Early this month Microsoft released a Beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 via their Customer Preview Program (CPP). The beta was released in five languages: English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish.

The service pack is available as standalone package or as a Windows Update download. The standalone package is around 302 MB for the five language install (32-bit) or 508MB for the 64-bit version. The full language install (36 languages) will be respectively 390MB or 622MB. The Windows Update download size is around 41MB for the 32-bit version, 60MB for the 64-bit version.

Service Pack 2 includes application compatibility improvements, support for 64-bit VIA processors, Bluetooth wireless updates, Wi-Fi performance updates, DirectX updates, high definition audio & video performance updates and Blue-Ray improvements.

Service Pack 2 also includes a Service Pack Clean-up tool (Compcln.exe) which helps restore the hard disk space by permanently deleting the previous versions of the files (RTM and SP1) that are being serviced by SP2. The Pack Clean up tool can also be run offline while creating slipstream images to reduce the size of the image.

You should view Vista SP2's Release Notes before applying the service pack.

If you want to receive the beta through Windows Update, follow the instructions found on the Microsoft Download site. The standalone package is also available from the Microsoft Download site:

• 32-bit (x86)
• 64-bit (x64)

Microsoft is providing support for SP2 in their TechNet Forums.

I've been running the SP2 beta for a few days, and haven't run into any issues. I've also not notice any changes as compared to Service Pack 1.

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