Vista SP1 imminent

It's been a difficult year for Microsoft's new desktop operating system. There's been quite some reluctance directed towards Windows Vista and uptake has been slower than Microsoft would like. While Vista does introduce some additional security and a wonderfully polished interface, it also has quite a few issues:

  1. It's slow and feels a lot ‘heavier' than XP.
  2. Driver availability.
  3. Application support.
  4. It's expensive if not bought pre-installed on new hardware.
  5. Bugs and plenty of them!

Microsoft is doing its best to ensure that Windows XP is pushed out of the picture and the majority of new machines are being shipped with Windows Vista pre-installed.

Many businesses have been holding back on upgrading to Vista due to concerns over its stability and application support. In-house applications may present a problem due to the cost of redevelopment required to support Vista; software vendors were a little slow off the mark with Vista support at the beginning of the year but the majority of them seem to be supporting Vista by now.

Bugs are one of Vistas biggest problems—is that all about to change with the release of Vista SP1? Already released to manufacturers, Vista SP1 is now imminent and will be available to the general public later this year (unless you use this registry hack). Reports so far are mixed with some people claiming they have seen serious improvements in performance while others are a little less impressed (1, 2). Will the release of SP1 be enough to persuade wary businesses to migrate?

I have an issue with Vista and my 802.11n wireless network-if I'm connected to my access point, I get terrible distortion and jitter on my audio, which becomes unbearable after 10 minutes or more of using the computer. This isn't specific to hardware as it happens with two different computers (a notebook and desktop), but it doesn't occur if I use a USB 802.11g adaptor. I'm really hoping Vista SP1 will fix this issue as it's made it quite unusable! Has anybody else experienced the same thing?