has increased 10 fold since launch and as at December 2007, 98 out of the top 100 selling applications worldwide were compatible with Vista.
The big change here is that the vast majority of applications that ran on Windows 95 and 98 ran quite happily on Windows XP when it was released, but the same doesn't hold for Vista such is the magnitude of the change from XP.
To coincide with the 1st anniversary, Microsoft has released information about the first service pack (SP1) for Vista.  The claimed benefits include performance improvements in battery life, resuming from sleep speed, security improvements and reliability.  Apparently SP1 is a useful but not crucial update to Vista, and one that won't greatly affect users, at least not outwardly. The bulk of the development effort has gone toward upgrading security subsystems—elements that home and small-business users won't really notice.

Microsoft hasn't as yet given the release date for SP1 though the gossip around the web suggests it will be available around mid March. If you have 'AutoUpdate' (www.update.microsoft.com) turned on you should receive it automatically around mid April.