Vista's second coming

With all the fuss about Windows 7, it’s easy to forget that Microsoft has a current operating system to maintain.

Since its release, the much-maligned Vista platform has seen many updates and bug fixes, both major and minor, which have cleared up many of the issues responsible for the mixed reception it received at its debut.

The most significant of these, Service Pack 1 (SP1), incorporated significant improvements in performance and reliability which some would say brought the operating system up to the level of quality it should have attained prior to its general release.

SP1 also included fixes for issues that affected large numbers of users, for example poor network file transfer performance.

As the time draws near for the release of Service Pack 2 (SP2), Microsoft has made a beta version of the patch publicly available for testing. You can try out the software for yourself by following the instructions here.

Tempting as it may be to some of us to immediately download the very latest code available, SP2 is unlikely to provide many new toys to play with. If you crave the thrills and spills of a daring new desktop experience, get thee hence to the Windows 7 preview.

This beta is for people who want to ensure their applications and infrastructure will work properly in time for the release of the service pack.

However, within the relatively minor selection of new features there are some interesting additions and improvements.