Windows Vista SP1 RC1 Now On Connect

It has been a very busy day in Redmond today. After releasing Windows Server 2008 RC1 this morning they turned around and dropped Windows Vista SP1 RC1 in the laps of testers who have anxiously been awaiting this build.

Release Candidate 1 is a big milestone and here are some highlights from the Windows Vista Blog:

• The size of the standalone installers have decreased significantly. For example, the standalone installer packages consisting of all 36 languages (x86 and x64 chip architectures) are smaller by over 50%. The standalone installer packages consisting of just the 5 languages (again, x86 and x64) slated for initial release are more than 30% smaller in size.
• The required amount of disc space for SP1 installation has also decreased significantly. Furthermore, with the RC, if more space is required to install SP1, an error message will now display exactly how much space is needed to complete the installation.
• Previous SP1 versions left behind a directory of files that wasn't needed after installation and occupied about 1GB of space; the RC includes automatic disk clean-up to remove this directory.
• Installation reliability has been improved based on bug reports and error codes reported from Windows Update (thanks, Beta testers!). Testing shows that these improvements have significantly increased the proportion of successful installations of the RC.
• We've improved the user experience of installing SP1 via Windows Update. During the Beta release, users installed without much guidance from Windows Update. The RC now contains a series of screens with detailed information on SP1.

If you are not in the beta and still want to test you will get your chance.  Tomorrow the build is scheduled to go up on MSDN and TechNet. Early next week they are planning to make a public download available on the Microsoft Download site for anyone.