Despite the limited hard drive space and relatively low system specs, a user over at the MoDaCo forums has managed to get Windows Vista working on one of ASUS' 4GB Eee PCs. All you need is an Eee PC, a Windows Vista disk, an SD card (at least 2GB, preferably more) and a 1GB USB flash drive. The process, which can be seen here, basically involves using vLite to create a streamlined Vista installation without features you don't need, copying that to the USB drive and installing the OS onto the Eee PC from there. After that you need to move the Side-by-Side (WinSXS) directory to the SD card in order to free up some disk space, and from there you should have a working Windows Vista installation. So any Eee PC owners desperate to run Microsoft's latest operating system can now do so, albeit a bit sluggishly.

A day after it released Windows XP SP3 RC1 to the public, Microsoft has done the same with the release candidate of Vista's first service pack. You can now download the standalone package from here, or alternatively you can download an applet which allows you to install the service pack via Windows Update from this site. As with XP SP3, this is not a final version, so it is recommended that you do not install this on your primary operating system.

With the company putting the finishing touches to no less than three major service packs at the moment, Microsoft has released a tool which will allow users to prevent them from being automatically downloaded. The Windows Service Pack Blocker Toolkit lets users block XP SP3 and Vista SP1 for up to one year, and Server 2003 SP2 until March next year. There are three versions - an executable, a script and a group policy template - so take your pick. This is recommended for any users worried about potential security and stability issues that may result from installing the service packs.

It seems work on Windows Vista's first service pack is almost complete, with Microsoft planning to make the Release Candidate (RC) version publicly available next week via Microsoft's Download Center. Microsoft commented that "the code has attained a significant level of performance and stability" and listed the following changes which have been made since the beta release:

• The size of the standalone installers have decreased significantly. For example, the standalone installer packages consisting of all 36 languages (x86 and x64 chip architectures) are smaller by over 50%. The standalone installer packages consisting of just the 5 languages (again, x86 and x64) slated for initial release are more than 30% smaller in size.
• The required amount of disc space for SP1 installation has also decreased significantly. Furthermore, with the RC, if more space is required to install SP1, an error message will now display exactly how much space is needed to complete the installation.
• Previous SP1 versions left behind a directory of files that wasn't needed after installation and occupied about 1GB of space; the RC includes automatic disk clean-up to remove this directory.
• Installation reliability has been improved based on bug reports and error codes reported from Windows Update (thanks, Beta testers!). Testing shows that these improvements have significantly increased the proportion of successful installations of the RC.
• We've improved the user experience of installing SP1 via Windows Update. During the Beta release, users installed without much guidance from Windows Update. The RC now contains a series of screens with detailed information on SP1.

The final version of Vista SP1 is on target to be released during the first quarter of 2008 - roughly a year after the operating system was publicly launched.

Despite of widespread critics among certain groups of end-users, Microsoft Windows Vista operating system (OS) captured additional part of the market in October, whereas other operating systems from Microsoft reduced their installed base. At the same time, platforms from Apple reduced the shares of the market they command. In September the share of Windows Vista-based personal computers used to browse the Internet was close to 8%, 7.91% to be precise, up insignificantly, according to data collected by Net Applications, a provider of Web tools. The shares of Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems decreased to 3.16% and 79.07%. The share of systems based on Mac OS decreased to 6.55% in October, down from 6.61% a month before. Other operating systems, namely outdated Windows versions, Linux OSes and so on, which have been losing market share for many months now, are now used in 3.31% of devices that are browsing online.

Despite its criticisms, Microsoft's latest operating system is gradually becoming more popular, with XP's market share now falling below 80%. In September the market share of Vista-based computers being used to browse the net rose to 7.38%, up by over one percent from the previous month, with Windows XP's market share falling by 1.16% to 79.32%. If Vista use continues to grow at this rate then it should account for over 10% of the market by December. Use of Mac operating systems also saw a rise, although it was less substantial than that of Vista, increasing from 6.15% to 6.61%.

The average Windows XP or Vista user has Windows Update turned on, so that they will ideally be more secure. However, quite a few businesses elect not to have automatic updates, as the version that they are running is stable, and moving to a new version might cause instability in a mission critical environment. Lately, however, Microsoft has been thinking that they know better than their users. Regardless of whether or not a user has automatic updates turned off, Windows XP and Vista automatically update roughly nine files in Windows Update. While it is not a big deal for people that don't mind having the most up-to-date version of Windows, this is a very large breach of security, privacy, and possible stability for anyone who elected to turn Windows Update off.