Microsoft's Mike Nash announced today on the Windows Vista Team Blog that adjustments have been made to the SP1 release for beta participants, Volume Licensing customers, and MSDN/TechNet Plus subscribers. Here's how those users are affected:

- Late Friday SP1 RTM was made available to individuals and companies who participated in the SP1 beta program
- At the end of this week the English version of Windows Vista SP1 will be made available to Volume Licensing customers. Other languages will follow soon after
- Later this month, SP1 will be available to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers

In related news, ZDNET Blog has more information on the Vista SP1 activation hack:

First off, the hack. The hack in question is another OEM BIOS hack but packaged under the name of Vista Loader. This hack is similar to the Paradox OEM BIOS. The Paradox hack was the most commonly used Vista activation hack (which is why Microsoft pulled the plug on it) but this one seems to have been quite popular, so I'm not sure why Microsoft didn't pull the plug on this one too. Since other outlets have now named this hack as working on Vista SP1 I don't have any problem