Yesterday Microsoft announced that Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 have been released to manufacturing. If you haven’t yet dealt with the service pack, it is now time to inform yourself about it. In this article, I will summarize some basic facts and link to resources where you can get some in-depth information about SP1.

Windows 7 SP1 download

Microsoft partners have already received the SP1. Thus it is quite likely that you can download leaked versions from the Internet. I don’t have to tell you that such unofficial downloads are always risky because they may contain malware. Thus you had better wait until Microsoft offers Windows 7 SP1 for download. The public download will be available on February 22; TechNet and MSDN subscribers will be able to download Windows 7 SP1 on February 16.

Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 new features

I have already summarized what’s new in Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 a few months ago. The official Windows 7 SP1 page has some additional information. For Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, you should check out the reviewer’s guide (PDF), which is quite comprehensive with 26 pages. The main new features in this service pack are certainly RemoteFx and Dynamic Memory for Hyper-V.

Hyper-V Dynamic Memory resources

Dynamic Memory allows you to increase the memory of Hyper-V VMs dynamically during run time. A good start is to read my introduction to Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX, and this Comparison of Hyper-V Dynamic Memory and VMware Overcommit will clarify the concept. If you would like to learn how you can actually use Dynamic Memory, I recommend this article at VirtualizationAdmin.com.

Checking out Microsoft’s Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Evaluation Guide is certainly also a good way to get started. Microsoft’s latest blog post relates Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) to Dynamic Memory, and the Microsoft Infrastructure blog has a link list of articles about Dynamic Memory. Related to this topic is Paul Schnackenburg’s series about Hyper-V performance tuning.

RemoteFX resources

RemoteFX is supposed to improve user experience in RDP sessions. I think the success of VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) depends a lot on how good this new feature really is. I already linked to my RemoteFX intro above, but it can’t be wrong to link to it again. You might also want to have a look at Microsoft’s explanation. Brian Madden’s in-depth guide to RemoteFX is a must-read for everyone who wants to dig a bit deeper.

Windows 7 SP1 significance

In my opinion, RemoteFx and Dynamic Memory are the only important new features in this service pack. Of course, the main reason why you will want to deploy SP1 is because it contains all of the updates since the release of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Considering that there have been quite a few “monster patch days” lately, the number of hotfixes in this service pack could reach a new record.

If you are a “traditionalist admin” who always waits for the release of the first service pack before you deploy a new Windows version, then you might feel confirmed. However, I think that Windows 7 RTM was one of the most reliable Windows releases. This is probably due to the fact that Windows 7 is essentially a service pack for Windows Vista. Thus Windows 7 SP1 essentially is than Windows Vista SP3.

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All you have to do is run WindowsXPSP3Hack.cmd. It will add some registry keys which will make Windows Update believe that you are a member of the private beta program. Then, you launch Windows Update (via Windows help) to download Windows XP SP3.

I had to install two other updates before the service pack showed up. I think, it has about 70MB. Download was pretty fast in the beginning, but it then it got stuck, somehow. Installation was not a big deal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really make out this performance boost afterwards.

I found this nice trick at Silozopedia. By the way, there is a similar hack for Windows Vista SP1.

• What you have to know about Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (0)
• Tweets: Windows 7 video fake – Sysprep for Windows XP SP3 (0)
• The Windows XP SP3 confusion – Is Windows bloated or its market? (6)
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• Windows XP SP3 release date: April 21 – How does Microsoft plan release dates? (4)

I don’t know if 10% could be called a “performance boost”. I am pretty sure that you won’t be able tell the difference during normal PC work. What I find more interesting, however, is that they used the same machine from their Vista SP1 performance test.

I have been criticizing before that it doesn’t make much sense to test the performance of Vista on a machine with less than 2GB RAM. Some readers have raised doubts about my assessment. So I want take this chance to clarify my point.

Imagine someone tried to find out if Service Pack 1 for Windows XP improved the speed or not. The “researcher” has a laptop in his “research lab” which runs just fine with Windows NT 4.0. It has 128MB RAM which is more than enough for NT. Since he would like to know if he could run XP on this laptop after SP1 has been released he runs his test on this machine.

I think you don’t have to understand much about Windows to predict the result of this test. Of course, XP will get hardly off the ground with 128MB RAM and no service pack in the world could change this. There were about 5 years between the release of Windows NT 4.0 and Windows XP and Microsoft needed the same time to develop Windows Vista.

So the situation is exactly the same. If you really want to know if a service pack is helpful for the performance of an OS or not, then you have to use adequate hardware for your test.

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.NET 2.0 SP1 x86 .NET SP1 x64 .NET 3.0 SP1

They were already released two days ago. I find it interesting that almost nobody seems to care about it. I mean, if you compare it with the stir that Vista SP1 has already caused . When Microsoft introduced .NET, I got the impression that in the future the underlying OS won’t play such an important role anymore. It seems that this is not going to happen any time soon.

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• Another Vista compatibility, reliability and stability update (4)

• Service Pack 3 will be the last SP for Windows XP.
• As usual this SP can be installed on a fresh Windows XP without installing prior service packs first.
• Why did Microsoft wait for over three years to release SP3? Simply because everyone was working on Vista.
• New features: Network Access Protection (NAP) support, product key-less install option, a new kernel module for several different cryptographic algorithms, “black hole router” detection (router that incorrectly reports their network path information).
• Release date of Windows XP SP3: second quarter of 2008, or three months after the release of Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008.

There is certainly nothing revolutionary in this service pack. Of course, Microsoft wants everyone to migrate to Vista now. They already made the mistake of adding too many new features with SP2. Thus, many think that an upgrade to Vista is not necessary just because of the improved security.

• What you have to know about Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (0)
• Tweets: Windows 7 video fake – Sysprep for Windows XP SP3 (0)
• The Windows XP SP3 confusion – Is Windows bloated or its market? (6)
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I  think in XP times they would have waited until SP1 is out. Microsoft recommends applying this update only if you experienced one of the problems, else you should wait for SP1. This shows how eager Microsoft is to silence Vista critics. Another, more positive, interpretation would be that they indeed want to attach less importance to Windows service packs in the future.

By the way, I would really be very careful with this update. A colleague installed it today and it completely crashed his computer. He was not even able to boot into safe mode. He had to boot from a Vista DVD and use its repair function to get his machine running again.

The updates can be downloaded here: Vista x86 and Vista x64. And here is the description which I just copied from the update’s KB article:

• It extends the battery life for mobile devices.
• It improves the stability of portable computers and of desktop computers that use an uninterruptable power supply (UPS).
• It improves the reliability of Windows Vista when you open the menu of a startup application.
• It improves the stability of Internet Explorer when you open a Web page.
• It improves the stability of wireless network services.
• It shortens the startup time of Windows Vista by using a better timing structure.
• It shortens the recovery time after Windows Vista experiences a period of inactivity.
• It shortens the recovery time when you try to exit the Photos screen saver.
• It improves the stability of Windows PowerShell.

This update also resolves the following issues in Windows Vista:

• A compatibility issue that affects some third-party antivirus software applications.
• A reliability issue that occurs when a Windows Vista-based computer uses certain network driver configurations.

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• What you have to know about Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (0)
• Tweets: Windows 7 video fake – Sysprep for Windows XP SP3 (0)
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• Is Windows XP SP3 available or not? (16)
• Windows XP SP3 release date: April 21 – How does Microsoft plan release dates? (4)

Security: New APIs for the Windows Security Center and kernel patch protection (x64), signing of RDP files, Multifactor authentication for Bitlocker (TPM + USB stick + PIN), Bitlocker can now encrypt volumes other than the system volume

Better reliability with respect to: New graphics cards and external laptop displays, for some printer drivers, sleep mode, printing in Terminal Services sessions, upgrade from Windows XP

Better performance with respect to: Copying and extracting files, resuming from hibernate mode, when domain-joined PCs are offline, Internet Explorer 7, battery life in laptops, logon experience in some cases, browsing network file shares

Administration: Improved network diagnosis tool, disk defragmentation can be restricted to certain volumes

Support of new standards: exFAT file system (for flash drives), Secure Digital (SD) Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA) (improves transfer performance), network boot using EFI on x64 systems, Direct3D 10.1, Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP)

There is one “new feature” that deserves extra discussion. I have to cite the corresponding paragraph:

To do this, the service pack will uninstall the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and GPEdit.msc will edit local Group Policy by default. In the SP1 timeframe, administrators can download an out-of-band release that will give them the ability to add comments to Group Policy Objects (GPOs) or individual settings and search for specific settings.

You may know that one needs the new GPMC version to edit Vista specific Group Policy features especially if you work with the new ADMX templates instead of ADM files. That is, you can only configure such polices on a Vista machine, but not on Windows Server 2003. So why does SP1 uninstall GPMC and GPEdit.msc? The only explanation I have is that that they plan changes for Windows Server 2008 that are incompatible with the current Vista versions. But why on earth don’t they install the new version with SP1 then?

There are no revolutionary new features in this service pack which is good news. It is obvious that Microsoft is mostly working on compatibility and reliability issues. So it certainly makes sense to wait for this SP if you didn’t deploy Vista yet, even though this white paper is trying to convince us of the opposite strategy.

My main argument for waiting is not that Vista is not yet reliable. To my experience Vista is already quite stable. The point is that Vista SP1 will be a new base for software and hardware vendors. So you would have to deploy this SP very soon after its release, anyhow. But a rollout of a new operating system is stress enough and I don’t want to complicate things by deploying a service pack shortly afterwards.

A good review about Vista SP1 can be found at Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows.

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• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
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So SP1 will be much more than just a collection of previously released updates. It is interesting to note that the reactions in the blogosphere about Microsoft’s secrecy concerning service packs are quite varied. Matt Freestone from Windows Connected thinks that Microsoft doesn’t really owe us early information about product releases, whereas Robert MC Laws from Windows Now understands that Microsoft’s customers need this kind of information.

The point is that Windows is the only desktop OS that really matters in corporate environments. Companies with hundreds or thousands of desktops have to plan the rollout of a Windows update long in advance. They have to decide when to buy new hardware, what other software they deploy with the image, where to start with the deployment process, and many other things.

A service pack often means big changes. The fact that Vista will even get a new version number confirms this point. Note that Windows 2000 corresponds to Windows 5.0 and Windows XP to Windows 5.1. I think it is obvious that companies have to prepare for such a change as early as possible.

But, even if a service pack contains only a collection of updates, it is important to know its release date as soon as possible. It is usually only a matter of time until software vendors including Microsoft require the latest service pack for their applications. Thus, you always have to deploy an SP even if you installed all previous updates before. Imagine that you just deployed Vista on hundreds of machines and the very next day you learn that SP1 will be released next week. Great, isn’t it?

• What you have to know about Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (0)
• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• How to solve Vista SP1 problems (3)
• Download Vista SP1 – Is all this confusion a product of Microsoft’s marketing machinery? (0)

Marry Jo Foley meanwhile published an official statement about this issue from Microsoft:

There will be a Windows Vista service pack and our current expectation is that a beta will be made available sometime this year…

Our current expectation? This information is not really helpful! All this speculation about service packs is a bit annoying. Why doesn’t Microsoft just publish a time table? Is it really so difficult to plan a service pack release? It is unnecessary, as I see it, to offer new features with this service pack. All we need is a new base where all the patches of the last months are included. I already said it before Windows Update can’t replace a service pack.

It is the same game with Windows XP SP3. Every month or so, all the Microsoft watchers out there start speculating when it might become available. Microsoft should put an end to all this speculation and just give us the release dates. This is really childish. How can you plan major deployments if you have to rely on mere speculations?

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• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
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I wonder if the Google-Microsoft case is behind this. It is most likely, however, that Microsoft just knows that many corporate customers wait for the first SP before thinking of a Vista rollout. As far as I could think back, we always deployed a new Microsoft OS only after the first SP has been released.

The list of new features in Vista SP1 that Mary Jo Foley posted confirms this assessment:

• Performance tweaks lessening the amount of time it takes to copy files and shut down Vista machines (Yeah, I know Microsoft said Viista shutdown speed wasn’t an issue. Guess users weren’t so crazy, after all.)
• Improved transfer performance and decreased CPU utilization via support for SD Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA)
• Support for ExFat, the Windows file format for flash memory storage and other consumer devices
• Improvements to BitLocker Drive Encryption to allow not just encryption of the whole Vista volume, but also locally created data volumes
• The ability to boot Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) on an x64 machine
• Improved success rate for firewalled MeetingSpace and Remote Assistance connections

Except for the BitLocker enhancement, there is nothing really noteworthy in this list. However, there might be some more new features. Let’s wait until next week.

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There have been rumors recently that the release date of Service Pack 1 for Vista might not be too far away. Now, Joe from ITsVista digged up a sentence in a Microsoft statement making it very clear that we won’t see Vista SP1 this year.

In a Joint Status Report on Microsoft’s Compliance with the Final Judgements (PDF) he found this:

Microsoft will deliver the required changes in Service Pack 1 of Windows Vista, which Microsoft currently anticipates will be available in beta form by the end of the year.

If the beta will come out only by the end of the year, the earliest release date for the final is in the first half of 2008. Since Microsoft is under time pressure with Windows Server 2008 we might even have to wait until the second half of 2008.

Considering that there seem to be some people at Microsoft who think that service packs don’t play an important role anymore because Windows Update provides all the fixes anyway, it is also possible that Vista SP1 doesn’t have absolute priority in Redmond.

The problem I have with this view is that rollouts with many machines involved will cause heavy traffic in your network and a high load on your patch management backend, if all machines are going to pull the updates at the same time. There also is a certain risk that a worm infects one of the computers before all patches have been installed.

You could create a new Vista image which includes all the patches you received thru Windows update. However, I always prefer to rollout a new operating system after the first service pack has been available for some time. A service pack is a new base for everyone. It simplifies troubleshooting because it assures that all patches have been installed and not only a certain subset. This is also important for third party software vendors. The longer MS waits with this SP, the more heterogeneous Vista installations will be out there, complicating matters more and more.

Originally, I planned to start the first major Vista rollout within this year. But with this new information I am on the verge of changing my mind and wait until it is clear when SP1 will really be available.

• What you have to know about Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (0)
• Why Windows Vista only sees 3GB memory in a PC with 4GB RAM and how Vista SP1 fools its users (41)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
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Thank goodness, it was only a backup system. Meanwhile there is a solution for this problem. However, this incident also significantly increased my respect for this Service Pack. Especially this new “lazy Interrupt Request Level (IRQL) handler” seems to have some bad influence on otherwise diligent servers. Hence, we won’t be too hasty to deploy it to our servers. We will wait for some weeks to see what other bugs it contains.

If you deploy service packs with WSUS, you don’t have to worry that it will be installed on your servers without approval. You have to explicitly accept the SP2 Eula. You can make sure that the service pack is not accidently installed by using the SP2 blocker tool to “temporarily block delivery of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2“.

If you want to deploy it anyway, check out the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 application compatibility list first. I am not sure, though, how much you can trust this list. ISA 2004 was tested, too! It seems they didn’t test it on multiprocessors systems. Maybe they thought that this “lazy handler” wouldn’t affect the more vigorous servers, anyway.

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Who ever published this, obviously didn’t catch that Longhorn has been christened Windows Server 2008 some time ago. But he or she must have better information regarding Service Pack 1 for Vista. The last thing I heard about Vista SP1 is that it might come out together with Windows Server 2008. But is there really a Beta 3 of Vista SP1, too? And if so, why isn’t it publicly available like the one for WS2k8?

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