In late October, Microsoft gave its beta testers the first beta build of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. On Tuesday, the company pushed out a later build to
MSDN and
TechNet subscribers. The five languages currently supported are English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese, in both 32- and 64-bit flavors. Today, the company has made this SP2 build available to the public on the Microsoft Download Center:
for Vista and Server 2008 32-bit (388MB),
for Vista and Server 2008 64-bit (614MB), and
for Server 2008 ia64 (416MB).
The public beta release is available as part of a Customer Preview Program (CPP), which is aimed at technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros who would like to test SP2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. Microsoft is recommending for the average customer to "wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack." Those interested in taking the plunge should be reminded that installing a pre-RTM build means that they will have to uninstall it before installing SP2 RTM; pre-RTM builds are not upgradeable. In fact, current testers with SP2 installed are getting this message through Windows Update (thanks Jared):
You are on a pre-release build of Windows Service Pack 2. Install this to start the uninstall process for that pre-release service. Once you start this, do not turn off or reboot your computer until asked. You will be offered a newer Service Pack 2 build after the uninstall completes. The new Service Pack 2 build may take some time before it is offered to you.
Full Story:
Vista SP2 and Server 2008 SP2 public betas arrive
12-04-2008
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