Installed Windows Vista Service Pack 1

Just this minute, in fact. So far so good. No problems at all, took about an hour or maybe a bit less. This is a Dell Inspiron 1525 notebook.

Observations:

• Login is faster.


• Firefox and Open Office load much faster.


• ...

Caveats:

I don't actually know why this update went so smoothly. The prerequisite, Update for Windows Vista (KB938371), refused to install at all for three or four tries a couple of weeks ago. I gave up on it, and came back to it yesterday. Installed without a hitch!

I have no idea why it finally worked, but there were some environment changes: I made a complete backup using Microsoft's own Backup utility (did this clean up a virgin restore points table or something?) I updated iTunes for my daughter (did Apple clean up some problem only it and Microsoft knew about?) I created my own system restore point (same issue as Backup?) I installed Apache 2, Perl and PHP (should be no effect on Vista, though). I installed about three updates preceding KB938371 that had not installed either (did these fix something, especially the XML fix? But it begs the question, since these were also recalcitrant updates).

At any rate, once KB938371 was onboard and working smoothly, the system seemed peppier and apparently more stable. Service Pack 1 went on, as noted, without a hitch.

I have permanently turned off UAC, completely uninstalled all Google Desktop and Google for Internet Explorer crap, found and disabled "phishing" scans (under Internet Options), and restricted Windows Update to informative messages only (any updates are done manually, case by case). Also, because Dell uses Trend's PC-cillin there are no crippleware messages about "insecure systems" (unlike Symantec, Trend has an option to turn off the Chicken Little panic attacks, which I took.) None of that was reset or disturbed by the Service Pack 1 update, seemingly.