Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta

The IT community has been anticipating the release of the Service Pack 1 of of the best selling operating system Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.  Now the waiting is over as the Beta release of the Service Pack 1 (SP1) is already available for testing.  Target population of the SP1 Beta are IT people who wants to test  the pre-release of the SP1. 

I just installed the SP1 Beta into my netbook to see how it goes, is it stable? Will improve my PC performance? That remains to be seen.  According to Microsoft the SP1 Beta is a compendium of the previously released updates (based on end users’ feedback) for Windows 7 and Sever 2008 R2.  As per documentation from Microsoft the SP1 contains almost 500 hotfixes and security updates for Windows 7.  After installing the service pack I noticed that my bootup is now faster than before (I’m using Windows 7 Enterprise).   Also, one noticeable change is the watermark appearance at the right bottom corner of my desktop that says, “Windows 7 Evaluation copy. Build 7601”, a number higher than the original Windows 7 RTM build 7600.

So what do we expect with the SP1 Beta of Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2? To answer that let’s see the documentation from Microsoft.  Here are some notable changes for both OS:

Changes Specific for Windows 7

1. Additional support for communication with third-party federation services
2. Improved HDMI audio device performance
3. Corrected behavior when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents

Changes Specific for Windows Server 2008 R2

1. Dynamic Memory
2. Microsoft RemoteFX
3. Enhancements to scalability and high availability when using DirectAccess
4. Support for Managed Service Accounts (MSAs) in secure branch office scenarios
5. Enhancements to Failover Clustering with Storage
6. Support for increased volume of authentication traffic on domain controllers connected to high-latency networks

Changes Common to both Client and Server Platform

1. Change to behavior of “Restore previous folders at logon” functionality
2. Enhanced support for additional identities in RRAS and IPsec
3. Support for Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)

The full documentation for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Beta can be downloaded here (validation required).

The Windows 7 and  Windows Server 2008 Server R2 Service Pack 1 Beta can be downloaded here. You must have a live.com account to download the SP1 Beta.