Vista Service Pack 2 Beta

As promised I installed Vista SP2, on my production laptop no less, almost as soon as it was available to non-TechNet subscribers.  In fact, I am typing this mere moments after my reboot from the install.  No smoke is coming out of the machine and nothing appears to be broken, but we’ll see.

I elected to install from Windows Update and the process was pretty painless.  You just grab the file SP2CPPRK.cmd.remove from here at TechNet, change the name to SP2PPRK.cmd and run the file as administrator.  It installs a registry change that allows you to get the service pack from Windows Update.  Then run Windows Update which should show a 4.1M update called Windows Servicing Stack.  Its not the SP but it is needed to install the SP.  When the Servicing Stack update completes, tell Update to search for more updates and it should give you a 297.5M update called  Vista SP2 16497 for x86 (KB948465), then comes the download, install,reboot routine.

I will post more about my experiences with SP2 Beta as they unfold.  I am particularly interested in improvements that are supposed to be in this Service Pack:

  • improvements in wireless networking when the computer recovers from suspend
  • improved use of memory by desktop gadgets.