Microsoft Posts Reliability Update for Windows Vista SP1

Comforting to know Windows Vista SP1 still isn't reliable, eh? On Tuesday Microsoft posted a reliability / performance update. You'll recall that prior to the release of SP1, Microsoft also released reliability updates. Guess it's still not reliable enough.

The list is rather large, but one of the key fixes is one in which "large applications" (like Office apps) "cannot run after the computer is turned on for extended periods of time." According to the KB article, in such an instance you may be told the app is "not a valid Win32 application."

That bug was posted on the TechNet support forums way back in April. Obviously it's a nasty bug, and it wasn't until April 21st that Microsoft Employee John Gray chimed in saying:

Microsoft is aware of this issue and is working on a fix. As several people have observed, this is konwn (sic) to affect Excel 2007, Access 2007, Snipping Tool, and Windows Media Player on Vista SP1. The fix is to either exit as many apps as possible that you are running (e.g. Outlook), and then load the app (and then you can reload the apps you had running), or a logoff/logon will clear it up for a while (days/weeks). The error messages are confusing, but the problem is neither an invalid application file nor insufficient system resources. It only affects certain applications, and typically only after the user has been logged in for an extended period of time.

Pretty bad when you advertise how reliable the OS is, and how it can run for days, right? Now we see why this is a "reliability fix."

At any rate, yesterday, in the same thread, Gray announced the fix had been rolled into this reliability patch, to obvious cheers.

The full list of fixes is below. You can download the patch from the above KB article, and it will be available via Windows Update in July.

This update improves the performance, responsiveness, and reliability of Windows Vista in various scenarios.

This update includes the following improvements on a Windows Vista SP1-based computer:

• This update improves the stability of Windows Vista SP1-based computers by addressing some crashes that may occur when you try to check e-mail by using a POP3 e-mail client such as Windows Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird. The crashes may occur on a Windows Vista SP1-based computer in the following scenario:
• Incoming POP3 and outgoing SMTP traffic monitoring is enabled.
• Both a third-party antivirus application and an antispyware application are installed, such as the following applications:
• ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite by Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
• SpySweeper by Webroot Software, Inc.

• This update improves the reliability of the Windows Vista SP1 based-computers by addressing some problems that occur when you delete user accounts by using the User Accounts item in Control Panel. When this problem occurs, the system may stop responding (hang).

• This update improves the reliability of Windows Vista SP1-based computers that experience issues in which large applications cannot run after the computer is turned on for extended periods of time. For example, when you try to start Excel 2007 after the computer is turned on for extended periods of time, a user may receive an error message that resembles the following:
  
  EXCEL.EXE is not a valid Win32 application
  

• This update improves the reliability of Windows Vista SP1-based computers by reducing the number of crashes that may be caused by the Apple QuickTime thumbnail preview in Windows Live Photo Gallery.

• This update improves the performance of Windows Vista SP1-based computers by reducing audio and video (AV) stuttering. Such AV stuttering may occur when the audio or video component is streaming high definition content from a Windows Vista SP1-based computer that has a NVIDIA network adapter nForce driver version 67.5.4.0 that is installed to a Windows Media Center Extender device.