Microsoft has announced that the "Spring Update" to Xbox Dashboard will be available to all Xbox Live Silver and Gold users. The update will bring over 125 new features and enhancements to the Xbox 360.

The update itself downloads in about a minute, and does not require a hard drive or memory card. If you do not have broadband access, this update will be available on future game releases.

The first major update since the launch of the Xbox 360 in November '05, Microsoft plans on releasing two such software updates a year.

The thriving community, now more than fifty percent connected to Live, has been heard, and Microsoft has listened. Many of Blogcritics' complaints have also been addressed.

Below is a list of some of the biggest additions and enhancements; there are many more smaller ones too tedious to cover:

• New background download manager gives gamers the ability to queue up and download six items at a time while actively playing games or browsing the dashboard.
• Updated Xbox Live Marketplace menus makes it easier for players to find and store all of their gaming and entertainment content.
• Full remote control features for Xbox Live Marketplace videos allow gamers to fast forward and rewind at various speeds (2X-16X) during all videos downloaded from Marketplace.
• Custom background music now continues to play without interruption during game loads and when transitioning from game to game or disc content.
• DVD movie bookmarking now allows gamers to pause a movie at any point, put in a game for gameplay and return to the movie at the exact point it left off.
• Improved DVD movie playback for a smoother, higher quality viewing experience, including additional VGA support.
• “Boot to Dashboard” setting will bypass the loading of any disc in the drive and open directly to Dashboard during power-on.
• Online status set to “Away” when screensaver becomes active.
• Show “Last Played Game” selection in Xbox Live Arcade first before enumerating all games (when Arcade game was last game played).
• Show videos downloaded from Marketplace in the Video area of the Media blade.
• Total USB keyboard support, Pop-up guide / Dashboard now supports USB keyboard.
• Improved handling of backward-compatible update experience, reboot back into Xbox v1 environment instead of Dashboard.

Be sure to check back to Blogcritics to hear our thoughts on the Spring Xbox Dashboard Update, as well as our new list of Xbox 360 Annoyances (the things that did not get addressed this time, but hope they will in the future).