Thor Schrock

Mary Jo Foley reported on her blog yesterday that Microsoft will be releasing Windows Vista SP-1 release Candidate 1 by mid-July, with the final service pack coming by November 2007.

Unlike the Service Pack1 for Windows XP, Vista SP1 will be a lot of highly technical updates that might not translate to much that the end-user will be able to see.

Planned updates include:

• Changes to Vista's Desktop Search feature to head off a Google anti-trust lawsuit
• Tweaks to speed up Vista's slower-than-XP file copying feature (thank you!)
• Tweaks to speed up Vista shut down times
• Improvements to Vista's Bit Locker Feature (available in Vista Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise)
• Fewer headaches when attempting to initiate a remote assistance connection

It's worthy to note that this is not a complete list of features and planned improvements. However, unnamed sources did specify that the emphasis in Vista SP1 will be on improving existing features and not introducing new features as Microsoft did with Windows XP SP2.