Microsoft has announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of the eagerly awaited Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)

The Service Pack will not be available for download until mid-March at the earliest. According to ChannelWeb, the reason for this is that “during beta testing for Vista SP1, Microsoft found that some device drivers were causing problems on systems with SP1 installed. Although the issues can be fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, Microsoft decided this would be too complicated for most users. As a result, Microsoft will spend the next month hunting for additional problematic device drivers, said David Zipkin, senior product manager in Windows Client Group.”

Microsoft said that it plans to release Vista SP1 in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese sometime in mid-March. The update will be pushed via Windows Update, but users can also access it on the Download Center.

The company also made available to manufacturers Windows Server 2008 which will be the first new version of Microsoft’s server operating system since 2003.

“It is an exciting day for us and an exciting day for our partners and customers,” wrote group programme manager Alex Hinrichs on Microsoft’s Windows Server Division Blog.

“We have all been working towards this day for the past three years and over 5,000 people have contributed to this release.”

The Windows server 2008 is due to be officially launched on February 27 at Las Vegas, according to a released statement and by April, most users will be able to get the service pack as an automatic update. Windows server 2008 includes new features like Network Access Protection besides boasting of Group Policy applications.