Well I took the plunge, I backed up my laptop and and installed Windows Vista SP1 on my Dell XPS M1210 running Windows Vista Ultimate (32 Bit).

The entire install took about 70 minutes in total and about 40 minutes into the process I get a Blue Screen of Death the faulting file was ks.sys The laptop automatically rebooted and continued the service pack install.

ks.sys is associated with video and kernel streaming, but beyond that I am not really sure how significant the error is.

All I can tell you you is a blue screen isn’t the best start in life for Windows Vista SP1.

Thankfully the rest of the install completed without a hitch.

I have installed Windows Vista SP1 on my main computer so I am going to find out pretty quickly how stable Windows Vista SP1 is. Bookmark the link at the bottom of the post for future SP1 Coverage

The first good news is the file copy bug seems to be fixed and accurate times now show when coping files.

Before SP1

After SP1

The install required several reboots, the onscreen indicator gave me a good sense of what was going on. Example Stage 3 of 3 70% complete.

Screen shots from the install

Summary.

I would have a lot more confidence in Windows Vista SP1 if it didn’t blue screen on me. So I am holding back from recommending people install Windows Vista SP1 at least for several weeks. Lets see some other anecdotal evidence of the success or failure of the in place upgrade.

So now the real testing begins by actually using it.

Link: View all posts in Windows Vista SP1