Good news for everyone who’s waiting with baited breath for the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1: Microsoft released the first release candidate of SP1 to beta testers today, which means that a final release can’t be that far off. As you might recall, Vista SP1 is set to deliver a whole slew of improvements to Microsoft’s latest OS, including a speed boost, increased third-party application compatibility, more drivers, better encryption and improved battery life for laptops. The company has previously stated that the service pack will be available in early 2007 and as far as we can tell, they should have no problem making it happen.

For more on Vista SP1 RC1:
– see this Daily Tech article