Why A Service Pack Still Matters

What I don't think Microsoft gets is that Service Pack 1 represent a stake in the ground, a new quality bar, a new milestone for OEMs, businesses, and consumers alike.  While Microsoft says not to wait for this release the simple truth is that the updates shipped via Windows Update are not tested as thoroughly as the Service Pack is and hence seen as less reliable. A service pack goes though the same rigorous beta testing period that a full release of the Operating System might.  Which is a great deal more than any individual update ever sees. This alone is probably reason enough for folks.

Another reality is that many consumers never see a great deal of the updates that Microsoft ships as only a handful actually are delivered via Windows Update. Then you factor in the lack of Internet connectivity for a large portion of people around the globe and it means the last updates this machine had probably came from their hardware vendor just before they shipped it.  Would you want to run Vista RTM with all the known bugs that are currently out? Me neither.

Businesses pick and choose the updates they want to deploy as they tend to do updates via other means, like WSUS, ITMU, SMS, and unless you keep a keen eye on these updates you can miss a great deal of them. They also tend to be overwhelming with the pace at which they are released. This can and does cause frustration for the admin and the constantly rebooting end users as they try to keep pace. 

Some business are quite happy with Windows Vista and Microsoft has provided a great deal of resources to make any deployment a success.  However the solution for many remains and will remain to be, that new stake in the ground, SP1. This is one update, this uber-update, that will bring the sweet relief of all those bug fixes to millions of machines with one reboot.