Microsoft has admitted that service pack one (SP1) for its Ultimate edition of Windows Vista will not be made available to everyone in mid-March as originally planned, because of a delay with 31 of its language packs.

Vista product manager Nick White said in a blog post (http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/03/03/language-packs-and-windows-vista-sp1.aspx) yesterday that Microsoft will now ship Vista Ultimate SP1 in two "waves", with the second one coming "later in 2008".

Customers running the "premium" version of the operating system on their computers in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish will be able to get the service pack shortly, according to White.

But the remaining Vista Ultimate computers around the world will not receive the long-awaited update until the 31 language packs, that the software giant is presumably tweaking, are supported in SP1.

The 36 language packs are only available in Windows Vista Ultimate and Vista Ultimate 64-bit. SP1 was released to manufacturing on 4 February and is already available to MSDN subscribers.

White admitted that customers whose computers carry one of the 31 language packs affected will currently receive an error when trying to download SP1 from the Window Update website.

It reads: "Windows Vista Service Pack 1 cannot be installed on your computer because the language of Windows Vista you have installed is not supported or you have installed a language pack that is not supported.

"Windows Vista Service pack 1 can only be installed on computers running the English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish versions of Windows Vista or computers running only those language packs."

This latest Vista SP1 delay (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947875) follows a number of cock-ups with third party security apps and utilities (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/22/vista_sp1_security_products/), and problems that forced the software giant to suspend distribution (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/20/vista_sp1_prerequisite_update/) of its essential servicing stack KB937287 update, after customers complained that their PCs wouldn't boot up properly once it had been applied.

White says on his blog that Vista Ultimate users shouldn't worry. "The language packs are on their way. We will have more information on exactly when very shortly so stay tuned!" ®

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