While searching Microsoft’s MSDN Library (a little light reading to help me sleep), I noticed an entry on the search page that said a new VPN feature called SSTP was being developed for Longhorn, and was to also be included in Vista SP1. I clicked on the link and found that in the main article, the text was different from that on the excerpt from the search page, it only mentioned Longhorn. Someone had changed the article, removing the SP1 reference, but the excerpt hadn’t updated! I had to wonder, was the feature originally planned for SP1 but then pulled?

If you aren’t familiar, Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) is, as the name suggests, a secure VPN tunneling protocol. It is designed to provide ‘ubiqutous’ VPN connectivity regardless of any NAT routers, firewalls, proxies, etc. that might otherwise complicate or block the VPN connection. Here, here, and here are a few pages that talk about it, and even include a few more SP1 slips.

I e-mailed Samir Jain, the Lead Program Manager for the project and he quickly confirmed that the feature is planned for inclusion in Vista SP1, but that “We cannot disclose anything about SP1 plans (exact dates) at this moment - and hence the reference is removed”. Yet another confirmation that SP1 is indeed on the way, and yet another feature we can look forward to as well (see my post yesterday about speeding up Defrag).