So, I use Vista off and on since it came out, I switch between XP and Vista frequently, obviously I use XP more because it's been around so long and I'm accustomed to it, it's like an old familiar friend. I've got both installed on the same computer, just different hard drives, I use a swappable drive cage, and the HDDs are sort of like big cassette tapes, that way I can keep everything separate and minimize wear on the drives.

Since I installed XPSP3 I've not been very happy with it, it's just slower now, and not as quick to respond it seems to me, so I've been spending much more time with Vista than XP now, and there's a huge difference between them. Sure I used Vista quite a bit before, but not to do real 'work' related things, yes I played games, messed around with it a bit and ran tests and benchmarks for reviews, but never really worked with it, I've always liked Vista and never had any problems with it like so many others have reported, but still used XP more often because it was so familiar, now though Vista is my new full time OS of choice and XP will be relegated to secondary status.

I can't quite figure out what all the hoopla is concerning Vista though, as I said, I've never had any problems with it, sure some very minor odd things, but I have found nothing that I use often on XP that won't work on Vista. All of the people complaining about Vista are the same ones that complained about XP when it came out, I had more headaches with XP that I care to recall when it comes to trying to get things to work, with Vista though everything just worked.

So I was curious as to what enhancements or improvements to Vista came with the Service Pack 1, and to satiate my curiosity I ran a bunch of benchmarks just like I would with any 'official' review that I do to see what if any differences there are between Vista and Vista with SP1 installed. I figure why let all of that work go to waste, why not make a nice little article about it for my site to share with everyone.

If you read my XPSP2 vs XPSP3 comparison then you'll be familiar with how I do things, it's essentially the same set of tests, the same system really, just a different hard drive and a different OS.

So continue on to learn what I did about Vista Service Pack 1...

Vista vs Vista SP1 Comparison

Author: Kristofer Brozio