Oh, here we go. According to Mary Jo Foley’s unblinking eye, the pre-beta Vista SP1 may or may not be in the hands of certain testers. This may or may not mean that the public beta will be released sometime soon.

Microsoft told early testers that if everything went smoothly, the first service pack would be out in November. The beta version is supposedly coming sometime between about a month ago and 2009. Until there’s a place on Microsoft’s website for you and me to download some sort of service pack — alpha, beta, pre-beta, or otherwise — I’m not holding my breath.

Quit playing games with my heart, Microsoft. It’s not fair.

Shhhh! Pre-beta Vista SP1 is out there [ZDNet.com]