Performance And Reliability Improvements To Expect Post Vista SP1 Install.

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Performance And Reliability Improvements To Expect Post Vista SP1 Install.

The updates in SP1 fall into three categories: Quality Improvements, New Hardware and Standards, and Infrastructure Optimization.

Specifically, Vista SP1 includes the following improvements in the areas of Security, Performance & Reliability:
-Helps prevent data loss while ejecting NT file system (NTFS) file system-formatted removable media.
- Improves the reliability of Internet protocol security (IPsec) connections over TCP/IP version 6 (IPv6) by ensuring that all Neighbor Discovery Request for Comments (RFC) traffic is exempted from IPsec.
- Improves scenarios in which a driver goes to sleep with incomplete packet transmissions by helping ensure that the driver is given enough time to transmit or discard any outstanding packets before going to sleep.
- Improves wireless ad hoc connection success rate.
- Improves the success of peer-to-peer connections, such as Windows Meeting Space or Remote Assistance applications, when both computers are behind symmetric firewalls.
- Improves the Windows Vista file-backup solution so that it includes files encrypted by the Encrypting File System (EFS) in the backup set.
-SP1 improves BitLocker by offering an additional multifactor authentication method. SP1 also extends the encryption support to volumes other than bootable volumes in Windows
-The kernel patch protection prevents developers from maliciously patching the kernel. (x64 versions of Vista).
-Vista SP1 improves security through a new set of Win32 APIs that allow programmatic control over a process‘s DEP policy.
-The cryptographic random number generator is improved to gather seed entropy from more sources, including a TPM when available.
- SP1 improves security in Smart Card Security scenarios.
-SP1 improves the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) implementation such that it can be configured to work with OCSP responses that are signed by trusted OCSP signers, separate from validation of the certificate issuer.
-SP1 enables a standard user to use the Windows Complete PC Backup application, provided that the user can supply administrator credentials.
-SP1 improves the trustworthiness of data presented in Windows Security Center by ensuring that only authenticated security applications can communicate with the Security Center. Teredo Interface SP1 improves security over the Teredo interface by blocking unsolicited traffic by default.
-SP1 enables compliance with the European Union Digital Signature Directive and National ID (eID), Federal Information Processing (FIPS) 140-2, and Suite B security standards.
-SP1 improves file-copy performance. In some scenarios, SP1 reduces by half the time required to copy large file collections.
-Power transitioning is another example. SP1 improves the speed of resuming computers from standby mode.

Performance improvements vary from system to system, depending on hardware, environment, scenarios and usage.
-The SP1 installation process clears user-specific data that Windows Vista uses to optimize performance by using Windows SuperFetch. This process may make the system feel less responsive immediately after installing the service pack. As customers use their computers, Windows Vista will return to previous levels of responsiveness within hours.
-Microsoft has significantly improved file-copy performance in Windows Vista. As measured by internal Microsoft testing, SP1 copied a 200-file collection of 5MB pictures from one folder to another on the same local disk 25 percent faster than Windows Vista without SP1. From a remote computer that is not running Windows Vista SP1, SP1 copied the same files approximately 45 percent faster. SP1 copied the files from a remote computer that is also running Windows Vista SP1 about 50 percent faster.

To provide a better experience when copying files, SP1 also does the following:
- Significantly improves the speed of moving a directory that contains many files.
- Improves performance while copying files by using Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS).
- Improves responsiveness when performing many kinds of file or media manipulations. For example, copying files after deleting a different set of files can make the copy operation take longer than necessary with Windows Vista today. After installing SP1, the file-copy time is the same as if no files were initially deleted.
- Windows Vista could sometimes take longer to estimate copy duration than to actually copy the file. SP1 improves the copy-progress estimation when copying files by using Windows Explorer so that the time estimate in the progress window appears within 2 seconds.

SP1 also does the following:
-Improves the performance of browsing network file shares by consuming far less bandwidth.
- Improves network selection scenarios by improving the logic that selects which network interface to use when more than one is available
-Power Transitioning: One of the primary goals of Windows Vista was to improve the performance of power transitions (for example, resuming from standby and shutting down).
-In SP1, ReadyDrive improves boot performance by 27 percent to 55 percent over Windows Vista without SP1.
-SP1 increases the effectiveness of the ReadyBoost device in speeding up the Resume from Standby and Resume from Hibernate power transitions.
-SP1 contains additional SuperFetch improvements that further improve resume time. Microsoft found that a slight increase in the time taken to go into standby or hibernation is worth the improvement in time to resume from either mode. Increasing the priority of SuperFetch mitigates the impact of this slight increase in SP1.
-Adding files to and extracting files from a compressed folder (for example, a .zip file) was relatively slow on Windows Vista. SP1 improves the performance of compressed folders. It now takes less than a third of the original time !
-SP1 includes performance enhancements for Windows Internet Explorer 7. In Windows Vista today, Internet Explorer takes longer than expected to read large images from a Web site such as Microsoft Virtual Earth. SP1 reduces by half the time it takes to read those images. Also, some Web sites use specific Microsoft JScript functionality that performs poorly on Windows Vista without SP1. SP1 fixes those specific JScript operations to bring Internet Explorer 7 back in line with previous releases of Internet Explorer.

SP1 improves servicing and patching. First, SP1 enables support for hotpatching, a restart-reduction servicing technology that maximizes uptime. Hot patching works by allowing Windows components to be updated while they are still in use by a running process. Update packages that support hotpatching are installed through the same methods as traditional update packages but will not trigger a system restart. In addition to hotpatching, SP1 does the following:
- Improves update deployment by retrying failed updates when multiple updates are pending and the failure of one update causes other updates to fail as well.
- Improves robustness during update installation by improving resilience to transient errors (for example, sharing violations, access violations) and unexpected interruptions (for example, power failure).
- Improves the uninstallation experience for updates by improving the uninstallation routines in custom operating system installation code.
Installation

SP1 includes a variety of additional performance improvements. For example, SP1 does the following:
- Reduces the time to return to a user‘s session when using the Photos screensaver.
- Improves overall media performance by reducing known glitches.
- Improves the performance of new print driver technologies, such as XML Paper Specification (XPS) printing.
- In internal testing, reduces by approximately 75 percent the time to start Event Viewer.
- Addresses the problem of the video chipset not allowing the system to stay asleep.
- Improves power consumption when the display is inactive, by allowing the processor to remain in its sleep state, consuming less energy.
- Improves power consumption and battery life in certain circumstances by addressing an issue that causes a hard disk to continue spinning when it should spin down.
- Reduces the shut-down time by a few seconds by improving the mobile device synchronization utility in specific scenarios.
- Improves the time to resume from standby for certain USB hubs by approximately 18 percent, according to internal tests.

SP1 changes the Search feature to allow computer manufacturers and users to choose a default desktop search program by using Set Default Programs, similar to the way they can already choose default Web browsers and media players in Windows Vista.

Windows Vista SP1 also includes support for some of the new hardware innovations and technology standards that Microsoft expects will become increasingly important in the near future.

More at TechNet: Notable Changes in Vista SP1. Microsoft has also just released it Feature-by-feature Guide to Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.

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Windows Vista SP1 : The Day After !
UI Changes After Vista SP1 Install