Hannover  – Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 for the company’s Windows Vista operating system. It is intended to address one of the primary complaints about Vista: its speed.

PCs running the operating system seem quicker once the service pack has been installed, making them easier to use, reports Hannover- based c’t magazine. The magazine’s experts examined the 700 or so security updates and hotfixes for errors and crashes. SP2 is expected to be available some time this quarter.

The service pack won’t do anything to make Vista more secure, so long as the user is already current with the automated updates offered by Microsoft and has installed all security patches.

One way to avoid having to do a huge download is to retrieve Service Pack 2 via the computer’s automatic update function. That allows it to fetch only the components it is missing. (dpa)