Microsoft is planning to unveil its first major update for the latest operating system, Windows Vista, for early 2008. The first beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will be shipped to the testers during next month and the Redmond company hopes to have a final version as early as the end of this year.

"A small group of testers has been putting a preview of the SP1 Beta through its paces to help prepare for broader release," Nick White, a Microsoft product manager, wrote in blog post on Windows Vista’ official blog. "We made the choice to start with a very small group of testers because we think it's better for both our customers and for Microsoft to keep the beta program small at the start."

According to Microsoft, Windows Vista SP1 will not add new features, but instead it will address key feedback received from its customers. Also the company insisted that the SP1 will not affect any applications that are currently running on Windows Vista.

Also, Microsoft said that the Service Pack 1 will improve existing features. For example, the service pack improves the performance of the desktop shell, but it does not provide a new search user interface or a new version of Windows Media Center.

As Microsoft explained the updates packed in Windows Vista SP 1 fall into three categories: Quality improvements, improvements to the administration experience and support for emerging hardware and standards.

Also, Windows Vista will include all previously released updates for Windows Vista, as part of monthly security bulletins.

By quality improvements Microsoft targets key issues of Windows Vista: security, reliability and performance.

For example, Windows Vista SP1 will include application programming interfaces (APIs) by which third-party security and malicious software detection applications can work with kernel patch protection on x64 versions of Windows Vista.

Also SP1 will enhance BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) by offering an additional multifactor authentication method that combines a key protected by the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) with a Startup key stored on a USB storage device and a user-generated personal identification number (PIN).

Microsoft said that Windows SP1 will improve reliability when Windows Vista it’s used used with newer graphics cards and will addres the issues that might appear when the users upgrade from Windows XP.

After applying Windows Vista SP 1 the users should experience better speed when copying and extracting files and their PCs will respond faster when activated from Hibernate and Resume modes.

For notebook users Windows Vista SP 1 could mean better battery life, as Microsoft reduced the CPU utilization

Many of the changes in Windows Vista SP1 will address also the administration Experience. Administratos will surely appreciate the improvements to Group Policy management.

In the SP1 timeframe, administrators can download an out-of-band release that will give them the ability to add comments to Group Policy Objects (GPOs) or individual settings and search for specific settings.

Also the update will add support for upcoming standards and hardware, such as Direct3D 10.1, Secure Sockets Tunneling Protocol (SSTP), Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), and the Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT), a file system for Flash drives.

The service pack will include support for Secure Digital (SD) Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA), which will be on compliant SD host controllers soon, to improve transfer performance and decrease CPU utilization.

SP 1 will improve also performance of Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista, by reducing CPU utilization and speeding JavaScript parsing.

Microsoft will offer three methods for Windows Vista XP SP 1 deployment: Express, Stand-alone, that is recommended for computers with limited Internet connectivity and for applying the service pack to multiple computers. The standalone update will be about 1GB for x86 platforms and require 7GB of free disk space to install. The third method of deployments is the slipstream version of Windows Vista SP1, a media that already contains the service pack, which companies can use to deploy the operating system to new computers or to upgrade existing computers.

Microsoft launched the consumer version of its Windows Vista operating system on January 30 this year and it’s considered the most expensive software programme in the world which took five years and 7 billion dollars to develop.

So far Windows Vista has proved to be a major success. In July Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, said that currently Windows Vista boasts with more than 60 million legal licensees and 42 million licenses have been sold to businesses through its volume licensing program. According to Ballmer the Windows-powered PCs will surpass the number of cars produced in the world by the end of fiscal year 2008.

Also Windows Vista has also seen an increase in the number of software applications that run on it, from the 650 available at launch to more than 2,000 at present day, while more than 11,000 devices are certified with Windows Vista logo and other 21 million are simply compatible with the OS.

For consumers Windows Vista has four different versions designed to fit everyone and the prices range from 199 dollars for Vista Home Basic to 399 dollars for the Windows Vista Ultimate with all the bells and whistles.

Microsoft’s recent financial reports indicate the 13% increase in revenues registered in the first quarter of 2007 (compared to the same period last year), is mainly due to the strong sales of Windows Vista.

Microsoft said it will release also the third service pack for Windows XP in the next few weeks, but the company said it should not significantly change the XP user experience. The final version of Windows XP SP 3 will be released to PC makers in the first half of 2008.