While it's understandable that people are excited about the first service pack for Windows 7, I've been cautioning readers of this site and listeners of the Windows Weekly podcast since last year that Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) would include no new functionality. More recently, Microsoft confirmed this, and this past week the first pre-beta build of Windows 7 actually leaked. So I grabbed a copy to make sure there wasn't something hidden in there.
The documentation for SP1 is pretty clear, however. Here's what it says:
Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 will include previously released updates.
The impact of SP1 on the Windows 7 client operating system is considered to be minimal. Included changes are expected to address minor usability issues in specific scenarios. While Microsoft always recommends that users deploy the latest service pack as quickly as possible in order to maintain the best levels of support, security and user experience, we are strongly recommending to customers and partners that deployment of SP1 should not be considered a blocking issue for the adoption of Windows 7. In other words, organizations do not need to wait for SP1 to begin receiving the value of Windows 7 today as we don?t anticipate the SP1 for Windows 7 to be substantial.
But that's not good enough, right? We need to install the service pack to be sure. And I did just that. Here are some shots of the installer in action.
You're logged off of Windows 7...
At 30 percent, the PC reboots...
Setup completes and you're returned to Windows 7...
So far, I've not seen anything unusual. (Though the build string isn't being painted on the desktop, which is common for this sort of beta.) I'll let you know if I find anything else out.
