Vista SP1: Small things come in big packages
Microsoft's planned Vista Service Pack 1 may not be adding many features, but it sure does take up a lot of space.
Based on current test versions, the operating system update will be a 1GB file when uncompressed. By way of comparison, Windows XP--the whole thing--shipped on a CD, which only holds about three quarters of a gigabyte. On the plus side, systems that already have the latest Vista patches can be brought up to the Service Pack 1 level with only a 50MB compressed file through Microsoft's online Windows Update utility.
Also notable, installing the OS will require 7GB of free hard drive space, though much of that will be returned to the user once the megapatch is applied.
News.com Poll
Microsoft said its research shows that it shouldn't be a problem for most consumers who are running Vista. Businesses, which sometimes put the operating system in its own partition, may have some issues. Microsoft says that's why it's letting people know now, so hopefully those that are deploying Vista before SP1 can plan ahead.
"We're trying to give the guidance here early," said Shanen Boettcher, a general manager in the Windows unit.
Although most people probably have 7GB of space to temporarily lend to Vista, the requirement could be an issue for folks with ultramobile devices or Mac users running Vista in a partition on their hard drive.
"The data we have shows us that's not going to be a big issue," Boettcher said.
IDC analyst Al Gillen said he didn't expect the 7GB requirement to be too onerous. "If somebody doesn't have 7GB (free), they probably have a system that is pretty marginal to be running Vista anyway," Gillen said.
As for why the service pack is so huge in the first place, Microsoft says several technical decisions come into play. For one, Microsoft is including all of Vista's supported languages in the service pack, so businesses can deploy one version of the update to all their machines in different countries. Also, the company has done work to keep the upgrades as separate components so that individual pieces can be uninstalled, if necessary.
- Topics:
-
Microsoft
- Bookmark:
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
Hope Vista doesn't have same problem, although I highly expect SP1 of Vista to come out as soon as possible.
You remain in the dark age of computing as long as Windows is
your OS...
You would probably have to figure out where Microsoft wants to put its temp files and mount it as that folder name.
May work. Don't know. The risk is yours. But if you are looking at reinstalling anyway.
Speaking of which: Windows installer should automatically default to creating a system partition separate from the user profiles, programs and data. The harddrives are usually large enough. I always do this so I can easily reinstall the OS, but preinstalled Windows machines and most users do not. It would make maintenance, security and updates easier and more reliable and does not cost anything.
My issue with the size of the SP1 install is that I have three operating systems installed on different partitions already on my Vista machine as well as a Virtual PC guest OS. I went by the Vista guides for the recommended size of the system partition plus generous wiggle room, but SP2 might be a tight fit.
Also, it seems kind of nutty that there still isn't a mechanism to archive off to DVD or other media all those KB patch, rollback, and uninstall files. After a year or so of operation the drive gets filled up with gigabytes of useless crud.
But partitioning a 40gig drive into 20 partitions is a pain! (the old 2gig limit)