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After months of silence, Microsoft finally coughed up details Tuesday about its plans for the first update to Windows Vista, saying the service pack will arrive in the first quarter of next year. In the next few weeks, Microsoft will start private testing of a beta of Service Pack 1 for Vista as well as a third service pack for Windows XP. The company plans initially to release the beta only to 10,000 pre-selected testers, though it may expand that release later. A small group of testers are already working with a “beta preview” version.

As for what’s in the Vista update, it’s mostly a collection of existing fixes and tweaks aimed at improving stability and reliability of the operating system, which went on sale to consumers in January.


“It is not a delivery vehicle for lots of features,” said Shanen Boettcher, a general manager in the Windows unit.

There are a few minor enhancements, most notably the ability to encrypt multiple hard drive partitions using Vista’s BitLocker feature.

“Lots of folks gave feedback that ‘We have an OS partition and a data partition and we’d like to encrypt both,’” Boettcher said.

Also being added are support for an emerging removable storage file format known as exFAT as well as for EFI (extensible firmware interface), an alternative to the BIOS (basic input output system) that handles the initial start-up of a system. Vista SP1 will be a large download: Roughly 1GB, based on current test versions. By way of comparison, Windows XP–the whole thing–shipped on a CD, which only holds about three quarters of a gigabyte. Installing the OS upgrade will require 7GB of free hard drive space, though much of that will be returned to the user once the megapatch is applied, Microsoft said.

The key question is what, if any, impact the contents of the update or its timing will have on the plans of large businesses to move to Vista. IDC analyst Al Gillen predicted that it won’t have that big of an effect.

“It doesn’t fundamentally change the landscape for Windows Vista adoption,” Gillen said.

Microsoft has set out ambitious goals for business adoption of Vista, saying it expected businesses to move to Vista in the first year at twice the rate they did with Windows XP.

Gillen said that businesses seem to be moving at generally the same pace as with previous releases.

As for the coming Windows XP update, Microsoft didn’t give many details, but did say that it is planned to be the last significant update for the operating system, which debuted in October 2001.

“There’s not a lot we have to say there,” Boettcher said. “It’s really an end-of-life (patch) roll-up for Windows XP.”

Microsoft’s largest prior discussion of the Vista service pack came in a June court filing, in which the company agreed to make changes to Vista’s desktop search feature in response to complaints from Google. In the filing, Microsoft said the changes would come in SP1 and that a beta of the service pack would come this year.

On Tuesday, Mike Burk, a senior product manager at Microsoft, said that the desktop search changes would not be part of the beta, but rather would be added at a later date. On Wednesday, the company said the search changes will indeed come with SP1 beta when it enters testing in the next few weeks.

Vista service pack coming in ‘08 Reinventing the (front) wheel Nokia’s new chorus of tuneful phones Extra: FBI: Point, click, eavesdrop aside from that, Microsoft steadfastly refused to comment on the service pack, except to say that there would be one. The company also maintained that service packs are not as important these days given all the updating of the operating system that Microsoft does online.

However, despite pleas from Microsoft that businesses need not wait for a service pack to adopt new releases, Boettcher acknowledged that the first service pack of major software releases remains a psychological milestone for some customers.

“It’s not a perception that is going to change overnight,” Boettcher said.

Microsoft has been increasingly delivering patches one at a time, via various online updating services, but not all customers want things a patch at a time. “Some folks like to see it all rolled up,” Boettcher said. “You are going to see us continue to do that over time.”

Source : Microsoft

Eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin’s friendly character could be a reason why she has been missing from home for the past week. Her father Jazimin Abd Jalil, 33, said she could have followed someone whom she recognised. “Whoever it was, please bring my daughter back. My wife and I cannot take this torture anymore,” Jazimin said at his home in Wangsa Maju here yesterday.

Nurin, a Year Two pupil of SK Desa Setapak, did not return home after going to the night market near the flats at 8.30pm last Monday. She was wearing a pink dress. Jazimin said Nurin suffered from a kidney problem and high blood pressure and needed her daily medication.


“Otherwise her body will bloat up,” the taxi driver said.

Her mother Norazian Bistaman, 35, allowed Nurin, the second of four daughters, to go alone as the night market is near their home. Deputy Rural and Regional Development Minister Datuk Zainal Abidin Osman urged those with information to contact the family at 019-366 7067 or 013- 248 6651 or the UMNO youth public complaints bureau at 019-325 5886 or 03- 40441199.

Source : The Star

A woman was awarded some RM87,000 in a High Court here after she sued her ex-boyfriend for breaking his promise to marry her. Justice Mohd Azman Husin ruled that legal clerk S. Nagamah, 38, had proven her claim against legal office administrator R. Punnosamy, 41. He said he found Nagamah’s testimony to be more convincing than Punnosamy’s and ordered him to pay RM50,000 for breaching his promise to marry her.

Another RM2,000 was awarded to Nagamah as compensation for assault, when Punnosamy had slapped her in 2002 after she had supposedly threatened his fiancée at a tuition centre in Teluk Intan. Justice Mohd Azman also ordered Punnosamy to pay RM20,000 for Nagamah’s mental anguish and loss of reputation, name and honour, as well as costs.


Nagamah’s counsel S. Muthuveeran said the additional costs came up to about RM15,000, although Punnosamy’s lawyer Abdul Malik Mat Judi said the actual amount still had to be assessed. Abdul Malik added that his client would file an appeal. Neither the man nor the woman, who are both from Teluk Intan, were present for the decision. Outside the courtroom on Monday, Muthuveeran told reporters that Nagamah was still single and suffering from the stigma in her community because of what happened.

“She was really in love with him. That’s why she felt so cheated,” he added.

Last year, Nagamah had testified that she had sex with Punnosamy 31 times on the belief that they were in love and would marry. She had denied having any ill intention when she recorded the date and place of each sexual encounter, in various places in Sitiawan, Teluk Intan and Ipoh, from 1998 to 2001. Nagamah also disagreed that she kept the records of their sexual encounters to prevent him from running away from her.

She had testified that she only had intimate relations with Punnosamy because she loved him, adding that she thought their relationship was “special”. However, Punnosamy testified that he had never promised to marry her, adding that it was Nagamah who seduced him or usually contacted him to ask him out. He admitted during testimony that he had sexual relations with her “more than 20 times”, but insisted that Nagamah was only a friend.