Several popular technology Web sites have posted prerelease updates to Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, and some are maintaining that the piece parts will become part of the first official service pack for the new OS.

One file, the Vista Performance and Reliability Pack, "resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista," according to text from Microsoft that accompanies the software.

Among the pack's promised enhancements: improved performance in returning to the desktop from Vista's Photo and Windows Energy screen savers; resolution of an issue that causes Vista to corrupt some AVI files; and faster restoration of the login screen when resuming from hibernate.

The pack also fixes an issue that may cause incorrect display of Internet Explorer pages.

The second file, the Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack, also offers a number of fixes. Improved visual appearance of games, better networking reliability, increased printer compatibility, and sharper HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playback are among them.

The fixes were offered over the weekend to participants in Microsoft's beta test program for Windows Server 2008, but quickly leaked onto the Internet.

The broad scope of the patches has led a number of Internet bloggers to speculate that they are a precursor to Windows Vista SP1. "Wow, lots of updates rolled into just two hot fixes," gushed a poster on a forum hosted by tech enthusiast site Neowin -- one of the Web sites that posted the leaked files.

To date, Microsoft has denied all reports that Windows Vista SP1 already exists. A spokesmen for the company recently told InformationWeek that Microsoft's official position on Vista SP1 is that it will be released sometime later this year. 

This month's 'Patch Tuesday' yesterday reportedly saw Microsoft releasing 6 patches, out of which 3 have been rated as 'critical' by the company.

The 3 'critical' patches address flaws in the .NET Framework, Microsoft Excel, and the Windows Active Directory that could become potential means for hackers to infect vulnerable systems with hostile code.

The first of Microsoft's 6 patches reads 'critical', and fixes a vulnerability in Microsoft Excel, which could allow hackers break into a PC if they opened an infected spreadsheet.

The second patch is again 'critical' and addresses holes in the .NET Framework, which is a massive computer code library -- part of Windows Vista, as well as versions of Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003.

Whereas, Microsoft's third 'critical' patch is intended to prevent attacks on Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003.

As per some security experts, the patch for the .NET Framework is most significant, the reason being it addresses flaws that could affect virtually every application running on nearly all operating systems currently supported by Microsoft.

Next in importance, experts say, is the patch for Excel since it fixes a vulnerability that has potential for creation of malware.

The remaining 3 of the total 6 patches released have been awarded less urgent security ratings by Microsoft. They are targeted at the firewall built into Windows Vista, Microsoft Office Publisher 2007, and Windows XP Professional respectively.

Those who wish to download the patches may visit Microsoft's security Web site. Alternately, they can sign-up for automatic security updates.

Microsoft claims the bulk of hardware devices and peripherals in the market work with Windows Vista, but it will be several years before the ecosystem is ready, partners say.
At its annual hardware developers show in Los Angeles this week, Microsoft embarked on a concerted effort to quash complaints that hardware and software incompatibilities and the lack of new hardware and applications for Vista is hurting adoption.

Microsoft said it has sold 40 million copies of Windows Vista in its first 100 days on the market -- twice the number of copies of Windows XP sold in the same timeframe.

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