Windows Vista SP1 beta to arrive later this week?

Last week, we reported that a beta of Windows Vista SP1 might be released as early as this week. According to ZDnet, the company is still on track to deliver: "Microsoft is expected to provide certain testers with access to the Vista SP1 Preview beta code later this week, possibly on July 29, the day the company will announce its fiscal 2007 earnings." According to ZDnet's sources, SP1 will contain the following updates:

• Performance tweaks lessening the amount of time it takes to copy files and shut down Vista machines
• Improved transfer performance and decreased CPU utilization via support for SD Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA)
• Support for ExFat, the Windows file format for flash memory storage and other consumer devices
• Improvements to BitLocker Drive Encryption to allow not just encryption of the whole Vista volume, but also locally created data volumes
• The ability to boot Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) on an x64 machine
• Improved success rate for firewalled MeetingSpace and Remote Assistance connections

For more on the (forthcoming?) SP1 beta:
- see this ZDnet article

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