Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: Should I download Windows Vista SP1 patch?

It messed everything up and I was told by tech support to reformat the hard drive. I didn't want to lose all my work and saved files so I did a system restore. he PC has been almost back to normal since.

I have to say I have a Dellintel Centrino Duo when it came to download the service pack. I did everything by the book what a mess my computer would not work It caused so many problems i now have no hair left. So eventualy I did something I should have done a long time ago I took the the whole Vista of my computer and went back to XP Windows and What a relief to have a system that works as it should. I even managed to sell the Vista home CD to someone else so I only lost 20.00 pounds.. AS far a I am concerned you can keep vista and shove it into a dark cupboard. I will keep a tried and trusted system In XP Windows. So for the sake of your computer never download the SP1 Download. This is my opion but I will leave it up to you eitherTry something that is not tested propally or stick to a tried and trusted system. Yours, Martin..

Hello Mary!

Well I have no problem with the Vista SP1. I Bought my laptop not that long ago, and it didnt come with the vista SP1. I had a major issue with my computer that had me formating the drive and installing EVERYthing again, including all the manufacturer's drivers, and everything went fine. I installed the SP1 and my system is still running smoothly. So, the answer for your question is YES, you can install the patch and recover from it. The first steps that you have to take is set up your computer as you would recover it to this state. So organize your data, drivers and everything that you want to be recovered and after that, go and create a system restore point. (system restore window.>open system protection>select the disc (usually c:) and press "create"> name it and save it). After that you are ready to install your SP1. Make sure that save the files in another media if you are instill unsure of whether keep the SP1. After that you will be fine if you want to restore it.
Also, if you really want to make sure that all your data will be recovered. Simply create a full backup of your disc.

I hope it helped.

SP1 is not a patch, but an update that includes all of the security patches from the past year, and new security, feature, stability, compatability, and speed enhancements. It will not open up your system, but it will improve just about every area of Windows Vista.

Mary, you do indeed have a dilemma. The question is, are you currently having problems running Vista?

All of the people I know who are running Vista without having problems only use their computer for relatively simple tasks and don't run a lot of specialized software programs.

The power users find it impossible to use. It's full of bugs. Like any Microsoft Operating System, it will take years to get all the bugs out. So, if you're not having problems then back up your system and try the SP1. If your having problems, it is unlikely that the SP1 is going to fix your problems. The choice then becomes change to another operating system. Your choices are Windows XP-Pro or a Windows 200x. The latter is a very good OS with ultimately more power. For a basic PC user the XP-Pro simply works.

Good Luck.

quickrick nailed it right on the head!

also, microsoft needs to rework the OS kernel as right now it is spaghetti code. hopefully when win7 ships, yes ms is developing another OS before fixing vista, win7 will be unix based

Sorry, but I have Vista Home Premium 32 bit and three of my most used and most necessary programs for graduate school do NOT work on Vista as well as they did on XP pro, even with their Vista upgrades. So I have a gorgeous HP Pavilion dv2660se laptop, great LCD, 2gb RAM, 250 gb hard drive, six hour battery, and with all that, it was easier to buy a used laptop off of EBay that was made for XP pro, something that would let me use my programs for research as I need to use them. And I've been using laptops since DOS days, before Windows 95, so I'm no novice. So I say, down with Vista! QuickRick does know what he's talking about--his reply matched my problem with Vista exactly! I am so frustrated with Vista, but I don't have the time to search forever for XP drivers that HP will not provide for a machine they sell as a Vista machine (even when slightly older models of it sold as XP machines). I'm waiting for someone to sell a CD with XP drivers on EBay for an HP Pavilion dv2660se. Then I'll happily "downgrade" to XP pro and be rid of this blasted Vista OS forever!!!! Curses upon you, Microsoft, for making our lives harder instead of easier!!!

Did you do this?
1. Uninstall your prized three programs
2. Install the SP1 download
3. Reinstall your three programs

The order of your installation could be your problem.

I am what Dilemma posted as a 'power user' and I have installed AND swiftly uninstalled Vista SP1 twice. I SOOOOOOO regret ever having bought a PC (made to order) with Vista in the first place - I was ill advised. I bought a replacement for an iMac and insisted it was XP.

Vista has cost me as a small business huge heartache, time and lost business - I produce videos, websites, multi media presentations and EVERY single piece of software i owned and used on a regular basis had to be upgraded(cost $1200 ++) or abandoned as it didn't work with Vista.

I resisted and resisted the SP1 update for obvious reasons - I could not afford more downtime and was scared (with good reason as it turned out)that I would have more problems after the update than before 9and there were enough before to last me a lifetime !

My Computer supplier encouraged me to do the update ! What a joke!! I have uninstalled it twice and so it shall remain - UNINSTALLED. At least until I read enough evidence to tell me it is safe to use it again.

I am not allowed to use profanity but I have to say that Microsoft has a great deal to answer for in terms of upsetting my business life, and my ability to operate as a successful small business

So, Mary, DON'T DO IT!

Cleo...beware...FHankfreeman gives excellent advice, and before you know it you'll be addicted to him and you'll owe him a ton of chocolate chip cookies as I do.

I would highly recommend any advice he gives you.

Mary

My low end lenovo was sluggish running Vista Home Premium, even with 2g of RAM, the maximum it will take. It was sluggish to the point of me considering either selling it and buying a more capable PC, finding a copy of Windows XP to run on it, or switching to Linux.

SP1 pretty much solved the sluggishness, except for the machine still taking a long time to shut down. Everything just works better, smoother, and slicker. There were no compatibility or upgrade issues.

That being said, be sure you back up everything your backup software will allow before upgrading, and be sure you have a boot disk to allow you to bring the computer come up if there's an issue with the boot sector of your hard drive.

I remember that Windows XP had many issues at first, including a way too frequent occurance of the dreaded "blue screen of death".

What should you do:
1- Your HP comes equiped with a utility for checking system status and application updates. I know this for a fact because I helped my syster buy a HP system in Dec. 07.

2- Some HP's come with Audio Drivers from Realteck and could cause a problem with the SP1 update.
Her machine is set to download updates automatically from Windows Update, but the SP1 had not been downloaded to her machine as of July.
I was also concern that the Realteck drivers had something to do with it, so I kept waiting for it to be fix by the HP utility.
One afternoon I set out to check for any updates with the HP utility and there was non, so I initiated a Windows Update Scan manually and sure enough the SP1 Patch was listed.
I proceded to update her machine and everything went well.
But again I can't stress enough that you should check with the utility or HP website for driver updates for your machine before you procede with anything else.

3- It is a good idea aside from what you have read or heard to upgrade to SP1 since it brings better performance, security and compatabilities with older applications. It also speads up the boot up process.
You didn't give details of your pc, so for the purpose of this information, I am going under the assumption that you have a machine with a dual core cpu and at least 2GB of ram. Your video Card should have at least 128MB of Memory.

4- HP's come loaded with application that launch at windows start up, I noticed this on my syster's machine and decided to disable some of them that are useless.

5- Before you upgrade to SP1, download Rivo Uninstaller from Cnet Downloads, it is free and it is a very useful application, the latest ver. is 7.0.
Launch it and the default view is the applications installed on your computer, at the top you will see bottons such as Tools, click on it and the first choice on the left pane will be Windows Starup.
When you click on this you should be able to see all the applications that you are currently loading with the operating system.
Highlight one of them and right click on it, this gives you several choices on how to lookup the application online and give you an idea if you need it or not. Deselecting the box will keep this application from loading the next time you start windows, but you will still be able to launch it from the start up menu or shorcut on your desktop or simply use Revo and check the box for the appliation you deselected before, it that simple. This is necessary because many people complain about how slow vista is but in reality HP tends to allow a lot of applications to load on starup instead of letting the user decide.
Read about revo, I highly recomend this utility when uninstalling applications from your computer it does a great job at freen up space and unstalling a lot of entries in the windows register that the original application does not uninstall on its own.
If you are asking yourself why I am going into the above topic, is because it helps clean your machine, as the register becomes bloated with entries left on your machine, your machine begins to slow down.
Although, Revo Is not necessarily a Register Cleaner, it is great an tracking down entries that other appliations leave behind.
For a Good Register Clenaner you can download CCleaner from Cnet also read about it and it will help you keep up with the maintanance of yor pc.

6- Your HP computer has a hiden partion, this partion contains all the applications and the operating system as when it was brand new.
This hidden partion although visible to vista is not touch by the updrade to SP1, hence you should not be concern about upgrading and not being able to restore it to the previous state. Do not use Restore points created by vista or any other program if you want to reverst to pre SP1. You would have to restart the computer and when the first HP bootscreen appears you should be able to see an F12 or other F follow by a number corresponding to the action you want to take, for example F12 will cause the boot procees to go into the restore mode, the machine will then be re-store to its previous steps from the hidden partion, of course you have to follow the instructions presented to you on the screen.
I WORD OF CAUTION. DO THIS STEP BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE.
Your HP computer has a utility to create a copy of the hidden partion onto DVD's. Go into the HP utility forlder there should be an application with the name similar to Create Restore Disk.
You are only allowed to do this once.
Buy DVD + R Media and buy more then 3, my syster's pc took only three disks but in the process it fail one, the application is smart enough to know that the last copy was not finished and it will start where it left off, which is the reason why you need more then 3 disk even if the applications tells you that you only need 3.

ALSO, very important, when you create this disk make sure you turn off suspend mode or the screan saver, this would absolutely cause the copy of the hidden partion to fail and you could end up with the appliation being confused and telling you that you already made a copy of the operating system. Even if this happens, not really a worry since HP allows you to buy the Operating System Restore Disk from their webiste for about $19.00 depending on your machine.

to turn off screen saver - Right click on the desktop select Personalize, select Screan Saver and set the box to none.

to turn off your suspend/sleep mode, - Click on start, Control Panel on the right pane, For Laptops the Battery setting is under Mobile Pc
click on Change battery settings, click the change plan setting, I am assuming you are connected to a external power, set the timings for 5 hours or more for both the screan and the sleep time, click save changes and then close all open windows.

You can restore this changes later to their defaul using the same procedure.

WHILE SP1 does not touch the hidden partion you could get a virus that may replicate onto the hidden partion and destroy your operating system copy, this is why is essential to make a copy of the hidden partion as soon as you get your machine.

REMEBER, these disks, will contain only what the machine came with, so if you added programs, files, photos, music videos etc. you must back this first since restoring the pc will not restore any of these files.

Explore your pc or laptop and have fun.

Hello Mary,

I have not installed Vista at this stage, as I am quite happy with XP Pro, so I may not be completely clear or correct with my reply.

I am certainly no expert, but I am sure you would not have any problems with installing SP1.

Your system obviously is already Vista compatable (HP Pavillion can come with varied hadrware), so the update should be no problems.

If, on the other hand, problems do occur, you do not need to do a System Restore.

To uninstall a service pack, simply go to your Control Panel\Add Remove Programs.

In the resulting list, there should be a listing of the service pack. For example, with my service pack 3 of Windows XP, it appears as "Windows Xp Service Pack 3"

Click the "Remove" button, and all should be back to normal.

Hope I have been of some help.

Oh, by the way. I stated earlier that I was no expert.

Well, I have decided that I am.

EX as in a has been, and a SPURT as a drip under pressure.

Regards,
Terry

Even though I hate vista here goes, service pack 1 does improve a lot of vistas bugs but not all of them. I too run it on my hp pavilion laptop. The mic still has issues that I can not get to the bottem of, but yes sp1 does make it more stable. If you dont get on with it you can just go to the add and remove section within vista and remove microsoft sp1. Its easy. With your concerns of if your laptop spec is up to it, I trust you are running vista already, so you should have no problems with instaulling SP1. However vista is memory hungry, so it needs atleast 1Mb of ram to run correctly, even though some PC manufacturers instaull it on PCs with only 512MB of ram. They seem to do this and get away with it and people just accept that their computer is slow! If this is the case in with you I would recomend removing the small cover on the back of your laptop, and upgrading your ram to the max that your laptop will take. (Check what the Max Ram capability is on the HP website under the Specifications section for your model number.) I have the max in mine and it now flys. Ram is so cheap now, its crazy not to upgrade it. Try sites like Play.com for cheap ram. I hope this answers your question.
regards
Stuy