There’s been plenty of talk about the first service pack for Vista. Conflicting information from Microsoft and others would have you believing there will be a service pack, there won’t be, or even that there already is one, all depending on the day you read the news. What should you believe?

In the past couple days attention has been focused on the VistaSP1.net site, which claims to have the pieces that will make up SP1. A collection of currently available updates, and hotfixes intended for dealing with specific problems are listed as a SP1 Preview. As explained on the official Windows Vista blog, it is common for all of these fixes to go into a service pack. It’s then explained that the fixes in their current state are not well tested, that comes later when preparing the service pack. So should you install this ‘SP1 Preview’? Not if you want your machine to run properly.

Before this SP1 preview was in the news, it was suggested that there might not be a service pack. As mentioned on Dr. Dobb’s Portal:

A senior Microsoft official said the company doesn’t plan to issue a major service pack for Windows Vista because the operating system is “high quality right out of the gate.” Another reason is that new tools such as Windows Update allow Microsoft to dribble out smaller fixes to its new OS whenever necessary.

Sounds a heck of alot like they’re saying there will be no service pack! That’s not the case. The official went on to say “Will we continue to have service packs? Yes we will” but suggested that due to the prevalence of Windows Update, a Service Pack won’t need to be as big as it was in the past.

Now I’m confused. A senior official suggests that Service Packs don’t need to be as big because the updates are available through Windows Update, while other Microsoft representatives remind us that all updates and hotfixes get added to a Service Pack. Why release a service pack at all if you still have to download a bunch of updates? Based on everything I’ve heard, I believe what this official meant to communicate was that Microsoft won’t look to expand Vista’s functionality through a service pack, but it will of course include all known patches that are available at the time.

OK, there isn’t a version of SP1 available now, and it’s not true that there will be no SP1. So when can I get my hands on SP1? Some from Microsoft are saying “We haven’t established a time line”, but if you remember back to late January, Microsoft sent a message to it’s Technology Adoption Program (TAP) members explaining that there “will be a standard service pack that will include security updates, hotfixes, as well as limited other changes focused on improving quality”. They requested testers for the service pack which is to be released in the second half of calendar year 2007. Microsoft knows that many/most enterprise customers wait until the release of the service pack before deploying, so they won’t want to wait longer than necessary in releasing SP1. They also missed the past holiday season, and would no doubt like to make a splash for this coming Christmas.

So, in closing, there will be a service pack, it will contain all available fixes, and I predict it will be made available on November 30th of 2007. Though having it out before Thanksgiving would help with early holiday season spending, the 30th being the one year anniversary of the RTM release is just too perfect a date. That’s my call and I’m sticking to it, tell me if you agree in the comments!