I won’t be scientific, post up a bunch of numbers that mean a lot to a few esoteric people; nor even give you anything more than just one simple opinion… Microsoft Vista SP1 is not harmful, but it doesn’t make things any better. Well, maybe 0.1% better than the original install.

It doesn’t really add any new features that I can immediately tell. It doesn’t reduce the memory usage. It doesn’t even make my Vista experience on an AMD 6400+ Black edition processor with SATAII drives, 2GB of Corsair memory and an ATi HD 2600XT with 512mb GDDR3 memory seem any faster.

In fact, it really didn’t make anything break, slower or worse.

And that’s a good thing. Microsoft didn’t break anything. My anti-virus software still works. As does my NetLimiter Pro firewall. As does my MagicJack, Skype, Pidgin, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. I still have to clean up crap with CCleaner occasionally, and above all it didn’t stop VLC from working…

It didn’t make anything seem faster, but it didn’t make anything seem slower. So… job well done Microsoft. You had the chance to make Vista seem better… and you didn’t capitalize.

If it makes you feel better, I feel like Leopard, before Apple OS X 10.5.2 that is, had slowed down on superior software. Running Windows XP on this same machine is like moving at mach speed. Running OS X 10.4.11 on the same hardware seems to make 10.5/10.5.1 seem slow as well. At least 10.5.2 made things better, at least on the machines that I use.

Here’s to hoping that SP2 make Vista better; SP1 did not.