Since its release, the steady stream of updates have made Windows Vista noticeably less annoying to use. The biggest stride forward was the release of the operating system’s first service pack, back in March of this year. Neowin.net now claims that the second service pack is on its way, with the first beta being dropped on testers in the coming four weeks.

The final release of Vista’s second service pack will be delivered before Windows 7, so we can expect it to arrive somewhere next year. A beta will appear in the coming four weeks; invites have been sent out to beta testers, Neowin claims. SP2 for Server 2008 follows the same time table. In fact, a placeholder webpage is already available at Microsoft’s website.

The second service pack will include Windows Desktop Search 4.0, support for Bluetooth wireless (including BT 2.1 fixes), and additional application compatibility updates. Server 20008, “Microsoft will include backwards compatibility with Terminal Services licensing keys, improved manageability features with DFS/FRS console, and Storage Resource Manager, print server and spooler performance improvements for printers in Windows Vista and Server 2008 and improved error reporting in DFSR to help identify incorrectly configured deployments which lead to failed replication.”