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Windows 7 Not Getting A Second Service Pack
An anonymous reader writes "Windows 7 was expected to have Service Pack 2 issued roughly 3 years from its introduction (late 2009). People, including myself, have been asking 'Where is it?' and the answer apparently is, 'It isn't, and will never be' which lends itself to the giant pain of installing Windows 7, then Service Pack 1, and hundreds of smaller hotfix patches. Why Microsoft? No go to Service Pack 2 for Windows 7!"
Until you have to install a new version on blank hardware. One of the really big annoyances with Windows is the initial install. Install Windows 7 (no SP). Now run Windows Update for the next 10 hours downloading and installing updates.
The SP is basically a roll up of fixes so you can install all 500 or so in one go, or when slipstreamed onto the disc, during install. Which turns the Windows Update hassles from huge mess down to something much more managable.
And no, you don't need to get them every week. Once every few months or once a year is quite enough to ensure you aren't spending hours installing updates.
Service Packs also include hotfixes that don't appear on Windows Update. You have to request them from Microsoft if you have that specific issue. One notable hotfix that dogged XP users was the UAA patch that enabled HD Audio sound cards to work. It wasn't available for download from Microsoft, you had to get it from the vendor who made the hardware.... it was later made part of XP SP3.
DISM supports offline patching of .WIM Images:
http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/01/31/offline-wim-patching-with-dism-a-more-automated-method/
If you're just installing Windows 7 from CD on a large install, you're doing it wrong. Deploy a patched WIM.
The way that Apple handles this makes sense.
There are no reinstall discs. There is a recovery partition and something called "internet recovery". If you use internet recovery, it just downloads the current version of the OS and installs it. No further updates required.
It is that bad. In fact, it's worse.
I work for a uni and had to get windows at home to deal with idiots installing software that only worked on it. Only cost like $10 as an employee at least.
Threw that POS into a VM, and started patching just like you. I think it was 130 updates... whatever.
It took over 10 reboots to finish applying all of the updates and service packs. One at a god damned time.
I don't care if it's just one. It's one person times a million.
apt, yum, whatever just needs to run or twice top, reboot for a new kernel (even that isn't necessary in the best server distros) and it's done.
I don't care what your WAIK/WSUS can do -- that may work fine on a corp LAN and such, but as a home user, *IT SUCKS*.
Plus you get the wonderful popups as you try to do something ... "windows needs to rebooot, save everything, because we're going to do it in the next 15 minutes"
Until you have to install a new version on blank hardware. One of the really big annoyances with Windows is the initial install. Install Windows 7 (no SP). Now run Windows Update for the next 10 hours downloading and installing updates.
The SP is basically a roll up of fixes so you can install all 500 or so in one go, or when slipstreamed onto the disc, during install. Which turns the Windows Update hassles from huge mess down to something much more managable.
And no, you don't need to get them every week. Once every few months or once a year is quite enough to ensure you aren't spending hours installing updates.
Problem being that Windows Update is a complete retard. I recently had to install Windows 7 from a DVD and when I first installed it I had to run windows update and I had to go through like one or two cycles up updates before it wanted to push service pack 1 to me, then there was like 10 rounds of downloading, installing and rebooting after the SP had been installed.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
I am in marketing and product management, and I can state that this is not true. Often it is engineering who wants to cut or discontinue support for older products.
It is far more common that I have to force them to support a reasonable life cycle after the launch of a new version (reasonable being 3 or 5 years).
FWIW, Microsoft publishes their PLC, and is quite good at giving you runway to plan for end of support.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
. . . and contrary to the claim of some, both Windows and Windows Server still require many reboots while doing this, unless you streamline them into the install - which in itself is a major pain in the ass when it's hundreds of individual updates. APUP (autopatcher) is a partial solution but it stagnated for a long while and I'm not sure I trust it on production systems now.
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Calling Windows 8 a service pack to Windows 7 is idiotic. It's a complete change in direction to accomadate touch-mania.
Pro Tip: Install SP1 manually first, then do Windows Update.
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Glass is gone, not Aero.
Aero is the desktop composition engine that uses the GPU to do all kinds of rendering shit. This is present in 8 and in fact faster/more capable than ever. Glass (Aero Glass) is the shiny UI in Windows 7, that is gone in Windows 8, replaced with an uglied up flat, square, UI.
So basically there is an even better desktop composition engine, that is used to composite something that looks like Windows 3.1 :).
In terms of drivers, yes older drivers seem quite compatible. My pro sound card works no problems with the 7 drivers and pro audio cards have some of the most finicky drivers out there.
JUST FYI to all those out there who don't know THE FASTER IS A LIE, its a bad hack they bolted on that will cause more problems than they fix. Look up "Win 8 Hybrid boot" to see what I mean their "speed boost" is nothing but a hacked together hybrid of hibernate and sleep that keeps the OS state no matter how you shut down so clean reboots are a thing of the past, in fact you'll have to drop down to CLI and turn the damned thing off to force a clean boot on Windows 8...just stupid.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Let old Hairy fix that problem right up...blam! there ya go, no charge. hell I'll even be nice and take care of the third party stuff most folks want...slam!. Just use these two and go make you a sammich while they run, totally unattended, no muss, no fuss, and with WSUS Offline you can even have it apply the updates for MS Office and .NET while its at it. I keep WSUS on a network drive at the shop, it has every SP and update for every version of Windows from XP - Win 7 X64, while I'm installing the OS I just tell WSUS to drop the latest patches and SP along with .NET into a folder labeled for that OS and its ready to run by the time I hear the Windows chime, couldn't be simpler. you can even have it put the updates onto a thumbstick or DVD if you need to do it somewhere where else, easy peasy friend.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Shutdown will use hybrid boot. A restart is clean, and does not use hybrid boot. Hybrid boot can also be turned off in the UI (though it is a bit tricky to find.)
Be careful when you highlight the high cost of Windows. They charge a lot more than Apple, but you get a lot more:
Average support lifecycle for recent Apple OS releases (bugfixes and security patches): 2-3 years. The latest OS to be abandoned is Leopard (after 2 years). Snow Leopard is expected to be abandoned soon (it's in Extended Support now), and Apple has made no commitment to how long they will continue to support it.
When you pay more for the Microsoft OS, you get a commitment to long support lifecycles, AND you know exactly how long your OS will be supported:
Mainstream Windows 7 Support (bugfixes + security fixes) = until 2015
Extended Windows 7 Support (security fixes) = until 2020.
So what Microsoft is giving you here is a CHOICE - you can choose to use your Windows install for a decade after release, and have no fear of your system being exploited by an unpatched vulnerability. In the Apple world your only "choice" is to keep upgrading, and that's not much help if your hardware is suddenly unsupported.
So, in this perspective the $200 cost of a full-on Windows 8 license is a pretty good deal (and if you want less freedom you can always buy the OEM version for $100). And for the big picture the $40 upgrade price is an absolute STEAL: for your $40 you will get bug fixes until 2018 and exploit fixes until 2023 (by that time even Mountain Lion will be long-since forgotten).
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