In the world of betas, service packs for windows aren’t exactly exciting, but somewhat a necessary process. Today Microsoft have released Service Pack 1 beta for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. Released to the public for testing, it’s designed to iron out the bugs before the final SP1 release later this year.
After installing it earlier today, I noticed absolutely no difference. The install went smoothly, taking around half an hour with most of that occurring in the background. After a restart and a short wait for a multi-stage configuration to occur, it was all done.
Service Packs have long been relegated to a hotfix rollup rather than introducing new features, this continues with Windows 7 SP1. Windows 7 is a solid operating system that frankly doesn’t need serious changes, this is highlighted by a note on the download site.
“Please Note: This early release of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta is not available for home users. The SP1 Beta does not provide new end-user features, and installation is not supported by Microsoft.”
Microsoft are keen to deliver SP1 to enterprise as many still take an archaic mentality of a service pack being an indication of stability and security. Anyone paying attention would realise issues are now patched as they arise, rather than being held off for an arbitrary point in time usually 12 months after the OS release.
The public beta is available at the TechNet Evaluation Center.
