Vista, XP service pack strategy to encourage Vista migration

Microsoft has made pre-beta code for Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Windows Vista SP1 available to public testers.

But in confirming that some preview code had been released to testers, it refused to be drawn on when the final code will be made available to end users.

Microsoft spokesmen did say the Vista SP1 beta would be released "sometime this year," but would not comment further on when exactly that would be, nor when a final release would be ready. It described a "preliminary" schedule for XP SP3 that was currently slated for the "first half of next year".

Michael Cherry, lead analyst for Windows and mobile technologies for US-based specialist, Directions on Microsoft put the news of the preview code release into context saying that, from a customer perspective, it was a "non-event".

He did however point to features that Microsoft may include in the final releases of these service packs that may hint at strategic moves to get XP users to upgrade to Vista.

"Microsoft is under no obligation to ever ship a service pack and it is totally up to Microsoft what it contains in terms of bug fixes alone or bug fixes and new features," said Cherry in an email correspondence.

Regarding XP SP3, he said its importance to users would depend upon what SP3 is supposed to fix. "Right now there are a significant number of downloads just to get all the critical patches that are needed to keep XP SP2 secure," he said. "If all it does is aggregate those together to reset a base line of support, then OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] and enterprises will likely want it.

"If it includes some new features to facilitate Longhorn server, such as the NAP [network access point] client, that could change the picture."

But he stressed that he was somewhat sceptical that will ever see this, given Microsoft's strategy to encourage users to upgrade to the newest versions of its products as quickly as possible.

In this context, he said Vista SP1 was currently being seen as a magic bullet that would lead many enterprise users to upgrade. But he urged caution in expecting SP1 to have this affect: "Everyone is following this as if it is some magical event, after which, Vista sales will take off. Sure there are certain customers who say they want to wait until the first service pack, but why?" he asked.

"There is no reason to believe it addresses all the known issues, just the issues they [Microsoft] had time to get to, that weren't too hard to fix and that could be tested. Also, it ignores the fact that many people are still concerned about the price of Vista and the hard to determine hardware requirements, both of which are unaffected by a service pack."

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