Microsoft pulls Vista SP1 update

Microsoft has stopped automatically distributing a prerequisite piece of software for Vista Service Pack 1, following some customer complaints that it had caused system problems.

Servicing stack update KB937287, released last week, contained updates to Windows Vista installation software, and was billed as being "necessary to successfully install and to remove Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) on all versions of Windows Vista."

Microsoft stopped distributing the update on Wednesday, according to a blog post by Microsoft product manager Nick White.

"We've heard a few reports about problems customers may be experiencing as a result of KB937287," wrote White. "Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes."

Vista SP1 is already available to subscribers to the Microsoft Developer Network but won't receive a formal public release until mid-March.

One irate Windows Vista Ultimate user replied to White's blog post, saying the prerequisite had corrupted a PC and resulted in the need to reformat the hard drive, with the resulting loss of all of the files and programs. When advised by an anonymous contributor of the System Restore option on the Vista installation disc, the Vista Ultimate user replied that the copy of Vista had been purchased and downloaded from the Internet, so there was no disc.

Two users complained that Windows Update prompted them to install the prerequisite, even after they had installed it.

Another user, S Marusic, wrote: "New Dell Inspiron PC stuck on the update loop as well. Any ETA from Microsoft on when/how to fix it? My client has valuable data that I need to consider stripping off the (hard drive) unless a patch/fix comes out soon...Help!"

According to Microsoft's White: "This problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances."

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[Travis_Lloyd]

No Problems So Far

No problems here so far, on an ancient Dell Dimension 5600 which has been running just fine since the betas of both Vista and Office 2007.
Looking forward to SP1 just to see if my luck continues...

[krosavcheg]

"no access to data"

Surely there must be a way to boot from an optical drive?
Perchance even an OS with a graphical display? That would
resolve the inaccessibility issue.

[sanjayb]

When does it end??

It's always this or that when it comes to Vista. Seems like things never go smoothly with Microsoft and Vista. They can't even deliver SP1 without a hitch.

[paulsecic]

Windows 8.1a

Will be out in 2009. It's cool!

[Seaspray0]

Before it began

I'm still with XP and have avoided those problems. While some people like it, I didn't.

[jogren]

Vista SP1

The world's richest man, snake oil salesman, shame, shame, Vista is crap and they can't even muster the brainpower to update it

[NottaMacGuy]

Misleading Title

When will CNET learn how to title an article. Reading purely the title, you'd think there was a major issue with SP1. Reading the article reveals that they are talking about a prereq which is having a few problems. I have the prereq loaded without any issues. Perhaps CNET should focus on telling the story without sensationalizing it. Nah, won't happen -- they love to say all the bad they can about Microsoft.

[Leria]

Had these same problems with XP and.... LEOPARD!

Read the title of this post and realize why I have very little respect for people who Microsoft bash like sanjayb is doing.

[Technologist72]

?

Are you just spreading FUD or do you have a Vista SP1 personal experience to back it up?

[cb3431]

Vista SP1

I am happy to say I didn't have a single problem installing SP1 on both of my machines. I was epxecting the process to take a lot longer than it did.

I can't say I have noticed any difference, but then I didn't have any problems with Vista before SP1.

I am very pleased with Vista.

[mikestatic1]

A FEW Reports of problems?

As if Microsoft pulls an update because 10 people complain. If they pulled it, more than a 'few' customers complained.

[goatman]

kb937287

have had no problems

[jowewo]

Another one bit the dust!

No... The latest SP released by Microsoft does not work? How surprising! Did you already forget the fiasco that was SP2 for XP when it was first released?

What is behind Microsoft's logic? More important: is there a logic? Why does the #1 software company keep putting systems on the market to pull them
immediately after?

Would you accept such a lack of professionalism from a car manufacturer, a house builder or a service company? Of course, not.

Isn't it time for people to switch to a safer, & more reliable Operating System? How about we send a message to Microsoft? How about we stop being prisoner of a company who clearly does not care about the end user? How about next time we purchase a computer?

Apple releases great OS's and addresses some rare issues on the spot. Linux - due to its nature - do the same. How about you give these guys a try? You will not regret it.

[MMC Racing]

Apple doesn't release service packs...

They call them new versions and charge for them.

[firefoxluva95]

Correction

It's not the service pack that's causing problems, it's the "prerequisite". I myself installed both without problems. The service pack actually did increase performance when transferring files between drives and across the network.

Although I do agree that Mac is a great operating system, not many really good games are out for it and being a gamer, I'd naturally lean toward windows because most games I play run on Windows. If I were to begin editing videos and multimedia then I might consider using a Mac.

[Technologist72]

Here Here!

Switch to Linux or a MAC cause they are so much better! No Viruses! They run forever! They NEVER release bad buggy software EVER! Microsoft sucks! Steve Jobs is Great!

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

[42istheanswer]

Printing in Vista

From day one I have had issues with printing in Vista. In a word, it stinks. Obviously driver support was a bomb. Interop between existing XP workstations and Vista is very bad. Either the Spooler crashes or sharing is flaky. I'm very UNIMPRESSED with this aspect of Vista so far. I'm hoping SP1 fixes this. I get a feeling it won't. We'll see how the history books write this story. My guess is it will parallel Millennium Edition.

[sanenazok]

Printer Drivers

I have no problems printing in Vista, even to an ancient 4Si, but mostly because my printers have drivers, how's that for novelty?

[FutureGuy]

Had no issues so far..

I have been runing SP1 pre release beta for months and haven't had a single issue. With a few million installations out there someone is going to have problems, someone's HD is going to give up its ghost or develop some bad sectors in the middle of an update, its easy to put the blame on the update.

[The_Decider]

It is more then a few people

MS doesn't admit any problems until it is extremely widespread.

Besides, you don't count. You have someone come to your cubicle in the Office of Mindless MS Shills to install that bloatware.

[{DvT}Hex]

"customers in unique circumstances"

And just what might those circumstances be?

[izards-b]

It killed ours

It killed my system. I couldn't run a system restore on it either. It was a demo system for customers to show off a nice, big, fast workstation. We have a Microsoft Action Pack license so it was as close to free as it gets for the license of Vista. I just had to restore the whole thing and disable updates. It's been running non-stop for almost a year but with no signs of stopping. The computer in question runs Vista x64 Ultimate and is a Core 2 Quad on an ASUS P5B with a 3ware PCI Express RAID controller running a 4 drive RAID Mirror. It's a dual head demo system for Arc GIS with an XFX 7900GS card. I think it was the 3ware raid that screwed it up. The system kept trying to run updates during boot and never came back. I tried repairing it using the disk and after installing drivers for the 3ware it didn't even recognize there was an install of windows on the drive. It ran perfectly until the day after we logged in MOM that this update was installed. It's the only system we've had a problem with and it's the first time we've had a "production" type computer witn any issue.

[Jim Hubbard]

By definition.....

By definition, all Vista users are "unique" in that they are not a part of the norm.

From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/unique ... "5. not typical; unusual".

Vista users are in the minority of Windows users. They are not typical and are therefore, "unique" - just as Linux users and Mac users are "unique".

[seanonymous]

re:"customers in unique circumstances"

I'd say using Vista is a fairly unique circumstance.

[Marauder62]

No Issues

I've done three laptops, an HP, a ComPaq and an IBM with no issues.

[Dr. Denial]

Baa, baa, No issues, baa!

There is no doubt that many users have had "no issues" with Visa and its SP1. That's not the point.

The very fact that MS have pulled this update shows that it DOES have serious issues that should have been forseen.

[Leria]

Foreseeing this? Almost impossible

With the number of different configurations of computers and peripherals out there. I am betting that Microsoft finds out that people just have to unplug one of their cheapest devices that is causing a problem, and their computers will boot up no problems whatsoever.

[Equisilus]

Repeated install requests

That there were repeated requests by Windows Update to install the update is something I experienced. I simply downloaded the stand-alone update and installed that. Windows Update stopped asking about it and I've experienced no issues with it. The problem, it would seem, was with Windows Update detecting the installation through its service, not with the update itself.

[Vista does suck]

Anybody else lose mouse functionality in Word?

My Logitech mouse has stopped working properly but only in WORD, has anybody else had this happen and what's the cure?

[The_Decider]

Simple

Wipe your disk, install OpenSuSe with about 6 clicks max and then open up Open Office and get to work.

[abbottpark]

No Problems So Far

I installed Vista SP1 tonight on a Gateway laptop running Vista Home Premium. I have no issues so far. It took about an hour and 5 minutes.

[rotcho]

I like it

I downloaded Vista SP1 off of Windows Update and so far it has improved everything I had complaints about with Vista. The memory on my laptop before SP1 was limited to 3.52GB, I now have the full 4GB, using VMWare and VPCs seems to be faster.

Apple doesn't have as many problems because they break compatability every couple of years. Microsoft tries to at least do a somewhat reasonable job of making sure older apps can run.

I still have apps written for Windows 95 that run on Vista, can a Apple Mac app from 95 run on Leopard???

[The_Decider]

Breaking compatibility is a good thing

One of the few people at MS who knows software security(Michael Howard) has been preaching "avoid backwards compatibility" for years.

Microsoft has been ignoring it and at it detriment.

Why Mr. Howard remains at a company that never pays attention to security is a mystery. Too much Kool-Aid I suspect.

[wmdcmitbimv]

Unfortunately, you don't have 4GB usable RAM :)

"The memory on my laptop before SP1 was limited to 3.52GB, I now have the full 4GB"

No. The only thing SP1 changed, was to report the amount of RAM installed in your computer, NOT the amount that Vista can actually use, which is always less than 4GB on a 32-bit installation. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946003/ for more information. In short, nothing changed, except the system information display.

Note that this isn't a Windows limitation, any 32-bit OS will have the same issue.

[Microsoft_Facts]

Use Vista, expect problems like this.

I have no sympathy for anyone here using Vista. After countless reports of serious show stopping problems from beta until today, one negative editorial and review after another, why would you even consider using Vista? I just don't understand.

[mread41]

Why use Vista?

I use Vista because I like it, because it's a good OS even. As a matter of fact, I am a technician and possess 3 Vista machines running 5 different copies of Windows Vista and one computer running windows XP. Guess what? I don't have any problems with Vista, I haven't had any problems since I got any of them that had anything to do with the operating system since I got/built/upgraded any of them. I have 2 Emachines, an HP, a machine I built myself (and loaded Vista X64 on, and guess what!? it's actually the fastest, least troublesome, easiest operating system I've ever used). The key is to do it right the first time =P

I've used machines that are comparable both on Vista X86 with Premium edition and Ultimate edition as well as with XP pro all with almost identical hardware. My computer out-performs them all (yes, including the Xp version due to XP's very poor support of quad-processing management). As for poor reviews on Vista, everyone who doesn't like dinner is going to gripe about it. You'll be lucky in a group of 100 people eating the same food if more than 1 or 2 of those people will enjoy the food and actually be forthright in telling others it was good and reccommend it.

[applehazelnut]

Is Service Pack 1 Out Already?

I just got a "you should download service pack 1" message from
live onecare. It doesn't look like the beta. I'm guess it's out now?

[Technologist72]

Yup

For select people like MSDN or Technet subscribers.

[mvaiks]

That does it for me

I already removed Vista from my other computer at home and after that it is going down on my laptop too.

I'm tired of all the annoyances from this joke MS calls an operating system.

With me, after this, I can not install more than 1 update at a time or the windows update crashes. And even with one at a time, I have to re-start in safe mode before booting normal again.

Enough for me.

[Technologist72]

Bye!

Have fun with linux or a mac! :) Don't forget to write!

[hhemken]

Do it!

Your freedom is waiting. All you need is to be willing to learn and have the DIY frame of mind:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

[Technologist72]

NO PROBLEMS

From the beginning (March 2007) I have had little to no problems with Vista. Lots of M$ haters and FUD everywhere. It is quite entertaining to watch actually.

SP1 went on silky smooth without a hitch.

[Technologist72]

lol

And we KNOW "OpenSuse" has no bugs either, right!?

Look at their install forum for a long list of installation woes: http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?s=9afb01e00ad15e008c658d9ea1d44f26&showforum=20

lol.