After months of silence, Microsoft finally coughed up details on Tuesday about its plans for the first update to Windows Vista, saying the service pack will arrive in the first quarter of next year.

In the next few weeks, Microsoft will start private testing of a beta of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Vista as well as a third service pack for Windows XP. The company plans initially to release the beta only to 10,000 pre-selected testers, though it may expand that release later. A small group of testers are already working with a “beta preview” version.

As for what’s in the Vista update, it’s mostly a collection of existing fixes and tweaks aimed at improving the stability and reliability of the operating system, which went on sale to consumers in January.

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Microsoft has released pre-beta code to two forthcoming Windows service packs to testers, but the company continues to remain vague about when the final code for Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista SP1 will make it to end users.

While Microsoft said it will have a beta of Vista SP1 available “sometime this year”, it won’t commit to a more firm date or speculate when the final release will be available. Some insiders had expected a beta to be available by now, though one has yet to materialise. As for Windows XP SP3, Microsoft said it is shooting for the first half of next year, but called that date “preliminary” and declined to disclose more details.

Source: PC Advisor