Microsoft to Releases Vista SP2 Beta To Testers This Week

Microsoft Corp. said last Friday that they would deliver the beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) this coming week to a limited number of testers. Vista SP2 beta is expected to be seeded for download for a small number of testers in the Technology Adoption Program, a limited group of company partners and customers, on Oct. 29.

Mike Nash, vice president of Windows product management, released on the Windows Vista Team Blog on Friday, Celine Allee, a director in the Windows client IT team, followed with more information, including a tentative ship date.

"We anticipate broad availability for Windows Vista SP2 in the first half of 2009," Allee said.

Earlier this month we reported that Microsoft might be close to a Vista SP2 beta and that they had created a place holder for a Knowledge base article for the forthcoming release. At that time Neowin.net broke the news about the new SP2 beta testing release when they reported that testers had received invitations to join the beta program.

Microsoft has confirmed that SP2 will include Windows Search 4, Bluetooth 2.1 wireless support and support for Via Technologies Inc.'s 64-bit processor. There will also be added Blu-Ray support with the ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista and the Windows Connect Now (WCN) utility to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.

Windows Search 4.0 is the newest version of Microsoft's desktop search engine and was issued to current Vista users via Windows Update last July; Microsoft released Bluetooth 2.1 support for Vista last April as part of the Vista Feature Pack.

Other improvements slated for Vista SP2, said Allee, include faster resume from sleep when a wireless connection has been broken; enabling of the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps; and support for Blu-ray.

Microsoft also said that Vista SP2 will require SP1 as a prerequisite.