SP1 and a new kernel!

The Microsoft Vista Product Management Group has just released Service Pack 1 to manufacturing! It's now locked in stone. But we need to wait 6 - 8 weeks before getting it into our hot little hands.

I'm curious to see if this is the long overdue solution we have all been needing - or if it was released way too soon under pressure - causing us to wait for SP2 before having a desirable product.

I found a very interesting article that discusses the new kernel for Vista SP1. Vista SP1 will now be version number 6001. It is being synchronized with the version number for Windows Server 2008 since the two OSs will now share the same kernel. I'm sure that this is useful internally for Microsoft, but it makes things interesting for us enterprise administrators.

Many of us are used to building WMI filters and scripts that check Windows version numbers in order to target specific versions of the product. It looks like this is now a little more complicated. Receiving the number 6001 won't be enough to distinguish between a server or workstation product. You will need to expand your queries to include a product name or some other unique identifier.