Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it will release Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista in early 2008. It also said that it would expand its recent SP1 beta release in a few weeks. The new service pack will address reliability, compatibility and performance issues that have dogged the product since it was introduced. It will not contain drivers because their inclusion would increase the size of SP1 dramatically. Users can still get updated drivers from hardware vendors or through Windows Update.

SP1 will not include any Vista user interface changes. Microsoft does not plan to use SP1 to deliver new features, preferring instead to concentrate on fixes for memory leaks, long calculation times for user actions, problems returning from hibernation, and memory management issues.

Microsoft pointed out that Windows Vista was more secure out of the gate than was Windows XP, noting that Window XP had three times the number of security patches in the first six months that Vista has had in the same time frame. Many Windows customers have grown cold to the idea of a full migration to Windows Vista, citing the need to upgrade hardware, as well as issues of reliability and security. A recent poll of IT managers suggested that many had changed plans to migrate to Vista in light of reports that Vista was no more secure than XP, and that Microsoft planned an additional major OS upgrade within the next 2.5 years.

After initially selling computers packaged only with Vista, Dell has returned to shipping new units with Windows XP, and has also recently given its customers the ability to order new computers pre-loaded with the Ubuntu Linux distribution or FreeDOS. Dell cites high customer interest in alternative operating systems as the reason for its expanded OS choices.

Microsoft also announced the availability of the third XP service pack, and estimated it would be ready in the first half of 2008. Some analysts believe this signals the beginning of the end for Windows XP. In the past, Microsoft has issued service packs for older operating systems prior to announcing their end-of-life.