Vista - Windows Vista SP2 RTM

I was doing some browsing and found out that yes it was released as an RTM...only to manufactures like HP and Dell(of course since it is an RTM). It has leaked from there to non microsoft supported websites, its actually funny that people have this installed before it actually is consumer supported.

Stuff like this is released to manufactures for their advanced technical support to diagnose and problems with supported hardware. That may be a reason why its not released to consumers until it is supported for most hardware configurations.

I had an Compaq Presario Laptop and Desktop that when I upgraded to SP3 for XP they both crashed and had constant reboot. I discovered that the SP3 wasnt supported for my hardware as a Beta so I had to wait for the full release to solve the conficts. I contacted support and they said that they had contacted microsoft regarding the beta hardware issues which was then resolved the in the offical release to SP3.

For me Vista runs awesome as a 64-bit and I only trust supported downloads/data. Good luck to everyone who uses the non-supported downloads.

Don't forget some of us have access to Technet Plus and MSDN etc. That's where I got mine.

And what does "consumer supported" really equate to, being able to call MS about problems? Alot of us just jump on the net to find solutions as chances are, you're not the only one to have a particular problem. I admit to downloading SP2 through non-official means, but I did at least verify the md5 hash was the same as the one being distributed through MSDN, so I feel pretty secure at this point. My system was running fine, but I was curious and took the plunge. So far no problems whatsoever and the rig feels a bit more responsive as well.