back to article Microsoft talks up Windows 7 SP1, shy on dates

Microsoft revealed a few more details about Windows 7 Service Pack 1 yesterday, confirming it would involve a small-fry update to the operating system. However, the software vendor didn't reveal when a finalised version of Windows 7 SP1 - nor indeed a beta - of the updates package would land. "For Windows 7, SP1 includes only …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    "I say this to you: go back to your command centres

    and prepare for rollout!"

  2. jake Silver badge

    Is it just me?

    Or is Microsoft releasing operating systems[1] and service packs closer and closer together? I believe the technical term is "flailing".

    [1] For small values of "operating".

    1. Ragarath
      Grenade

      More Like

      They realise that people wait until SP1 so are just rolling that out as quick as possible. Roll Up, Roll up SP1 is here. The management won't care that it is just a few fixes.

      Grenade because I have already started the Win 7 rollout.

      1. Tom 35

        SP1

        Should be called Marketing pack 1.

        But Windows 7 is more like Vista SP2, it's nothing like the Vista RTM pile of crap.

        People who bought new computers and were stuck with Vista, then had to pay for an upgrade to 7 were ripped off. If you chose to buy Vista...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Happy

          @ Tom 35

          Clap. Clap. Clap. calling a new MS OS release a service pack of the previous OS is really droll and original. Here, have a lollipop as a reward for your creativity. Good lad.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Thumb Down

          nope

          your basing that on the drastic changes of Win XP service packs, a "service" pack is just that, its not intended to be a major upgrade, its intended to combine all previous updates in a single package which means OEMS dont need to do it and more importantly end users who arnt able to create their own images dont need to install 50+ updates after installing.

          Win 7 is nothing like Vista, you could argue that win 7 is what vista should have been but it wasnt, it was a different OS so lets all just move on.

          Folk waiting for the SP1 are simple living in a time where XP service packs drasticly changed the OS, they did that because XP was rubbish and MS managed to pull the wool over everys ones eyes, ironically even to this day with some people..

    2. Test Man
      Stop

      Just you.

      It's just you. OSes have always been 2-3 years apart and Service Packs for Windows have always been a year and 18 months after the original general release. The period between XP and Vista was the exception, for reasons due to XP's Service Pack 2 and the scrapping of Vista code halfway through.

  3. alistair millington
    Thumb Down

    Far too early

    To get an SP. Either they are pandaing to those that require an SP to upgrade, or they are lying and there is indeded massive fixes within it.

    Both are not good reasons to really trust win7 and do a full upgrade / roll out.

    Still if I could have an upgrade that fixed my USB and sound issues I would be grateful.

    1. Thorsten
      Pint

      What the heck...

      ...is "pandaing"?

      Though, if it's anything like what I think it is, I don't want to know more details. But then it's pub o'clock already on a Friday, so I can't really focus my thoughts anymore...

      1. Phantom Wibbler

        Pandaing

        Pandaing is the process of influencing management decisions made by managers who can;t make decisions unless a Panda is on their desk. We have that problem where I work and it's a real ball-ache. Panda's are getting really difficult to get hold of these days.

      2. Big-nosed Pengie

        Pandaing

        It's an Indonesian beverage made from fermented politicians milk or the milk of fermented politicians.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Licensing..

    There's a licensing angle here too which people might not be aware of. As it stands, MS allow you to downgrade Win7 pro OEM (which comes with the computer when you buy it and is tied to that hardware) to Windows XP for 18 months from the general availability of 7 or until SP1 is released whichever is sooner.

    The sooner 7SP1 arrives, the sooner this is true and the licence agreement says you cannot downgrade to xp any more.

  5. Khaptain Silver badge
    Flame

    What does SP1 have to offer anyway.

    We've not rolled out W7 yet and probably won't for another few years, but to be perfectly honest on all of the test machines everything just works. We have not encountered any major issues whatsoever.

    Our largest issue is with legacy applications, "Oracle" client refuses to install for example. We are progressively moving to an MS solution in any event. The SP would/will not resolve the legacy problems anyway.

    OK, there is some User training to be done, aging machines to be replaced but apart from that there is nothing really to stop us rolling it out.

    Even without this SP, W7 seems to be extremely stable. So what exactly are people expecting from the SP1 anyway

    Mines got "confused" on the back.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LeBlanc

    I automatically disbelieve anything he says since he came out with the one about the beta torrents harbouring malware as the rule when actually it was the exception. Just another liar.

  7. CADmonkey

    Oh great...

    I've been waiting for SP1 so I could finally retire XP64.

    Enhanced virtual desktop......a million everyday uses, there.

    How about fixing the click-fest that is Explorer? How about REDUCING the number of physical interactions required to navigate your hard-drive? How about reintroducing file search behaviour that doesn't suck balls?

    XP pro 64 with NO indexing services and NO Search 4.0: Searching 20,000 files (12 gb) for *.dwg, *.pdf returns 16,000+ hits in 25 seconds. Searching *001.* returns 580 hits in 5 seconds. I want to search the same string but somewhere else? I click 'back' to Explorer, navigate to a new folder, click 'search' to turn it off, again to turn it on and bang the enter button.

    I can then open up more than 17 PDFs with one command. Something I do a lot of, when 100+ drawing revisions arrive as individual PDFs. Win7 (RC) wouldn't open more than 17 files at once because it reasons that most people only do this by accident. I have no reason to think this has changed in the RTM. (still waiting for my Lenovo Upgrade disk)

    What exactly is my incentive to trade 'up'? To do the above operations I hardly look at the screen, hardly touch the mouse. Similar activities in WIN7 require 2-4 times as much mousework and hand-eye coord, (enter search term, wait for windows to search where it thinks it should, scroll to the bottom of the garbage results for the 'custom' search, browse from root for the location, search. Need a similar search? start again) for seemingly random results, or no results at all.

    Windows 7 is a toy.

    1. Bill Gould
      Gates Halo

      LTU n00b

      Please use the finished product before making shit up. Kthxbye.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Gates Halo

      Stop being a Luddite

      Windows 7's search feature is a thousand times better than Windows XP's. I have my WHOLE hard drive indexed and I can find any file on my computer within 0.5 seconds using the Start Menu search. Doing the same with XP would involve several more clicks and at least 30 seconds or even more if I could not remember exactly where the file is located.

      Opening up 17 pdf's is an extreme case. But you can easily open upto 15 pdf's with one command.

      Everything in Windows 7 involves less clicks than doing the same thing in XP. You just have to learn how to use Windows 7 properly to enjoy those benefits.

      I ditched XP in early 2007 and have not missed that junk for one moment since. Windows 7 for the win.

      1. CADmonkey

        You stop being a luddite

        If they changed anything like that for RTM, they sure kept it quiet.

        And by 'whole hard drive' I presume you mean the bits that have existed long enough to be on the index at all, and aren't ignored because you haven't manually added a big list of included file types? Last time I tried it, it failed to find ANYTHING on a data CD without going through some tortuous ritual first.

        17 PDFs is the limit for WIN7. It's not extreme, at all. I often need to look through dozens and dozens of newly arrived stuff. In Win7, I need to open the Adobe reader, re-navigate to my files, and go from there. Progress? Can I disable it? Can I feck!

        Windows 7 workflow is a straitjacket. Flexibility is limited (unless you're talking wallpapers). With a pair of large TFTs, my eyes and my mouse are constantly chasing the screen focus. This was fixed in RTM? Again, I don't think so!

        Windows 7 file search, for anyone that has no use for metadata, is broken. The internet says so, and so do I. Everything is buried under layers of menus and ribbons. They dropped full string searches because, hey! Everyone uses metadata now, don't they? Who needs boring old file names?

        IMHO, the XP combined explorer/search interface is a good example of concise, efficient design (once that stupid dog went). Win7 is a Dog's Dinner by comparison.

        The concept of Hard Drive Indexing is not without issues. It's always sounded like a lot of effort and compromise to me, and for what? 0.5 seconds instead of 25? And from the start menu there is no choice other than to look at the whole drive.

        And I can search my NAS without looking under the hood. Do that from your start menu!

    3. Fuzz

      Let me guess...

      ...you have your start menu in XP set to classic mode so it behaves like Windows 95

      25 seconds is an age to wait for a search, get yourself an indexed search program, I like google desktop on my XP machine but I've not found a need for it over windows search on my 7 boxes.

      You have to realise that whilst Microsoft make mistakes, the changes they make are designed to make you life easier, but to get the most out of them you may need to adapt the way you work.

      1. CADmonkey
        Alert

        Guess again...

        25 seconds is for a whole project folder, representing up to 18 months of development. I rarely need such a sledgehammer for these types of nut. And it's not the length of your search that matters, it's what you do with it.

        One company sends you 100+ files. Then they send you revisions of some or all of those files sometimes weekly, sometimes daily, sometimes monthly. There are lots of companies on a construction project. Then there is duplication, there is inconsistancy in naming conventions (like seperators) and you still have to be able to find any and all of it without having to wade through 3 pages of crap. I can do this in XP, but not 7

        Proper document control software is used extensively, but not by everyone involved. Maybe it should be, but until I wake up to a perfect world one morning, Explorer is essential.

        To use Windows 7 productively I had to scour the net for some extra 3rd-party app. although I resented the need to do so. The stuff I trialled was simply NOT AS GOOD AS XP

        LUDDITE HOMEMADE PC SPECS:

        1. Q6600@3ghz, Dtek water cooling, 8GB ram, 2x300gb Velociraptor, 3x500GB barracuda ES2, HP 24"TFT(IPS), Samsung 22" AND XPpro64

        2. Lenovo W700 3ghz 4gb RAM. Came with POS Vista Business. Crashed AutoCAD like a bastard every 30 minutes until I finally got some XP64 drivers from Lenovo and now it's sweet as a nut.

  8. b166er

    Bunch of moaners

    all missing the point, RemoteFX has been a long time in the making and I for one can't wait to test-drive that sucker.

  9. Big-nosed Pengie

    So that would be...

    ...a service pack to a service pack.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Gates Halo

      Original.

      Give that man a banana!

      Yes, Win7 bears an uncanny (physical) resemblance to Vista, but so did Win98 look an awful lot like Win95, and Win2000 looked a heck of a lot like WinNT, but I don't recall anyone suggesting that they were merely SP's of the preceeding OS.

      It's an old joke. Move on.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Big-nosed Pengie

      yes you are correct, that is indeed what a service "pack" is, a pack of service updates is another way of putting it.

      How long will people hold on to the major win XP service pack changes, they did that because the OS was crap!

  10. Inachu
    Gates Halo

    I love WIndows 7!

    I do not see to many bugs in windows 7 but the one bug that REALLY REALLY bugs me is....

    When I play any video using the windows media player the video plays fine but its a roll of the dice if the progress bar moves along to show the video progress.

    Sometimes I can watch a full length DVD and the bar never appears or moves an inch and stops but the video plays normally.

    WEIRD BUG INDEED! BILL GATES FIX THAT BLOODY THING!

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