New Hotfix to Improve Vista’s Performance

Microsoft has wordlessly release four updates for Windows Vista which will improve the performance and reliability. As of now, these hotfixes haven’t been offered through Windows Update, and it’s not clear whether Microsoft plans to send them on October 9th’s Patch Tuesday or will hold back until SP1.

The first update (KB941649) is said to improve the battery life and stability of Windows Vista, at the same time it also speeds up the start up and recovery time after Vista is left inactive. Here’s a detailed list of improvements included in this hotfix:

• It extends the battery life for mobile devices.
• It improves the stability of portable computers and of desktop computers that use an uninterruptable power supply (UPS).
• It improves the reliability of Windows Vista when you open the menu of a startup application.
• It improves the stability of Internet Explorer when you open a Web page.
• It improves the stability of wireless network services.
• It shortens the startup time of Windows Vista by using a better timing structure.
• It shortens the recovery time after Windows Vista experiences a period of inactivity.
• It shortens the recovery time when you try to exit the Photos screen saver.
• It improves the stability of Windows PowerShell.
• A compatibility issue that affects some third-party antivirus software applications.
• A reliability issue that occurs when a Windows Vista-based computer uses certain network driver configurations

You can download this hotfix (32-bit or 64-bit) from its homepage, but it appears that Microsoft is still testing this hotfix and recommends you to install, only if you are experiencing issues which will be resolved by this hotfix.

Other three hotfixes are not so crucial, but are still worth checking out:

1. KB941229 – This update address several issues in Vista Media Center
2. KB941600 – Resolves some reliability issues in the USB core components.
3. KB941651 – Homepage of this hotfix isn’t available, but according to Carlos on techarena.in, this update improves the reliability of Windows Media Player 11 for Windows Vista. You can download 32-bit or 64-bit version of this hotfix.

I couldn’t hang around until SP1 or next Patch Tuesday, so I installed KB941649 hotfix this morning, and I can see noticeable improvements on my system. It’s good to see Microsoft working on releasing reliability and stability hotfixes like these. I cannot recall Windows XP getting hotfixes like these. Maybe, XP didn’t suck out-of-the box, as Vista did.

Found via CyberNet