Update: Microsoft has officially released Windows Vista SP1 to the Microsoft Download Center for immediate Download.

Microsoft has finally announced that it has released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows Update, also, the final product goes on sale on amazon.com as well as retail stores (or as soon as retailers get it to shelves).

If in running Windows Update you do not see Windows Vista SP1 listed, there are a number of good reasons for this (Eight in fact, see the whole list.). Below are a few of the most common reasons why you might not see SP1 on Windows Update:

You have not yet installed all the prerequisite packages you need for Windows Vista SP1. To install them, visit the Windows Update control panel and click on "check for updates."

• You have a pre-release version of SP1 and need to uninstall it before installing SP1
• You already have it. To determine if you already have SP1 installed, Open the Start Menu, right click on Computer and left click on Properties.
• Microsoft is releasing SP1 in these 5 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. If you have any other language installed, SP1 will not yet be offered to you. (You might not even know if you have an additional language installed! Check the Language control panel to see what languages you have installed)
• Back in February Microsoft announced that they would be using Windows Update to help make the update as seamless as possible for our users. Windows Update will detect drivers that Microsoft knows may be problematic when updating to SP1 and will not offer the service pack until an update has been installed.

Microsoft also says they still plan to release the update via Windows Update in mid-April to those customers who were affected by the problematic drivers that were discovered shortly before the beta testing ended in February. according to Nick White "We’ve seen quite a bit of questions in our comments so we want to communicate as much as possible surrounding Windows Vista SP1 and today’s release to Windows Update as we can.

For those of you happy to wait - sit tight because SP1 will start downloading to PCs automatically beginning in mid-April (Remember, this happens only if you have your Windows Update configured to automatically download updates and SP1 will automatically download but not automatically install).  But if you want to get the benefit of a year’s worth of improvements right now, go check Windows Update today…(Hit the Start Menu, All Programs, and select Windows Update). "

I encourage you to take a look at our lengthy review of Service Pack 1 and get to know what the changes mean to you and how you can use them.

We will update this post as soon as Microsoft publishes the update to the Microsoft Download Center!

Download: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Standalone Installation (5 languages) - Download Size: 434.5MB

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