Vista PCs running the Ultimate edition in English, French, German, Japanese or Spanish will get the service pack first.
Users running Windows Vista Ultimate in any language other than English,
French, German, Japanese or Spanish will not be getting Service Pack 1 when it
is first released.
Microsoft is now planning to release Vista SP1 in two waves: First, Vista
PCs running the Ultimate edition in English, French, German, Japanese and
Spanish will get the service pack, followed by a second wave supporting the
other 31 languages, Nick White, a product manager, said in a post to the
Windows Vista team blog.
SP1 for Vista Ultimate will also only be delivered over Windows Update as
well as via a stand-alone installer when it is made available in these two
waves. If a user tries to install SP1 on a Vista Ultimate machine set for a
language other than the first five supported, the result will be an error
message.
This delay apparently only affects Vista Ultimate, the most expensive
edition of the operating system, although Microsoft said the week of Feb. 25 it
was
slashing the price of the boxed, retail version of Vista
Ultimate, in the United States and in 70 other countries around the world.
The price cuts go into effect when Vista SP1 ships. In the United
States, the cost of Vista Ultimate has been
slashed some 20 percent, or $80, to $319, while the upgrade price dropped $40
to a price of $219.
But the price cuts are even more significant in other countries, like the United
Kingdom, where the price for the full
version of Vista Ultimate has been slashed almost 44 percent, or 101.68 British
pounds ($202), to 131.92 pounds ($262).
Vista SP1 is also extremely important to Microsoft as it
fixes some of the many issues users have been having with the operating system
and that have tarnished its image in the market.
In fact, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told
eWEEK in a recent interview that the company had made
a lot of progress with Windows Vista, especially on the SP1
front.
"I think SP1 is a major milestone, and a lot of the work on
compatibility has come via the work of third-party ISVs and hardware vendors.
But I think Windows Vista SP1 will be a kind of milepost that people will use
to see where we are with it now," Ballmer said.
Meanwhile, White's post tells those Ultimate users who will have to wait
longer for SP1, "not to worry-the Language Packs are on their way.
We will have more information on exactly when very shortly, so stay
tuned!"
Peter Galli has been a financial/technology reporter for 12 years at leading publications in South Africa, the UK and the US. He has been Investment Editor of South Africa's Business Day Newspaper, the sister publication of the Financial Times of London.He was also Group Financial Communications Manager for First National Bank, the second largest banking group in South Africa before moving on to become Executive News Editor of Business Report, the largest daily financial newspaper in South Africa, owned by the global Independent Newspapers group.
He was responsible for a national reporting team of 20 based in four bureaus. He also edited and contributed to its weekly technology page, and launched a financial and technology radio service supplying daily news bulletins to the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which were then distributed to some 50 radio stations across the country.
He was then transferred to San Francisco as Business Report's U.S. Correspondent to cover Silicon Valley, trade and finance between the US, Europe and emerging markets like South Africa. After serving that role for more than two years, he joined eWeek as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms in August 2000.
He has comprehensively covered Microsoft and its Windows and .Net platforms, as well as the many legal challenges it has faced. He has also focused on Sun Microsystems and its Solaris operating environment, Java and Unix offerings. He covers developments in the open source community, particularly around the Linux kernel and the effects it will have on the enterprise.
He has written extensively about new products for the Linux and Unix platforms, the development of open standards and critically looked at the potential Linux has to offer an alternative operating system and platform to Windows, .Net and Unix-based solutions like Solaris.
His interviews with senior industry executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux operating system, Sun CEO Scot McNealy, and Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president at IBM.
For numerous examples of his writing you can search under his name at the eWEEK Website at www.eweek.com.
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