Planet Lowyat

Shit! My Windows Vista x64 Service Pack 1 RC build expire soon. I was download Windows Vista X64 SP1 RC build few month back from MSDN and it’s going to expire end of the June 2008.

Hi there -

Quick reminder for all of you out there who helped test Windows Vista SP1 and may still be running Release Candidate builds (any build less than 6.0.6001.18000). The RC builds will expire on June 30th - so if you happen to running one, be sure to uninstall it before the end of the month. More info is available in the SP1 Forum.

Thanks,

From Microsoft Update Product Team Blog.

How do you know if you’re running a pre-release build?

If your desktop says “For Evaluation Purposes”, you are running time-limited beta/RC software and will need to uninstall.  Another check is to hit the start button and type “WinVer” – if it lists an expiration date then you have a time-limited version of SP1.

How do you uninstall pre-release versions of Vista SP1?

If you installed SP1 Beta/RC as an update to an existing RTM version of Vista, you can probably uninstall it directly.  For instructions on how to uninstall SP1, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948537.  The best way is to uninstall from the “Programs and Features” control panel icon, using the “View Installed Updates” option on the left, click Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB936330), and then click Uninstall.

If you did a full install (a.k.a clean install) of SP1 from a DVD or network share, or updated an RTM version using the DVD to do an upgrade full install, there is no uninstall method; we recommend you back up your data, reformat, and start with an RTM DVD (and then install SP1) or a final SP1 integrated install DVD.  While you may be able to force upgrade using a full install upgrade, this isn’t a recommended practice over the Beta or RC version of SP1.

Installing the final build of SP1 after the uninstall of the pre-release build

If you want to install the final SP1 build after uninstall is complete, first check Windows Update. If Windows Update offers you SP1, that’s the best way to install. If Windows update does not offer SP1 your computer may have one of the problematic drivers we have documented in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948343. If you installed the Beta or RC builds, you probably dealt with this with already and it wasn’t a major issue. If you don’t see SP1 on Windows Update, you should visit the download center to install the standalone SP.

So how? Backup everything on my drive C:\, format it and install Linux.