Windows 7 has been available in the retail market since October 22, 2009. Nearly a year and a half later Microsoft is putting the finishing touches to the first Service Pack for Microsoft’s most successful operating system, Windows 7. The new service pack (SP1) targets the Windows 7 Operating System and Windows Server 2008 R2 and will become available to manufacturers February 16, 2011 with everyone else on February 22, 2011. This comes at a time when Windows 7’s market share, currently 22% inches towards Windows XP’s whopping 55%, hopefully this service pack and will push companies who have waited on the sidelines to move forward with Windows 7 deployments.
The service pack for Windows 7 will include continuous updates to the OS, which had previously been available via Windows Update. Among the updates are client side support for Remote FX and Dynamic Memory which offer additional features for virtualize environments. However, most of the updates to SP1 seem to be geared towards making system management cheaper, such as VDI licensing price reduction, optimized VM density, and the release of Windows Thin PC.
SP1 is also designed to improve PC deployment, while also trying to relieve any stress for updating Microsoft software in the future, such as upgrades from Internet Explorer 8 to Internet Explorer 9.
Microsoft has stated that Fortune 500 companies such as Samsung and Boeing, with over 150,000 employees each, will or have already reached 100% deployment of Windows 7 by the end of 2012. Time will tell if these improvements in management, deployment, and security will prompt business to upgrade from the reliable XP platform they’ve been accustomed to for the past 10 years.
