Microsoft is planning to roll out Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Visual Studio 2003 (VS 2003) in the second quarter. Beta testing of that service pack is slated to begin in late March. The company is readying in parallel SP1 for Visual Studio 2005 (VS 2005), and planning to ship the final release of that code in the third calendar quarter of this year. Microsoft has not gone public with an expected beta date for SP1 for VS 2005.

Last fall, when Microsoft first announced intentions to issue service packs for its latest Visual Studio releases, company officials said they expected to deliver both SP1s in the first half of 2006.

Microsoft made new information on its Visual Studio service pack plans available on Tuesday, when it quietly launched a new Web site dedicated to "servicing" Visual Studio and the .Net Framework.

VS 2003 SP1 will include hotfixes and general-distribution release updates delivered between the release-to-manufacturing of VS 2003 and the end of the SP1 customer beta period, according to Microsoft. SP1 also will include security fixes deemed by Microsoft security as "critical, important or moderate." Also included will be any fixes that will improve product reliability and stability, including "the crashes most frequently reported via Watson," Microsoft's online crash-reporting tool. Other customer-requested fixes that don't require major changes also will be part of the final VS 2003 SP1 release.

VS 2005 SP1 will include all of the same type of fixes, according to the Microsoft servicing Web site.

Microsoft committed to providing the pair of Visual Studio service packs in early November, on the heels of reports by some developers of problems they were encountering with the final VS 2005 integrated-development environment code.

This article was originally published on microsoft-watch.com.