This is just FYI, based on what I observed & gathered from installing Vista SP1 on several machines today, both desktops and laptops.

1. Before you download Vista SP1, you should first read Windows Vista TechCenter notices, more particularly do if you have problematic drivers.

2. Vista SP1 can be download HERE. Be aware that the file size is 435.5 MB. If your PC is a standalone, you will be better off getting it through Automatic Windows Update. In this case the size of the file you will get is roughly 66 to 69MB, far less than the 435.5 MB.

3. If you find that Vista SP1 is not available for installation from Windows Update and is not offered by Automatic Updates, check out this M$ Article 948343.

4. If for some reason Vista SP1 fails to install, read this M$ article 947366. This article explain what you should and can do.

5. Once Vista is successfully installed, you may be surprised on how much disk space it will take up - nearly 1GB. If you are absolutely certain that there will be no need to ever uninstall Vista SP1, consider using Vista SP1 cleanup tool mentioned in this by Cobra R.

6. Lastly for trivia purpose, Vista SP1 is a cumulative update that consolidated 572 hotfixes and security updates, counted from THIS M$ Technet article.

i_Xp/VistaUser

I also want to add before installing Vista SP1 be sure to disable your 3rd party firewall, anti-virus and ad-ware/spyware software. Programs like these can cause conflict during the installation of Vista SP1 while running.

also if you are running 64 bit version of vista and you have kaspersky installed it is not going to like sp1, I had to do a fresh install of vista just to get kaspersky working, that is with unintalling kaspersky and also disableing kaspersky before install. On the 32 bit version it was easy all i had to do was uninstall kaspersky and reinstall it again. good luck with the sp.

Jim R

I forgot to turn off my AVG firewall but the install still went OK.

I have Avast & Spyware Terminator on my Vista x64 installation & I did not have to uninstall nor disable neither of the two prior to loading SP1, but it is always good to take the necessary precaution.

Automatic Update tried to install SP1 no less than 6 times & failed each time. Finally, I found that McAfee firewall seemed to be getting in the way. Since that was a bundled, trial version on my laptop, I dumped it for AVG.

Another shot at automatic update got a lot further, but after running all night, I was only 3% into Stage 2. I let it run the rest of the morning, but saw no progress whatsoever. So finally, after letting it run for 15 hours, I had to force power-off. On reboot, it seemed to continue where it left off and had no more problems...

But now, I find my system is almost unusable - unless I run it in Safe Mode with Networking. Otherwise, when I try to open a program or do something in a program, the system completely hangs. Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing. I must manually power off the system. Really frustrating!

T