By Stevie Smith Aug 10, 2007, 13:59 GMT
Although the tech world is still taking shots in the dark regarding the official beta release date of Service Pack 1 for the Windows Vista operating system, American software behemoth Microsoft Corp. has this week offered up two new updates that reports claim will be included in the final SP1 package.
The two updates in question are being labelled as the ‘Performance and Reliability’ and ‘Compatibility and Reliability’ packs (KB 938979 and KB 938194 respectively) and have been termed as "standalone updates" for Windows Vista. Both are presently freely available via Microsoft’s official support Web site – although users looking to snap them up will first have to validate the authenticity of their Vista operating systems in order to be cleared for the download enhancements.
While Microsoft has opted not to confirm exactly when the two updates will be integrated into an automatic Windows Update edition, the Redmond-based company has at least outlined that the new updates are not betas, but official update releases.
A related Ars Technica report detailing the updates states that slow Explorer file transfer speeds appear to have been remedied, as have glitches connected to the hibernate and sleep functions. The tech site also points out that various issues with video card support have been ironed out too.
Microsoft offers that the KB 938979 update deals with "poor memory and management performance," along with printer installation issues when the User Account Control function has been bypassed. Furthermore, Vista users can also look forward to bidding a fond farewell to the network glitch that shunted TCP/IP following a system’s emergence from hibernation mode and also vastly improved file transfer performance. Microsoft also outlines that patchy offline file synch has also been addressed.
The KB 938194 update deals with a selection of issues directly associated with computer gaming, such as nVIDIA G80 compatibility problems, abrupt freeze and restart glitches, blank screens on video driver updates, and visual discrepancies during graphics-intensive games.
The full details of both updates are as follows:
KB 938979:• You experience a long delay when you try to exit the Photos screen saver.• A memory leak occurs when you use the Windows Energy screen saver.• If User Account Control is disabled on the computer, you cannot install a network printer successfully. This problem occurs if the network printer is hosted by a Windows XP-based or Windows Server 2003-based computer.• When you write data to an AVI file by using the AVIStreamWrite function, the file header of the AVI file is corrupted.• When you copy or move a large file, the "estimated time remaining" takes a long time to be calculated and displayed.• After you resume the computer from hibernation, it takes a long time to display the logon screen.• When you synchronize an offline file to a server, the offline file is corrupted.• If you edit an image file that uses the RAW image format, data loss occurs in the image file. This problem occurs if the RAW image is from any of the following digital SLR camera models:• Canon EOS 1D• Canon EOS 1DS• After you resume the computer from hibernation, the computer loses its default gateway address.• Poor memory management performance occurs.
KB 938194:• The screen may go blank when you try to upgrade the video driver. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:932539 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932539/) The screen may go blank when you try to upgrade the video driver on a Windows Vista-based computer• The computer stops responding, and you receive a "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" error message. You can restart the computer only by pressing the computer's power button.• The computer stops responding or restarts unexpectedly when you play video games or perform desktop operations.• The Diagnostic Policy Service (DPS) stops responding when the computer is under heavy load or when very little memory is available. This problem prevents diagnostics from working.• The screen goes blank after an external display device that is connected to the computer is turned off. For example, this problem may occur when a projector is turned off during a presentation.• A computer that has NVIDIA G80 series graphic drivers installed stops responding.• Visual appearance issues occur when you play graphics-intensive games.• You experience poor playback quality when you play HD DVD disks or Blu-ray disks on a large monitor.• Applications that load the Netcfgx.dll component exit unexpectedly.• Windows Calendar exits unexpectedly after you create a new appointment, create a new task, and then restart the computer.• Internet Connection Sharing stops responding after you upgrade a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP to Windows Vista and then restart the computer.• The Printer Spooler service stops unexpectedly.• You receive a "Stop 0x0000009F" error when you put the computer to sleep while a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) connection is active. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:931671. Error message when you put a Windows Vista-based computer to sleep while a PPP connection is active: "STOP 0x0000009F"
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