No, mid-March is about right. Some have said specifically the 18th, not
sure where that originated. That is assuming thyat you have the initial
language set.
This is an extract directly from the Windows Vista Team Blog:
a.. For the initial five first wave languages (English, Spanish, German,
French, and Japanese):
a.. We will release SP1 to Windows Update and the download center on
microsoft.com in mid-March. Customers running Windows Vista with any of
these first languages installed can choose to install SP1 by visiting
Windows Update. If your PC has a language installed other than one of the 5
listed above, SP1 will not be offered. Additionally, any system that
Windows Update determines has a driver Microsoft knows to not update
successfully will not be offered SP1.
b.. In mid-April, we will begin delivering Windows Vista SP1 to Windows
Vista customers using Automatic Update. In other words, we will begin
automatic downloads of SP1 for customers who have chosen to have updates
downloaded automatically. Note that, as Mike stated, Windows Update will
automatically download SP1 to any system it determines has a driver known to
not update successfully. (As updates for the problematic drivers become
available, they will be installed automatically by Windows Update so that
the result is that more and more systems will automatically get SP1, but
only when we are confident they will have a good experience.)
c.. MSDN/TechNet Plus subscribers and volume licensing customers have
already been provided access to SP1 in first wave languages, as Mike stated
in his follow-on post.
b.. The remaining languages will be released to manufacturing (RTM) in
April and availability to customers will follow.