Combined Windows SP1 Beta Begins

Just as Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 share a common code base, they will share a common first service pack (SP1), which entered public beta in July 2010. Although most customers are encountering fewer problems with the latest versions of Windows, many customers defer deployment of a new version until the first service pack is released. The final release of SP1, expected in the first half of 2011, may remove this deployment barrier. SP1 contains previously released security fixes, fixes for specific nonsecurity problems that customers have encountered, slight changes to some existing features, and a few new features.

Combined Windows Client and Server SP1

The integration or roll-up of the previously released updates and new fixes into a single service pack allows organizations to define a new baseline deployment image that does not need to be updated with the previously released stand-alone fixes.

According to a Knowledge Base article released with the service pack, the combined SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 currently includes more than 450 fixes to address compatibility, performance, reliability, and user experience bugs, as well as 24 security updates previously released through Windows Update. An example of a nonsecurity fix is a hotfix that repairs a performance problem some customers have encountered when copying a large number of small files. Because of the combined code base, approximately 80% of the fixes apply to both OSs, with the remaining 20% equally split between fixes exclusive to the client, such as those addressing Media Center bugs, and fixes exclusive to the server, such as those for Hyper-V. Because this is the first beta, and the final release is not due for some time, fixes and features might be different in the final release.