Word on the street is that Microsoft is hard at work on Windows 7 Service Pack 1. And while that's just a rumor for now, I'd be kind of surprised if it wasn't true. After all, Microsoft has a long history of putting out service packs that bundle together all of the incremental updates for each of its operating systems. Usually a service pack also includes a few new features. Here are a a few of things that Windows 7 SP 1 might include:
- All of the Windows updates that have been released so far
- Support for USB 3.0 and other new hardware
- Umm, that's about it
Basically, if you leave Windows Update on, you'll probably already have most of the bug fixes, tweaks, and new features well before Windows 7 SP1 actually ships later this year. The idea isn't necessarily to offer incredible new functionality for the operating system. Rather, it will shore up an OS that's already pretty stable and signal to enterprise customers that have been holding out for SP1 that it's OK to upgrade from Windows XP or Vista now.
While we don't expect to see an official release of Windows 7 SP1 until this summer at the earliest, Spanish site
Muywindows claims to have gotten its hands on an early version and has posted a handful of screenshots that don't really show much of anything beside the installer screen and the Windows system properties. These could easily be photoshopped, but they could just as easily be real.
[via
gHacks and
instant fundas]
Tags: rumors, service pack, ServicePack, windows 7, windows 7 sp1, Windows7, Windows7Sp1
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Comments
10
Subscribe to commentsAron ChristensenJan 18th 2010 2:48PM
Exactly. Most people don't move onto the next OS until SP1. They feel thats when all the major release bugs get fixed.
The sooner Windows 7 can have the Sp1 tag, the sooner they start selling more
FastmanJan 18th 2010 4:08PM
SP1? You mean Vista SP4. ;)
kojo87Jan 19th 2010 7:50AM
NOT FUNNY
darwinsurvivorJan 21st 2010 12:36PM
Yes, but Microsoft will call it Windows 2010!
Daniel BloisJan 18th 2010 4:09PM
@Aron,
You are right many companies do wait until SP1 - which is illogical. It should go by how stable and useful the release is. That means some OS builds (including Windows 7) should be adopted upon RTM, others like Vista wait until SP1 or SP2. I personally did not have any trouble with Vista RTM but many people did.
@Fastman,
With your logic than Windows 98 was Windows 95 SP3. That is not true - Windows 7 was supposed to be an Evolution of Vista - and that it was. They alternate between major and minor versions. So according to you every small version is a SP of its predecessor?
sRcJan 18th 2010 6:34PM
well a lot more than just the regular updates go into service packs. theyre usually packed full of dozens to hundreds of hotfixes for rare and specific issues that before the rollup you can only get by contacting Microsoft if you actually have the problem.
tracker1Jan 20th 2010 11:34PM
I'd guess that they'll also include .Net 4 as part of the service pack, since they made sure to include .Net 3.5 SP1 in the release version. One might also expect to see Silverlight 3 or maybe 4 in the SP release.
TomJan 18th 2010 8:48PM
Good. Microsoft needs to make more service packs, not less. Makes it far easier to ensure a newly deployed machine is recently patched with just one process, instead of 90 different small updates.
XP should be on service pack 9 by now, not 3.
AsgaroJan 19th 2010 2:09PM
I'm wondering: doesn't companies also wait for the first SP release because it's easier to update the computers?
Before a SP, it are all individual updates.
After a SP, you can download 1 SP and just a few seperate updates.
Or am I missing something?
(Still a student lol)
Ricky_CriticJan 29th 2010 1:39AM
Cool application and definitely adding up to all other helpful utility come along with Windows 7.