Windows 7 Service Pack 1

Windows 7 Service Pack 1
Ask Bob Rankin

Summary: The first Service Pack for Windows 7 since that operating system’s release is due to any day now. In fact, beta copies of Windows 7 SP1 have already leaked to reviewers and into peer-to-peer file sharing networks like Bittorrent. Here's what you need to know...

What's in Windows 7 SP1?

You may be wondering whether or not you need to concern yourself with Windows 7 SP1. The short answer is, probably not. Microsoft says that Windows 7 SP1 will contain only “minor updates,” most of which you already will have if you’ve been using Windows Update regularly to keep your Windows 7 installation current with patches and improvements. However, there will be one new feature added.

“Windows 7 SP1 will deliver an updated Remote Desktop client that takes advantage of RemoteFX introduced in the server side with SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2,” said Brandon LeBlanc, communications manager on the Windows Client Communications team. If you don’t know what that complicated statement means, you probably don’t use Remote Desktop to control someone else’s computer over the Internet. Don’t worry about it. But here are the geeky details for the curious:

Microsoft RemoteFX is a technology that makes using a remote computer that’s running Windows 7 more like the experience of running it on your local computer. The Windows Aero interface will work properly; there is support for all media types; audio will be “highly synchronized”; Silverlight and 3D graphics will work.

This is all part of Microsoft’s “desktop virtualization” strategy, by which the company hopes to sell more server-based computing systems in addition to desktop operating systems. The idea is to make running Windows 7 and shared applications over a network as much like running local copies on a single-user computer. How well desktop virtualization works depends on how big the user population is in relation to the available hardware and network bandwidth resources.

Nervous and Jerky?

If you went through the massive upheavals of Windows XP SP2, which seemed for some users to cause more problems than it solved, you may be a bit nervous about the coming of the first Windows 7 service pack. Relax -- this time it should all go very smoothly. Microsoft seems to have learned how to make Service Packs better and faster to install, according to preview reviewers of Windows 7 SP1.

Oh, and don’t go looking for a pre-release or bootleg copy of Windows 7 SP1. You don’t need it urgently and it’s not fully cooked yet; there are still bugs to be worked out. Also, any copy you obtain from a source other than Microsoft Update could well be infected with viruses or other malware. Just be patient and check Windows Update on your regular schedule, if you don’t have Automatic Update activated.

(Win7_SP1perRankin.htm)