Microsoft has released the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) ‘Release Candidate’ (RC). This is the last step before the official SP1 is released in the first quarter of 2008. Note that this is still not official code, so there could still be bugs (but hey, there will still be bugs in the official release as well). If you install this, you will most likely need to remove it before installing the final release.

If you have a fast network connection, the easiest way to install will be with one of the stand-alone installers, which include everything you need to get rolling. Just pick which one you need, based on if you are running 32-bit (most common) or 64-bit, and what language you are using (choose from the last two if you use multiple languages).

• 32-bit in English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish
• 64-bit in English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish
• 32-bit in 36 Windows Vista languages
• 64-bit in 36 Windows Vista languages

The other way to get it (beside the inevitable P2P connections) is to download it directly through Windows Update. Microsoft describes it as ‘Experience the WU based Vista SP1 installation by following 4 simple steps’. This involves running a script that modifies your registry. Windows Update will then begin to download the pieces you need, which will take some time as some components are dependent on other components already being installed (so there will be multiple downloads and restarts). The script is available here, as well as a detailed description of the four simple steps.