Microsoft’s first service pack for Vista will apparently increase system performance considerably. Hallelujah.

According to James Bannan at APC Magazine, “there is a very noticeable performance increase…There’s far less hard drive thrashing and in general the system seems much smoother and more responsive.”

The service pack contains mostly bug fixes and enhancements plus a new “Create a Recovery Disc” application that can be used to create a system restore DVD.

The update is still in private beta, but the copious amount of information contained at the following link should be a relatively close approximation of what the general public can expect from SP1 whenever it’s ready for real.

LEAKED: Vista SP1 analysed in-depth [APC Magazine]