Windows Vista SP1 x64 Upgrade, What you Need to Know

C.S. Magor — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:35:49 -0700

I finally bit the bullet and installed Windows Vista SP1 on my system. The thing that put me off most about it was the size. Updates of that size tend to take a long, long time to install. I was dead right. Microsoft were not lying with the disclaimer that it might take over one hour to install. It took over two hours and possibly more than three. It was as slow and syrupy as some sticky molasses. The thing was that I actually had a lot of work to do, which made things decidedly inconvenient.

I have a 100MBPS FTTH Internet connection, the 700+ MB of x64 SP1 screamed home in about three minutes. I was impressed, as I am assuming that there would have been a lot of people downloading it at the same time as I did. I actually had the upgrade on my system about a month and a half ago. I didn't install it and somewhere along the way it disappeared. It did not appear again in automatic updates, so I opted to download it from the downloads page at Microsoft.

Link for the 64-bit version:

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems (KB936330)

Link for the 32-Bit version:

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone (KB936330)

While the update process was remarkably slow, it can be installed unattended. Rather than install when you need to use your computer, you would do better to set it up to run overnight.