Microsoft Corp. Tuesday released the two Windows Vista updates that had leaked to the Internet at the end of July, but won’t say when it will begin pushing them to users via Windows Update. Pegged as performance and reliability packs, the pair install a long list of non-security bug fixes, among them speed improvements to wake-from-hibernation, a patch that eliminates the long wait to calculate the time it will take to copy or move large directories, and several that target compatibility glitches with video drivers.
Microsoft even described one of the quashed bugs with the vague but ominous-sounding: “The computer stops responding or restarts unexpectedly when you play video games or perform desktop operations.” All of the fixes, said the company, are new to Vista, and do not replace any existing updates. Users must restart their computer after each update is installed.
Microsoft did not respond today to queries about when the Vista performance and reliability updates would migrate to the company’s automatic patching services, including Windows Update. Some bloggers and users have been betting that the hotfix packs will be offered up next Tuesday, the already-scheduled monthly patch day for Microsoft. But others have discounted that date, saying Microsoft would not overtax users or the automatic update systems with such large downloads.
Elizabeth Montalbano of the IDG News Service contributed to this report.