Microsoft Vista “Wonder Patches” Make Me Wonder

Very interesting news on the Vista front this morning. While some are having success and some are not with the SP1 beta, especially from a mobile perspective, Microsoft has rolled out what Long Zheng of istartedsomething calls ““Wonder Patches,” that seem to offer some promising fixes for some of the issues folks have been experiencing.

What makes me wonder is that one of them (KB941649) seems to address some of the same issues that an earlier compatibility and reliablity pack addressed, so I’m guessing this is just continued tweaking on Microsoft’s part. Regardless, the promise of extended battery life is enough to make most stand up and take notice.

Secondly, I’m wondering if the fixes in these patches are included in Vista SP1 beta?

In any case, none of the patches seem to be available through Microsoft Update at the moment (not saying they won’t be, but they aren’t right now) so here are the links below.

KB941649: Addresses compatibility, reliability, and stability issues with Vista.

• extends the battery life for mobile devices.
• improves the stability of wireless network services.
• shortens the startup time of Windows Vista by using a better timing structure.
• shortens the recovery time after Windows Vista experiences a period of inactivity.
• addressses a compatibility issue that affects some third-party antivirus software applications.
• addressses reliability issue that occurs when a Windows Vista-based computer uses certain network driver configurations.

KB941600: Cumulative update rollup for USB core components

This update addresses a number of USB related issues inlcuding issues with USB ports when returning from sleep or hibernation.

KB941229: Cumulative Update for Media Center

KB941651: Cumultative Update for Windows Media Player (The Knowledge base link is broken at the moment, but here is the download link.)

Given my hectic schedule today, I have not had a chance to try these out, so if anyone does, drop us a comment or post and let us know what you think.