Vista SP2 - Service Pack 2 - 32bit & 64bit

Amalgam

Just posting a thread stating the obvious..

This might have passed under the radar of a few folk, what with all the Windows 7 hype at the moment.

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Vista Service Pack 2

32bit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a4dd31d5-f907-4406-9012-a5c3199ea2b3&DisplayLang=en

64bit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=656c9d4a-55ec-4972-a0d7-b1a6fedf51a7&DisplayLang=en

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Just a heads up. Apologies if posted already.

I see the SPs aren't cumulative anymore. That'll be a pain considering how long it takes to install a service pack on Vista and it'll have to be done twice on RTM machines? :mad:

Dingatron

Yep just spotted it now on Windows Update. 567 MB's

MooseJam

cheers i didnt know

SickBoy

Karsini wrote: »

I see the SPs aren't cumulative anymore. That'll be a pain considering how long it takes to install a service pack on Vista and it'll have to be done twice on RTM machines? :mad:

That is rather fcuking annoying alright! :mad:

genie

Will this be available on disk somewhere? They can't seriously expect me to download 340MB on dial up?! :eek: :rolleyes:

Amalgam

genie wrote: »

Will this be available on disk somewhere? They can't seriously expect me to download 340MB on dial up?! :eek: :rolleyes:

genie, you have a PM waiting to be read. :pac:

mike65

Is it worth the download?

Sherifu

mike65 wrote: »

Is it worth the download?

A good list of fixes was posted here [quoted below]. If any of these matter to you, it'd be worth it.

DR House wrote:

YES !

For people who is wondering what does it add (i'll list what matters to me)

Your wireless Signal wont be super slow after you wake up your laptop from "sleep mode" "i noticed it and always had to restart"
native Blu ray data Disc burn built in windows
New wireless option in control panel that let you connect to wireless networks faster and easier "Windows connect now"
New Bluettoth standard support
Windows Search Engine 4 (Much faster search for files within windows)
Your sidebar gadgets Wont eat ram/cpu like crazy (Now its fixed)
Boost your battery life by about 10% with better power management system
ExFAT format support for HDS
Better Error handling

And overall OS performance boost and better security of course

Installed it this morning. Painless.

mike65

Ta, only the speedier window search is of interest to me.

ED E

Well lads, I just got the notification from Update and said why not. Installation routine took 20 mins or so on this piece of junk:p DL for me was only 350MB, but maybe thats cause I'm on HB edition(When I buy budget, I really buy budget).

No problems to report as yet, BUT, one weird thing. Before install I was reading about 10GB of 101 on C free (was due for a cleanup). Now... 20.3GB free. If anyone could explain that, I'd all ears. I have my suspicions that it was the boloxed indexing system. A few weeks ago I noticed that it wasnt indexing right and files deleted 6 months and more previously were still apearing in searches, though they weren't actually there.

mike65

Similair here, I appear to have gained 10-12 GB on primary drive.

ED E

Found it. Quote PC World:

Bundled with SP2 Beta is the so-called Service Pack Cleanup Tool, also known as compcln.exe. This little tool removes older versions of system files replaced by Service Pack 2, saving you some valuable hard disk space.

A caveat about the cleanup tool: Once you run it, there's no going back. You can't roll back to Service Pack 1 without erasing your hard drive once the cleanup tool does its thing, so make sure you really want to stay with Service Pack 2 Beta beforehand.

Before running the cleanup tool, I noted my test PC's free hard disk space: 44.4 GB. After running the cleanup tool, the drive's free space increased slightly to 44.8 GB. However, over the next few minutes, free space actually decreased slightly, to 43.9 GB.

To rule out the possibility of virtual memory affecting the disk's free space, I restarted and noted the drive's free space again: 44.0 GB—still slightly below where I stood before running the cleanup tool. After a second restart, free space stood at 45.0 GB. Long story short—you may or may not notice some increase in free space, but don't expect miracles.

Full article (From the beta) http://www.pcworld.com/article/155159/vista_sp2_beta_more_efficient_but_not_by_much.html


Note that its not reverable....shoulda read up first....

Jonathan

Thanks op.

cianr

Just spent the last 45 mins trying to get my sound working again after the update. I tried a few different things so I cant be sure what actually fixed it(though it may have actually changed my default speakers under "Sound" - a tip for those with the same problem).

Also noticing quite a bit of extra space on the HDD.

rabbitinlights

I got 15GB back on my 320GB Vaio! Legend.

dimma02

Is this worth downloading, approx how long does it take with 1 MB download from eircom and has anybody had any problems since loading SP2. I know there was loads of issues with drivers etc with SP1.!!!!
Don't want to mess up OS system as vista working just fine for me at the moment!!!!!
Cheers for the update.:)

mike65

About 20 mins I think the file is quite compressed, about 15 mins to install on my 32bit 1.8 Ghz machine

ED E

Defragged and rebooted, lost 8.7 of the 10Gb opened up by the cleaner. Damnnit.

Adyx

"Service Pack installation cannot continue
One or more system components that the service pack requires are missing. "

Doesn't work with a vLite installation.

mike65

Did you install Service Pack 1?

Capt'n Midnight

Adyx wrote: »

"Service Pack installation cannot continue
One or more system components that the service pack requires are missing. "

Doesn't work with a vLite installation.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd300591.aspx

Recommendations

If “vLite” was used to customize your Windows Vista installation, you may have removed required system components which prevent Service Pack 2 from installing. See KB 968279 for additional details before installing Service Pack 2.


KB 968279 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968279 - not a lot of help

This problem occurs because system components that are required to install Windows Vista SP2 are not present on your computer.

However, a common reason for this problem is that the vLite software was used to customize the Windows Vista installation and some required system components were removed.

RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, use genuine Microsoft software media to reinstall Windo...
To resolve this problem, use genuine Microsoft software media to reinstall Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 and then install Windows Vista SP2.

Adyx

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd300591.aspx

Recommendations

If “vLite” was used to customize your Windows Vista installation, you may have removed required system components which prevent Service Pack 2 from installing. See KB 968279 for additional details before installing Service Pack 2.


KB 968279 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968279 - not a lot of help

Yeah, I saw that. Don't really fancy reinstalling though. I wouldn't mind but I actually removed very little (UAC definitely though ).

Edit: Yep SP1 installed with no hassle. This is the first time I've gotten an error message from using vLite.

Black Swan

Download and installation using 3G wifi card only took about 30 minutes. Installation went smoothly, but now my rig is a bit sluggish when booting. This slow boot reminds me of when I first adopted Vista Ultimate over 2 years ago.

Before installing Vista sp2 today, my Vista OS had been running as fast as XP sp3.

I had also upgraded from IE7 to IE8 a few weeks ago, and compared to IE7 or FF3.0, it too is very sluggish to load.

astrofool

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Download and installation using 3G wifi card only took about 30 minutes. Installation went smoothly, but now my rig is a bit sluggish when booting. This slow boot reminds me of when I first adopted Vista Ultimate over 2 years ago.

Before installing Vista sp2 today, my Vista OS had been running as fast as XP sp3.

I had also upgraded from IE7 to IE8 a few weeks ago, and compared to IE7 or FF3.0, it too is very sluggish to load.

I wonder if it's re-indexing/optimising itself as they did after SP1, if so, it should settle down over a couple of days.

pjproby

downloaded-whole system locked up-had to format disk-afraid to try it again

Overheal

went spiffy. had some internet problems at the end of the night though. not sure if this was to do with sp2 or not, but I noticed my cable modem seemed to spring back to life anytime I turned of the sp2 machine or shut off its network connection. was weird, not happening atm.

Black Swan

astrofool wrote: »

I wonder if it's re-indexing/optimising itself as they did after SP1, if so, it should settle down over a couple of days.

You may be correct in your observation. Vista sp2 is not as sluggish today.

One of my utilities is now dysfunctional. Toshiba flash card support utility is now showing error messages.

IE8 remains sluggish, but it was that way before updating to sp2.

ethernet

Around 350 MB on Business (32-bit).

Installation was about 10 minutes. Didn't notice the usual intense re-indexing afterwards.

kc66

Took at least an hour for me, vista ultimate. Before I had 20 something gb free. Afterwards I had over 60gb free!
Running fine but I think login time is slower.

Sherifu

kc66 wrote: »

Running fine but I think login time is slower.

Noticed that too. Seems to be more black screen time before login now?

Not a big complaint. Just something I noticed. Thought it might be my imagination.

Sherifu

Sherifu wrote: »

Noticed that too. Seems to be more black screen time before login now?

Not a big complaint. Just something I noticed. Thought it might be my imagination.

Could either be that the prefetching has to be retrained (which happens automatically over time) or disk fragmentation, which has been a regular issue with service pack installs. Almost any time I installed SP2 was via a DVD with the SP integrated so haven't really noticed anything unusual.

Sherifu

Karsini wrote: »

Could either be that the prefetching has to be retrained (which happens automatically over time) or disk fragmentation, which has been a regular issue with service pack installs. Almost any time I installed SP2 was via a DVD with the SP integrated so haven't really noticed anything unusual.

I suspected it might need some more settling in time alright. Cheers.

EKRIUQ

Can this be installed even if SP1 isn't installed? my desktop just won't accept SP1 after countless tries

Sherifu

EKRIUQ wrote: »

Can this be installed even if SP1 isn't installed? my desktop just won't accept SP1 after countless tries

Needs SP1.

thebaz

I installed SP 2 onto my Vista Home Basic , it seams to slow machine up a lot after installation - all programs are running slower than before - I have Norton AV running as well -

anyone else notice overall performance issues ?

thebaz

thebaz wrote: »

I installed SP 2 onto my Vista Home Basic , it seams to slow machine up a lot after installation - all programs are running slower than before - I have Norton AV running as well -

anyone else notice overall performance issues ?

As I said above, after a service pack is installed on Vista the prefetching data is reset (because new files are installed). This takes a few days but once this is done then things should mostly be back to normal. Norton is known to be a pretty heavy AV, I've heard conflicting views about 2009 but certainly the older versions are a serious resource hog.

thebaz

Karsini wrote: »

As I said above, after a service pack is installed on Vista the prefetching data is reset (because new files are installed). This takes a few days but once this is done then things should mostly be back to normal. Norton is known to be a pretty heavy AV, I've heard conflicting views about 2009 but certainly the older versions are a serious resource hog.

Thanks for that , I'll leave it a few days, and hopefully speed improves , i also use photoshop , which is slow, but slower than normal today after SP install

Sherifu

Windows Vista SP2: Readers Report Big Increases in Free Disk Space

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 went final earlier this week, with numerous fixes and tweaks to improve performance, bolster security, and squash bugs. But some PC World readers are seeing another welcome change to SP2: a lot more free disk space.

In comments posted in our forums, several readers reported large increases in free hard disk space after installing Vista SP2. Mind you, I'm not talking about a gigabyte here or there; one reader claimed that installing Vista SP2 freed up a massive 40 GB chunk of disk space. Another reader said, "Wow! I didn't notice that til now. I went from about 88GB free to 122GB free. That's a significant change 'under the hood,' isn't it?" And yet another reader gained back 130 GB of hard disk space. Wow.

At least a couple users told me that their free space grew significantly after installing SP2, without them doing anything else. Vista SP2 includes a command-line cleanup tool (compcln.exe) you can run to remove older system files and restore points, thus freeing up hard disk space.

My assumption is that the Vista SP2 installer automatically runs compcln.exe, but we have yet to receive an official explanation from Microsoft. Once we do, though, I'll pass it along. Obviously your milage may vary depending on your system, but I think it's safe to say that most everyone will welcome more free disk space.

If you're running Vista SP2, we'd love to hear from you. Tell us your SP2 experiences—good and bad—by posting a comment below, or if you're on Twitter, follow us @pcworld and shoot us a tweet.

mick.fr

Sherifu wrote: »

Windows Vista SP2: Readers Report Big Increases in Free Disk Space

I gained 2 GB

Problably because I have had indexing turned off for a while now.

BigEejit

I'm not going to install for a few weeks, just in case :pac: