Vista SP1

[denret]

I'm running Vista Home Premium. Is it worth it to install SP1, and are there any glitches in the upgrade process?

[stax76]

Why not try? I've installed SP1 in a VirtualBox guest, no problems.

If you are not a newbie installing Windows every 3 month then it's a good idea to backup your system partition (using software like TrueImage) every once in a while just in case it get damaged and no other recovery works.

[Shinigami-Sama]

if you're going to install SP1 go get nlite from nliteos.com
and do a full reinstall
any other way is just going to lead to troubles down the road

[Ajax_Undone]

??? I've not seen any problems in my tech department involving Vista's SP1... Whether it is slipstreamed or Installed on an already installed system.

[Shinigami-Sama]

??? I've not seen any problems in my tech department involving Vista's SP1... Whether it is slipstreamed or Installed on an already installed system.

office computer != home computer

office ones are usually kept in much better condition than home ones

[Ajax_Undone]

I disagree... Both my office and my Home have had been updated by direct install of the patch... I have a slipstreamed Version but have not used it yet...

I run the tech department and the only problem I have seen is with XP SP3 not allowing the install of IE7 after a direct install of SP3...

Almost 100 Computers in my building and 75 of them run Vista Business w/virtualization of OSes with VMware... The others are either BSD Linux Ubuntu Linux or XP/Win2k...

[stax76]

Service packs are designed to not require a fresh install. Reinstall should only be done if everything else fails, newbies are really obsessed with reinstalling the OS or software, in most cases problems can be solved without reinstalling anything. I had one XP setup running over 2 years and my current XP setup survived a mobo change with complete different chipset, and various different grafics card without any harm. My systems have also survived various bootup failors with things like bluescreens by restoring the system partition with TrueImage. Many users install heavy software in this time where software bloat is dominant, setups often run endless installing several hundreds MBs. Reinstalling everything, restoring all settings, setup settings that couldn't be restored and finetune and tweak everything can take dozens of hours, doing this for no reason don't make any sense.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Service packs are designed to not require a fresh install. Reinstall should only be done if everything else fails, newbies are really obsessed with reinstalling the OS or software, in most cases problems can be solved without reinstalling anything. I had one XP setup running over 2 years and my current XP setup survived a mobo change with complete different chipset, and various different grafics card without any harm. My system has also survived various bootup failors with things like bluescreens by restoring the system partition with TrueImage. Experienced users are likely to install a lot heavy software in this time where software bloat is dominant, setups often run endless installing several hundreds MBs. Reinstalling everything, restoring all settings, setup settings that couldn't be restored and finetune and tweak everything can take dozens of hours, doing this for no reason don't make any sense.
I reinstall every 3-6months
I can rebuild XP from the ground up half drunk

but I can also have a full XP environment reinstalled and all my important applications installed in an hour or less, full restore in 3 max
so fiddling with restores is just a waste of my time
I prefer re-installs because they are a nice clean slate - better than wasting several hours fixing it
also
I have 99% of my settings contained into my nlite image
I'm planing on creating an addon to do a number of registry tweaks I like automatically, using WSH+WMI to apply the appropriate settings on install
prolly package up a few applications as addons as well that I'm missing
bring down my reinstall turnover to something like 2 hours total

[GodofaGap]

I'm running Vista Home Premium. Is it worth it to install SP1, and are there any glitches in the upgrade process?
I can't say I have noticed any problems installing the SP1 patch directly. I can't say I notice any difference at all for that matter. Maybe I'm not very observant.

[stax76]

better than wasting several hours fixing it

Spending several hours for a fix is again typical newbie behavior, with enough discipline and experience, not too many things should break and with enough knowledge most things can be fixed within minutes. Newbies obviously lack experience and knowledge but it's easy to do risky and dirty things in VirtualBox and do backup the system partition. Backup and restore is a matter of a few mouse clicks and few minutes to wait which is a good opportunity to take a coffee break.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I haven't noticed any problems. My primary Vista installation was created in November 2006 and it is still running as smoothly as it was when I installed it. And since it is my primary development platform, it has taken some serious hammering. Installation of the service pack was painless and quick.

[Ryokurin]

slipstreaming just saves you a little bit of space due to not having to keep the old files available for a uninstall, but its not any better than upgrading later. Besides, Microsoft insists that the only real way to get an official slipstream is to get a real sp2 disk, not a nlite disk. I don't care if the nlite way works you may end up burned like a bunch of people were when they stripped out programs from the gold version of Vista, unable to install future service packs due to missing components.

[burfadel]

Slipstreaming is harder with sp1, but when sp2 comes out it will be a command line option like the XP service packs. Slipstreaming still works perfectly on Vista, the main reason why its not an option is because unlike XP each disk may have several different 'versions', only one can be updated. Its true that you can't install sp1 if you have removed the components you don't want before installing sp1 (or slipstreaming) but you shouldn't end up 'burned' because you should have the official disks anyway, its only those using illegal copies that get 'burned'! sp2 won't be out for a while yet anyways, it would probably be beneficial to do a fresh install before then! and you can just slipstream your original copy again!

[Ajax_Undone]

For an experienced tech it is easier to fix problems as they arise then to slip stream every aspect including updates hot fixes and tweaks...
Though it may work for most you also have to look at the fact that every time you reinstall you have to go threw Activation... Vista only allows 5 on the OEM side and 10 on the retail side (Depending on whether or not hardware has changed)... B4 you have to call MS and tell them some BS reson why you reinstalled...

The way I see it is using something like True Image and make an image of the Hard Drive once freshly installed and activated w/all the drivers... Then once you restore from the backup disk install any service packs/hotfixes and take another image once successful... This is the way my n00b!3 brother does it because he refuses to learn how to fix simple things...

Good point of advice... Make weekly backups of your registry & Make a good back up of your entire system...

[ronnylov]

Just wanted to point out that vLite is what you should use to slipstream Vista SP1.
nLite is what I used to slipstream Windows XP SP3.

Anyway I had no problems with the slipstreamed Vista SP1 installation.
It is only optional to remove functions with vLite, you can use it to slipstream the original Vista.