Surely it's no news to you that we use Windows Update to continually deliver ongoing improvements to our customers so that Windows is always up-to-date. Plus, doing so eliminates the need to wait for larger releases like service packs. Some updates are released to the community for general feedback prior to delivery via Windows Update, as is the case today. The Windows Serviceability Team today is rolling out another update on the Microsoft Download Center. The update is categorized as a "preview release" and may be subject to change before it is released via Windows Update (we expect that to occur in January).
Today's update preview release is geared toward improving reliability and performance in Windows Vista and we highly encourage you to install it. It includes:
- Improvement of previous issues affecting going into or resuming from sleep/hibernate under some scenarios
- Update to address a previous issue with the disk spindown feature to improve battery life for portable systems
- Up to 15% improved performance of disk I/O (i.e., copying/moving/deleting large files)
I'm running this update on one of my systems -- the one I'm using to draft this post, in fact. I suggest you try it out and let us know how you fare. You can find more information about today's update preview release in this KB article.