News - Windows 7 Service Pack 1 public beta now available

[HEXUS]

Update for Server 2008 R2 also announced.

Read more.

[miniyazz]

A beta version of existing patches Am I missing something, or is it pointless to have a beta SP?

Anyway, I thought there was a Hexus article on this some weeks back?

[kingpotnoodle]

A beta version of existing patches Am I missing something, or is it pointless to have a beta SP?

Anyway, I thought there was a Hexus article on this some weeks back?

It's more for the corporates, there are still those who adopt the narrow minded "won't use it 'til it's got SP1" set of corporate buyers. It's a retarded opinion but they stick to it like glue... so MS will do an update rollup, call it SP1 and deal with the problem!

[miniyazz]

Well that's fair enough. But why release a beta SP1? Surely all patches are full release?

[jim]

Yeah, but they tend to require reboots between installs and things like that.

There has to be more to an SP release than just a few hundred MS KBs running one after the other, or it woudl be a right pain in the neck to install.

[miniyazz]

I suppose. :/

[Funkstar]

A service pack can also be slipstreamed into an existing install image far easier than a bunch of KBs, meaning any future installs will start off at SP1 level. The big advantage of this is if there was to be another problem like you had with XP, a vanila XP box was vulnerable as soon as it was connected to the internet. I've had at least one install go bad in the few minutes between first install and SP2 (at the time) being installed.

[OilSheikh]

Most of us have significantly chnaged the default Windows 7 including Downgrading WMP and WMovie maker. I do hope that SP1 will ignore these and install OR not overwrite them!

[miniyazz]

The issue I was seeing is releasing a beta SP1, not releasing SP1 itself, that makes plenty of sense. Just to clear that up.

[Paul Adams]

The issue I was seeing is releasing a beta SP1, not releasing SP1 itself, that makes plenty of sense. Just to clear that up.

It is because this particular service pack contains RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory support which a lot of people have been waiting for and want to start testing - the service pack final version is a way off yet.

In general, service packs are a collection of hotfixes since the previous service pack (once upon a time it was "all changes since RTM" but the package size became a concern) and so betas are not typically required.

Occasionally a set of changes or features that were not in any public hotfix are also rolled into service packs, so they need testing internally and by end users to get feedback and avoid "SP1a" issues after release to mop up or avoid some issues reported later.

[this_is_gav]

Most of us have significantly chnaged the default Windows 7 including Downgrading WMP and WMovie maker. I do hope that SP1 will ignore these and install OR not overwrite them!

Movie Maker 2.6 can be downloaded from the Microsoft website, so I doubt they'd stop it working just for the sake of it. It works fine alongside Windows Live Movie Maker, so I see little reason in them blocking it for the sake of moving people onto the inferior new version - it's not like you have to hack .dlls to get it into the system.... just install it.

I've no idea on WMP - I only use it for playing individual MP3s (with foobar being my main music player and KMPlayer my video player), so I'm happy leaving it.

[miniyazz]

It is because this particular service pack contains RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory support which a lot of people have been waiting for and want to start testing - the service pack final version is a way off yet.

In general, service packs are a collection of hotfixes since the previous service pack (once upon a time it was "all changes since RTM" but the package size became a concern) and so betas are not typically required.

Occasionally a set of changes or features that were not in any public hotfix are also rolled into service packs, so they need testing internally and by end users to get feedback and avoid "SP1a" issues after release to mop up or avoid some issues reported later.

Ahhh