Microsoft Announces Windows 7 SP1

CWmike writes "Microsoft has announced service packs for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but declined to set a release date or a schedule for getting a beta in users' hands. A company spokesman said Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) will primarily contain 'minor updates,' including patches and hotfixes that will have been delivered earlier via the Windows Update service, rather than new features. One of the latter: an updated Remote Desktop client designed to work with RemoteFX, the new remote-access platform set to debut in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2008 R2 will also be upgraded to SP1, Microsoft said, presumably at the same time as Windows 7 since the two operating systems share a single code base. Besides RemoteFX — which Microsoft explained Wednesday in an entry on the Windows virtualization team's blog — Server 2008 R2 will also include a feature dubbed 'Dynamic Memory,' which lets IT staff adjust guest virtual machines' memory on the fly. Microsoft did not spell out a timetable for the service packs, saying only that it would provide more information as release milestones approach."

Comments

The wise user will wait

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a well-known fact that all first service-packs are buggy. Best to wait until the first service-pack-service-pack is released.

Re:The wise user will wait

[Ralish]

Yes, a bit like how when Windows 7 was released, MS dropped support for Windows Vista, or how when 2008 R2 was released, they dropped support for 2008? Seriously, do you anti-MS zealots even bother to consider if the statements you make have any basis in reality? MS is only now even beginning to retire Windows 2000 support, XP is still supported for years to come, and Vista is currently placed as supported until 2017 and Server 2008 a little longer. If Windows 7 doesn't get at least two Service Packs in the decade or so of support it will get, I'll erase my system and install Gentoo.

The notion that you are somehow forced to upgrade because Microsoft continually releases new Windows versions is absurd to the extreme. You are forced to upgrade if you want to remain on the bleeding edge, and you are eventually forced to upgrade if you don't want to be obsolete. The same is true of all software as well as hardware. I've yet to find a Linux distribution that supports all releases for eternity; perhaps you are aware of one? Typically, MS supports their software for some of the longest timeframes of any IT company, which is part of the reason for their success. Red Hat also have excellent support lifecycles, as does Sun for Solaris, but they all do eventually end, and support lifecycles that exceed a decade are generally considered generous.

I don't buy into the notion that Slashdot is infested with full-time trolls, who intentionally spread FUD for kicks, or that they are paid to do so. Rather, I think people are just stupid, and posts like this just boggle my mind.

Re:The wise user will wait

[onefriedrice]

The same release window as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7.

On the other hand, Vista provided negative value to users, and many paid hundreds for the privilege. Maybe that evens it out.

Re:The wise user will wait

[bigstrat2003]

That's his point. You aren't pushed into paying to upgrade, your old version will be supported for a while yet. Your "why buy x when you can buy x + 1" argument is a strawman, because that argument assumes that our theoretical user is looking to buy anyway. If he is, then he doesn't mind that there's a newer version, as he's going to buy anyway. If he's not, and he already has Windows, then he can continue to use it for a while longer yet, because support isn't disappearing overnight.

Re:The wise user will wait

[LingNoi]

I've yet to find a Linux distribution that supports all releases for eternity; perhaps you are aware of one?

Some linux distributions just continuously update their packages without any specific releases like Ubuntu does. For example gentoo and arch (?), etc.

It's true that Linux distributions don't have support for as long as windows does however I get the feeling the these huge distribution upgrades such as XP -> Windows 7 cost IT departments more time then just staying up to date with the latest version of whatever Linux distribution you're using.

Think about it. If you're continuously doing updates to your systems it's business as usual. If you have to roll out the latest windows to over 2000 desktops every 10 years that's going to cost you a lot of downtime and productivity loss.

Why? Well first it's a bigger change then continuous improvements. Maybe on Linux some menu that the user has gotten used to has changed but it's not a big deal because it's just a small change. Going from one version of windows to another is a massive change sometimes, for example xp to vista or win 7. Users don't like huge changes they balk at them and throw their hands in the air yelling that they can't work any more.

Another reason is that if you got to convert 2000 desktops to the latest OS, a lot of the business apps are probably going to have problems. Constant rolling updates have the some problem however you don't get 10+ apps not working all at the same time.

Re:The wise user will wait

[Jazz-Masta]

You referenced lifecycle and service pack support availability. Mainstream support for XP ended last year, while extended support ends in 2014. Both support cycles offer security updates, but non-essential hotfixes are only available to companies who have support contracts.

The first link details when they stop selling various licences of the software (not support)
The second link details when support for services packs end AFTER the introduction on new service packs.

To reiterate, XP has extended support until 2014. Windows 2000 support just recently ended.

Apple stops releasing security updates shortly after new releases, while Ubuntu LTS is 3 years for Desktop and 5 years for server...

XP is 13 years.

Re:The wise user will wait

[drsmithy]

Why is a defense needed? Windows has been playing catchup in features for that entire time period.

The only feature it's been playing "catchup" at is the display system. For pretty much everything else, OS X only hit parity with Windows *2000* at about 10.4/10.5.

Re:The wise user will wait

[BitZtream]

Wow, you live in a different world than me then because all the friends and family I know that got Vista asked me to give them XP back :/

Maybe you only know people who never owned a computer before Vista?

People hated it because change for nothing more than the sake of change pisses people off, and thats what Vista was to 99.99999999999999999999999% of the world if you exclude Microsoft.

Re:The wise user will wait

[dave562]

Think about it. If you're continuously doing updates to your systems it's business as usual. If you have to roll out the latest windows to over 2000 desktops every 10 years that's going to cost you a lot of downtime and productivity loss.

I had to undo a bunch of moderation to chime in here. You're only experiencing down time and "productivity loss" if you don't know what you're doing. It doesn't matter if you're rolling out to 2 desktops or 2000 desktops. You create one image and then push it out. Most people do it over the weekend. Most people wait until they have a stable image before rolling it out.

Now if you have IT guys straight out of college with no real world experience you might run into some problems. But as long as you have a realistic time window for your OS rollout, it is a pretty painless process. If you wanted to get really aggressive and take chances, you could just image the base OS image with hardware drivers and rely on something like Systems Center or even Group Policy (if you're really masochistic and like rolling your own packages) to install all of your apps.

Another reason is that if you got to convert 2000 desktops to the latest OS, a lot of the business apps are probably going to have problems. Constant rolling updates have the some problem however you don't get 10+ apps not working all at the same time

Given your hypothetical "every 10 years" desktop OS refresh, if you can't plan 10 years ahead to get your business apps ready for the OS that you're going to be 'forced' to roll out then you have no business managing systems (Windows or otherwise).

To give you an idea of how I'm moving my users from XP to Win7, right now there are two workstations in the organization running Win7. Between those two workstations are 98% of the applications that the organization uses (the other apps are on Terminal Servers). Most of the apps work, a couple don't. As departments find room in their budgets for new workstations, we roll out Win7 if they aren't using apps with compatability problems. Over the course of the next two years, all of the workstations will be running Win7.

It isn't like I'm going to wake up one morning and decide, "I know... I'll go roll out Win7 today." Like any IT project, there is a process to follow.

Re:The wise user will wait

[drsmithy]

Windows path: 300+107+196 = $603, if I'm adding correctly.

You're not. The first number should be about $50, because that's roughly what the OEM version of Windows comparable to the version of OS X that comes with a Mac is.

Further, you should be using Home Premium, not Ultimate, if you want more honest feature comparison.

Re:The wise user will wait

[Z34107]

Well...

• I'm not sure how a bash interpreter is any more of a feature than a Windows command interpreter, especially after PowerShell. Bash can run bash scripts, cmd.exe can run batch files, and WSH lets you do VBScript and a bunch of other crazy stuff.
• NTFS has been journaled since forever, for certain values of forever approaching Windows NT.
• I'd rather use IE6 than Safari, but that's personal preference. I'd like to see how Safari held up to Windows 2000's browser.
• Is PDF reading really an OS feature? Either Acrobat Reader will come preinstalled, or you can download one of a million free viewers. I'll give you PDF saving, but it's a one-click feature in Office 2007 and OpenOffice.
• DVD playback is built into Vista and up. XP either had playback software preinstalled, or it came bundled with DVD drives. Or you downloaded a codec.
• Windows 7 runs on a Pentium 4 with 512 MB RAM and Intel graphics. Add "modern" Intel graphics to the mix or a $40 graphics card and you get Aero.
• XP's, Vista's, and 7's bootloader can boot other operating systems. On campus we have the XP bootloader giving you a choice between Ubuntu or XP.
• XP had indexed search as an update. Also IPv6.

However, I will give you:

• Rearranging taskbar icons. Control over their placement and grouping always bothered me.
• Multiple desktops. However, I'll see your desktops and raise you "my menu bar appears on the wrong monitor when I run applications on my secondary monitor."
• Pre-Vista large icons.
• Running everything as root pre-Vista.
• "Worse than Windows 2000" is probably a bit of a stretch. However, almost all of the first list are also present in Windows 2000, and I guarantee you 2000's system requirements are better.

I think we were trolled, however.

Re:The wise user will wait

[drsmithy]

A bash command line (and Unixlike filesystem structure)

Matter of taste. Powershell is available if you want it.

a web browser that's actually standards-compliant (and was the first to pass Acid2)

Is irrelevant to anyone that isn't a WWW nerd.

Exposé,

Flashy eyecandy (that's really just an improved tile/untile) of little practical value over the Taskbar and Alt+TAB. I was wowed by Expose when it first arrived, but after using it for a while decided it was little more than another example of form over function.

a journaled filesystem

Windows NT had that way back in 1993. Not to mention other neat features that have arrived since like per-file compression and encryption, and transactional operations.

built-in support for reading and saving PDFs, built-in support for playing DVDs,

Congrats, you got a couple.

and lower system requirements

Not in any meaningful sense. OS X is slow on anything less than a multicore CPU with 2GB RAM and a dog on anything less than a G5 with 1GB - and that's the _current_ versions (for each architecture, respectively), which are faster than their predecessors. OS X is _not_ a platform you want to be using as an example of good performance and low system requirements. People sneer at Vista because you couldn't run it on a bottom of the barrel $500 PC (though $200 on a decent video card and more RAM was all it took to remedy that) back in 2007, but it took several *years* after OS X was released before you could buy _any_ system that ran it remotely well.

Windows didn't get the ability to rearrange taskbar icons until Windows 7 (8 years after OS X).

This is only marginally more significant than the 48x48 icons below. The Dock is not a Taskbar, and is atrociously bad at pretending to be one (hence the reason they tried working around its flaws with Expose).

Windows didn't get built-in indexed search until Windows Vista (4 years after OS X).

Windows 2000 had the search indexing service (albeit not enabled by default).

Windows didn't get IPv6 support until Windows Vista (4 years after OS X).

XP had IPv6 support (though it needed to be explicitly enabled). As did Windows Server 2003.

Windows ran everything as root by default until Windows Vista (6 years after OS X).

A configuration semantic (and one applicable only to certain configurations, at that) is not a "feature". Windows NT was multiuser from day 1, back in 1993.

Windows didn't get icons larger than 48x48 until Windows Vista (6 years after OS X).

Wow, that's some serious scratching. Ok, you can have that one, too.

Examples of features introduced since 10.4 that Windows still doesn't have include multiple desktops, and a bootloader that supports operating systems from more than one vendor.

Multiple desktops I'll also give, though I've never found them particularly useful (and I get the distinct impression they're something of a red-headed stepchild in OS X). You can boot multiple OSes from the Windows bootloader.

I'll admit the earlier versions of Mac OS X were somewhat flawed, but "worse than Windows 2000" is a pretty serious accusation, and one that requires evidence.

For pretty much anything low level (scheduling, multithreading, locking, memory management, etc), OS X has been playing catchup. Even today, it doesn't have anything equivalent to ReadyBoost or SuperFetch.

I feel compelled to point out that OS X being roughly on par with Windows 2000 in the 10.5 timeframe is to be expected. There's only so fast development can proceed, and OS X would have had about as much development time from its baseline (NeXTSTEP) by then as Windows 2000 had from its (NT 3.1). OS X and Windows development is basically proceeding at the same pace (OS X is probably a bit quicker, though it damn well should be given its smaller scope, and Apple's much smaller

The first of many?

[zmaragdus]

Alright. So who wants to put down bets on how many service packs are eventually released for 7?

Re:They call that a service pack?

[mlts]

What I'd love to see is BitLocker given the ability to encrypt system/boot drives the way BitLocker To Go drives can be encrypted with a passphrase.

This way, I could have decent WDE protection on machines without having to make sure that a TPM is specced on each of them, or use a third party utility. (This is nothing against PGP, TrueCrypt, or others, but corporate clients get real nervous when you spec a utility they never heard of [1] that handles a core security measure.)

[1]: IMHO, it takes living under a rock to not have heard of PGP or TrueCrypt and be in IT, but there are those PHBs out there, and they make the purse string decisions.

Re:Let the Games Begin...

[glwtta]

Windows 7 is the best product MS has released in years. While this may be considered a pyrrhic victory (ME, anyone?), the fact remains that Windows 7 is a solid product.

Just because I'm bored: a Pyrrhic victory is one that comes at too high a price. An example would be if Windows 7 was an excellent product, but the development effort bankrupted Microsoft. Here you just mean that the praise may be disingenuous.

(I like being an asshole about language, alright?)

Re:Martin-boundary Announces Windows 7 SP2

[pablomme]

I think you accidentally the joke.

Re:Martin-boundary Announces Windows 7 SP2

[Kugrian]

The joke needs a service pack before anyone will find it funny.

USB 3.0 support?

[SpryGuy]

Win7 was released without built in USB 3.0 support ... will it be added with SP1?