The Vista SP1 is thought to be launched in the first quarter of 2008.
However, Microsoft released beta versions of Vista SP1 to their chosen 12,000 beta testers. As always, even though it is possible to close the lid of the bottle, it is impossible to shut the mouth. That’s being said, the Beta Build 6001.16659 of the service pack has been leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. You might be able to grab it from your favorite torrent site. But some of you might be afraid to download such an important pack from other sites than Microsoft.
Don’t worry! Now there’s a workaround available (Thanks to ghacks.net)
- Download This zip file and unpack it to your system.
- Run SP1Beta_Hack.cmd with administrator privileges and Windows Updates afterwards. You should see KB935509. Download it and restart your computer.
- Run Windows Updates again, you should see KB937287. Download and restart your computer again.
- Run Windows Updates again (Yeah! it’s quite a lot!). Download KB938371, restart your computer again (I know, I know, it’s a lot of restart).
- Finally, visit Windows Updates again and you should see the Service Pack 1 Beta for Microsoft Windows Vista available for download.
If evaluation message annoys you, follow the steps below:
- Run watermark_fix.reg first
- Rename user32.dll.mui to user32.dll.mui.old in C:WindowsSystem32en-US
- copy user32.dll.mui from the archive to that location
- Restart your computer
With no official reaction from Microsoft about this workarounds, a lot of debate is going on in the blogosphere whether this method is legal or not. Judge yourself whether it is legal or not. Remember this is beta version to limited 12,000 testers only. So that it is very high probability that it would be buggy. My advice to you is that wait for official release of Vista SP1.
