Installing Service Pack 2 Beta is relatively painless. The installer states that the installation can take over an hour with multiple restarts, but SP2 Beta installed in about a half an hour on my test PC with only one restart.

Granted, it took me two tries to get it to install. The first time I attempted to install, I got an error two minutes in, right after the installer attempted to create a restore point, informing me that "a system reboot is required is required to roll back changed made."

I'm not entirely sure what changes I made that needed rolling back, but I went ahead and restarted anyway (so I guess you can technically say that I restarted twice while installing SP2 Beta). While rebooting, Vista went ahead and installed a couple earlier system updates, so I wonder if the updates that were ready to install had something to do with it. Second time was the charm, though.

Coming Monday

On Monday I expect to have more to say about Vista Service Pack 2 Beta. SP2 is mostly an under-the-hood update, so changes are largely subtle. A couple I plan to look at, though, are the included Service Pack Clean-up tool and the more resource-efficient sidebar gadgets. Is there anything you would like us to look at? Let us know and leave a comment.