[Rumor] Windows 7 SP1 set for 2H10?

Robert Hallock (Thrax) Is Microsoft preparing Windows 7's first service pack already? It may be sooner than we think.

November 3, 2009 9:30 PM ET in News

windows7Wzor, a reliable source of leaked Windows 7 information, has said that Windows 7’s first service pack is on track for the second half of 2010.

According to the report, a first beta of the service pack could hit select testers as early as December, later opening to the public in January of the new year. The report goes on to say that two release candidate builds would be compiled throughout the spring, with an RTM following in the summer months.

Finally, Wzor alleges that the service pack would officially launch in September/October, or very near to the one year anniversary of Windows 7’s launch.

Fact check: There is no clear way to confirm the accuracy of Wzor’s statements, but we do have some evidence which lends credibility. The first piece is a series of 13 pre-RTM Windows 7 builds spun in the “winmain_sp” code branch. Compiled between 28 May, 2009 and 01 July, 2009, these builds were specifically labeled as builds designed to test service pack code.

The second piece of evidence is Wzor himself. As we inferred, Wzor was a consistently reliable source for the vast majority of the accurate leaks, build explanations and rumors that surrounded Windows 7’s development. For many that have closely followed Windows 7’s history, his credibility is hard to question.

8 Comments:

  1. Sledgehammer70
    4 Nov '09, 2:31 am

    So what is broke? and what needs fix'en?

  2. QCH
    4 Nov '09, 2:58 am

    Some of it, in my opinion, is to satisfy those old philosophy that no OS is ready for deployment until SP1 is released. I know a few "experts" where I work that insist that we should hold off for that exact reason. No matter that Win7 is an extension of Vista that fixes so many issues and has been really poured over by millions of users.

  3. Thrax
    4 Nov '09, 4:26 am

    10/1 says it's just a security rollup that satisfies the cynical IT vets mentioned above.

  4. Bandrik
    4 Nov '09, 5:30 am

    Not too surprised. I expected them to have a laundry list of fixes and features they just didn't get around to, and there will undoubtedly be some more bugs surface in the next few months as more and more users join the Windows 7 family.

    In the meantime though, I'm in no hurry to see a SP1 when I keep hearing people talk about how much they love 7.

    And yes, I'm still on XP. That is, until I get the time I need to reinstall all my programs. Can't take a break yet.

  5. Alan Burns
    4 Nov '09, 3:35 pm

    Now, if any of you had seen the reports of the contents of the leaked winmain_sp builds released during June, you may not be so cynical regarding the service pack. There are some interesting changes in those builds that never actually made it to the final RTM of Windows 7 - I personally believe that Microsoft planned to add a lot mroe into Windows 7, but due to time constraints were forced to leave some of the features out and roll them up in a service pack.

    Since a lot of admins don't even take a second look before the first service pack anyway, the majority of the enterprise market wouldn't miss out on anything, and stripping those features out means Windows 7 became the first OS in recent history that Microsoft has released on time (and perhaps the first in history to be released early; remember Bill mentioning something about "3 years after Vista?" That'd be January.)

    Lets just say that I am quietly confident that SP1 will bring more to the table than security rollups and enterprise peace-of-mind.

  6. Thrax
    4 Nov '09, 4:38 pm

    It's hard to believe that Microsoft is going to significantly enhance the feature set of Windows 7 with the first service pack.

    The firm has already said that it will never again release a service pack like XP SP2, where fundamental and significant feature changes/additions are made to the OS. I'm trying to find the relevant link to support this.

    In all, I guess it really comes down to speculation over how broad Microsoft's definition of that statement really is, but I'm not betting the farm on SP1 adding much beyond official hotspot support and a security rollup.

  7. Alan Burns
    4 Nov '09, 6:46 pm

    @Robert Hallock
    XP SP2 was effectively a rewrite of the OS though, to harden it since SP1/gold was woefully inadequate. They postponed development of Vista for that.

    That doesn't rule out the possibility that Win7 SP1 will not contain feature updates like the ones shown in the winmain_sp builds. Reason being, is that if these features WERE initially planned, but were scrapped/postponed due to time constraints, threes no reason to believe that the major groundwork for it was already laid down. Microsoft may simply have been forced to have these features unimplemented by the RC cutoff date - That's when the code was effectively frozen, with only bug fixes left. I'm still 85% certain this SP will contain feature updates. You don't need to get the link, I know of that particular comment, but I still believe due to these reasons that 7-SP1 will be an interesting update to the OS.

  8. Thrax
    4 Nov '09, 6:48 pm

    We shall indeed see what happens. I certainly won't bitch if SP1 adds a raft of new features that were cut to make the 7600.16385 build RTM on time.

    Thanks for stopping by with your great comments, Alan!

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