Anyone and their mother-in-law can now upgrade their Windows Vista installation to SP1. Check out the announcement here.
“So, will it just start coming down as part of the auto-update?”
No. Auto-Updates won’t happen until Mid-April. But you can go to Windows Update and install it now if you choose. Be aware – you may not see it right away. There are some prerequisite updates that need to be in place before you will be able to get SP1. So install any updates that are available to you (if you’ve been keeping your system up-to-date, there shouldn’t be many) and then you will eventually see SP1 available for you to install.
Again – the details and answers to other common questions can be found here on the Windows Vista Team Blog.
“What other options do I have for installing SP1?”
Well.. check out this paragraph from the post on the Windows Vista Team Blog:
“Those of you who find that SP1 isn’t offered over Windows Update even after updating all your drivers, but would still like to download it can access our “standalone installer” from the Microsoft Download Center here. Windows Update will help ensure a better experience, so if you do choose to visit the Microsoft Download Center make sure that you read these KBs before installing.”
And in case I didn’t mention it – you should really read the Windows Vista Team Blog. <hint hint>
Absolutely Full of I.T. 
Sadly, I can’t use Vista because I can’t join multiple connections in Vista due to the host model change which I can in XP.
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Ever since I downloaded and installed Vista SP1, IE7 freezes if I am running more than 2 programs simultaneously. I was a beta tester for Vista. I left feedback more than once that Vista was NOT ready for primetime. It still isn’t. Too much eye-candy, I said, and too little real improvements over XP. Too many 3rd party software developers seem to not want to bring their product up-to-date for Vista – or are VERY SLOW in doing so. I REALLY used to look up to Microsoft for their quality products. Not now, I’m sorry to say. Vista truly sucks in so many ways. Even after SP1, my primary hard drive runs near continuously.
When is the next OS due?? About 2 years or less?? No wonder so many vendors and people in-the-know are avoiding Vista like the plague. I wish I had never bought a new PC with Vista installed
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