Finally Microsoft today released the much needed service pack 1 of Windows Vista. So, what's new? Well, according to MS, "the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is an update to Windows Vista that addresses key feedback from customers. SP1 addresses specific reliability and performance issues, supports new types of hardware, and adds support for several emerging standards." The update adds support for new UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) industry standard PC firmware for 64-bit systems, x64 EFI network boot, 64-bit version of MSDASQL, Direct3D 10.1, exFAT (a new file system supporting larger overall capacity and larger files, which will be used in Flash memory storage and consumer devices), and support for creating a single DVD media that boots on PCs with either BIOS or EFI.

SP1 also addresses issues many of the most common causes of crashes and hangs in Windows Vista, as reported by Windows Error Reporting. The most important thing is that you'll get about "25% improvement on overall system performance" and your power consumption will decrease.

[Vista SP1]