Announcing the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Customer Preview Program (CPP)

Hi, Mike Nash here. In late October I announced the Beta  of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 - beginning with a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers. This week we're opening up the beta to a broader audience. Starting today, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will have access to the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta to begin testing.   

Beginning Thursday Dec. 4th, we will be making the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta available to everyone through a Customer Preview Program (CPP). The CPP will launch on TechNet and be available to anyone interested in trying out this service pack. The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros who would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack.

For those of you who choose to test this service pack, we encourage you to install the beta as soon as you can; your feedback will help us to ship a solid and stable service pack for Windows Vista.

Windows Vista SP2 builds on the solid foundation of Windows Vista SP1, and represents our ongoing commitment to Windows Vista today. Windows Vista SP2 includes all of the updates that have been delivered since the release of Windows Vista SP1, and incorporates improvements discovered through automated feedback from the Customer Experience Improvement Program (where users voluntarily opt-in to sending Microsoft error reports from their systems).  In addition to these updates, SP2 also includes support for new types of hardware and emerging standards that will grow in importance in the coming months. For specific changes in Windows Vista SP2 - see my previous post on Windows Vista SP2 or check out the notable changes document.

Your feedback from testing will help us deliver the highest quality release possible. As of today, we are tracking to ship Windows Vista SP2 in the first half of 2009.

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Comments

  1. Borag
    Posted on: January 06, 2009 at 3:26PM  

    So,

    I load WHS on the Optiplex. How do I get the media stuff to the TV?

  2. Borag
    Posted on: January 06, 2009 at 3:28PM  

    I do have a Dell XPS running Vista Ultimate. Will I need an extender?

  3. khopper
    Posted on: January 10, 2009 at 8:35PM  

    God Bless the Windows 7 Team.

    Download was 8Mbps at 7pm in

    Chicago, IL USA.  The DVD looks

    great. Can't wait to install it.

  4. kelvin
    Posted on: January 11, 2009 at 11:02AM  

    whats the point in spending time on crappy vista everyone do yourselfs a faviour and download windows 7 it runs a million times better than crapy vista microsoft drop vista and extend xp till windows 7 comes out cause vista is the worst os ever

  5. Galane
    Posted on: January 12, 2009 at 11:57PM  

    A few things Vista needs.

    #1. I want to change the "highlight" color in Aero Glass to an actual highlight that can be seen. In other words DARK color with white text. There's a definition of highlight which Aero Glass' is the total opposite of. Who did Microsoft have test this? Teens and 20-somethings with absolutely perfect vision? It's even harder to see on LCD screens. Go read the old Apple book on interface design. (The one Apple threw away when they made Quicktime 4!)

    #2. When the user sets Explorer to show all files and folders, don't pop Access Denied when those usually hidden links are clicked, just QUIETLY shunt the user to the place Vista has the files the user is wanting.

    #3. When the user goes to Safely Remove a removable device (especially hard drives) don't yank them around with those "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that" messages, just flush all pending writes to the drive and unmount it. If the user happens to have the drive open in Explorer, do exactly the same thing Vista does when the user ejects a CD or DVD while Explorer is looking at it. Kick the selection to the next drive up or down WITHOUT ANY COMPLAINTS FROM WINDOWS.

    #4. Fix the BUG with Windows constantly insisting a folder or file is "open" and can't be deleted when the user has shut down every program other than Explorer. If the user is looking in the folder he wants to delete, just bleeping delete it and move the user to the next folder down the list. I'm fed up with having to reboot Vista just to get it to let me delete folders and files I've put on the drive. This is in cases where not even Unlocker will pry Vista off them. When the user closes a file in say, MS Word, then closes MS Word, all files Word was accessing should have their file handles released immediately.

    #5. The search indexing is horribly broken. I've had to turn it off. When I'm looking for text files and I can SEE a bunch of text files in a folder and search that folder for *.txt and get "nothing found", and when I enter the exact filename I can SEE in a folder and search that folder and get "nothing found", that is BROKEN. I've had this same problem with Windows XP too. Lots of people are having this problem with Vista, just search the web. If it's not found in the index, automatically and without any fuss, just switch to searching without using the index, and update the index while doing the real search.

    #6. One click, no nagging disabling of UAC, or make it do its job without having to ask "user may I" every time the user wants to do anything. When I first got Vista, I spent a whole lot of time clicking OK on the pesty thing. Security should be UNOBTRUSIVE and NOT ANNOYING. I run Spybot Search and Destroy and Avast antivirus. They use very little system resources and work QUIETLY behind the scenes. When they do need my attention, it's because there's a real problem, not just me trying to use my computer.

    I wish I could've been involved in the early testing of Vista because I'd have given Microsoft an earfull over all of these issues.

    If Microsoft only adresses one of these, make it #1 because being able to SEE WHAT I'M DOING is very important. The ultra-non-visible-un-highlight-non-color has led more than a few times to putting things in places I didn't want and deleting whole folders when I wanted to delete one file because I didn't see that the "highlight" was on a folder in the left side of Explorer.

    I've been using PCs and other computers since 1983, and seen far too many really dumb things done with software, and even worse, seen the same dumb things repeated over and over. Microsoft needs a few people to tell them NO! Just NO! when they come up with ideas like that "highlight" which can't be changed.

  6. webDev_Indy
    Posted on: January 22, 2009 at 10:50AM  

    Why can't Vista Service Packs include the Windows 7 task bar? Windows 7 is based on Vista, therefore the Beta of Windows 7 is practically Vista SP3.

    I understand Vista has a bad reputation and Microsoft needs a new OS to make things better, but I don't understand why some of these features can't be integrated into Vista.

    I am really enjoying the 7 beta and I plan to buy the OS when it comes out. I just think that some of these features could easily be added to Vista instead of making people wait for 7.

  7. Brandon LeBlanc
    Microsoft
    Posted on: January 22, 2009 at 11:35AM  

    webDev_Indy, Windows 7 is far from being a 3rd service pack for Windows Vista. And service packs traditionally do not ship new features and are usually meant for fixes to the OS as well as added hardware support etc. This mentality is likely not to change.

    Its great to know you are liking the new Windows Taskbar though!

  8. luminoso
    Posted on: January 27, 2009 at 2:32AM  

    so...will I finally able to splitstream?

  9. maryg
    Posted on: February 07, 2009 at 5:20PM  

    does this do anything to fix the problems with the sound system that comes from sp1?  mine was disabled when I installed sp1, and I have no idea how to get it back.  really frustrating since I use my computer to record cds.  

    may just go back to mac

  10. billiem
    Posted on: March 04, 2009 at 12:00PM  

    Will CP2 fix error code 1719 and installer problem?

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  2. Posted by: Windows Server Division WebLog on December 02, 2008 at 5:05PM

    Hello everyone! Back in October I made a post about SP2. At that point, we allowed a small group of TAP

  3. Posted by: Blog Team TechNet Italia on December 02, 2008 at 5:19PM

    Vi volevo annunciare la disponibilità della Beta della Service Pack 2 di Windows Vista e Windows Server

  4. Posted by: .: Daniel Melanchthon :. on December 02, 2008 at 5:35PM

    Auf dem Windows Team Blog kündigte Mike Nash , Corporate Vice President (Windows Product Management),

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  17. Posted by: beqiraj.net on December 02, 2008 at 7:24PM

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