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Chances are you can’t have it, but it’s out there: Microsoft has released the first beta of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista.

It’s only available to a select group of testers, but Brandon LeBlanc of the Vista team describes how it improves performance:

With Windows Vista SP1, there have been several improvements to my user experience I think are worth sharing. The first thing I noticed after installing SP1 was the logon experience when logging into Windows Vista. In entering my password, and logging into my account, I noticed improvements to responsiveness that weren’t there before. On my desktop PC (which is joined to a domain) the improvements to the logon experience are even more noticeable. The delay between pressing CTRL-ALT-DELETE and getting the password prompt is pretty much gone.

[deletia]

I’ve also taken notice to improvements in overall responsiveness of my PCs. Improvements were also noticeable in resuming from Hibernation or Sleep on both my desktop PC and laptop running SP1. I discovered copying files from one directory to another is a bit faster. And on my laptop - battery life seems to be improved since running SP1. I have also noticed that transferring files to my shares on my Windows Home Server are a bit faster than they were previously without SP1. Overall performance in accessing my mapped network shares is improved as well. I store quite a bit of data on my Windows Home Server so this was a huge plus for me. These are just some of the performance improvements I’ve seen running SP1 so far.

If LeBlanc’s description accurately reflects what the average user (versus the average Microsoft employee) will see, this is good news, though you’ll note some of his qualifying language: “a bit faster” and “seems to be improved”. Then again, this is beta . . .

He also says there are only a few changes to the user interface, most notably to desktop search, which was subject to some complaints from Google. You can see a detailed list of what’s in SP1 here.

If you are among the select few with access, you can find it at Microsoft’s Connect Web site. Microsoft has said Vista SP1 will be available for the general public in the first quarter of 2008.