• Performance and behavioral issues. One good example of this sort of thing: almost everyone who ran the gold release of Vista complained about slow file-copying operations, especially when copying files across networks. (I ran into this problem myself.) Microsoft did issue an interim hotfix for the problem, but it'll be included in SP1 along with a slew of other performance enhancements.

  SP1 fixes a problem with slow copying of large files.
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  Other fixes in this department include eliminating wait times at logon and delays when resuming from hibernation. Another major source of complaints from users was Vista's behavior on some notebook computers, especially external display, battery life, and suspend/resume issues.

  Finally, a fix is supposed to be made available that resolves a problem involving a tradeoff between network speed and reliable, glitch-free multimedia playback (as described by Mark Russinovich), although a) it doesn't seem to be available in the current release-candidate builds, and b) from the wording of Microsoft's document that describes this fix, it sounds like it's something that needs to be enabled manually via a Registry entry. (Not everyone experienced this problem, which is probably why it's something that would need to be turned on by hand.)

• New stuff. In other words, new features which might not be obvious at first glance, such as support for the exFAT file system (to be used in removable flash storage) or Direct3D 10.1 (which again isn't used very much right now). Also included is support for a few extremely new hardware standards, such as newer Secure Digital (SD) memory card controllers that use Direct Memory Access for faster data transfers.

If you want to see the full manifest of changes, Microsoft has them all in a collection of Word documents. The documents named "Notable Changes in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate" (the name may change when SP1 is officially "baked") and "Overview of Windows Vista Service Pack 1" are the ones you want to look at. (There is another overview in the Windows Vista Technical Library on TechNet .)

So what's not in SP1? For one, Microsoft has stated there will not be any major changes to the user experience. What you saw in Vista gold will be almost exactly the same as what you see in SP1, as far as the UI goes. Another thing that Microsoft has tried to keep to a minimum is the amount of things that would change application compatibility: if it ran in Vista gold, it ought to run in Vista SP1 as well.

In these next few sections I'm going to talk about how to obtain and apply Vista SP1 in a way that best complements your organization or your work habits. There's more than one way to do it, and a certain degree of planning ahead is required to make sure things go off smoothly.