Report: Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting for a Windows 7 Service Pack
Report: Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting for a Windows 7 Service Pack
Posted 01/08/2010 at 5:11am
| by Paul Lilly
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SMBs playing it cautious and waiting for Microsoft to release a Service Pack before making the leap to Windows 7 might want to get cozy. It's true that a recently discovered Registry Key would seem to indicate the OS's first update isn't too far off on the horizon, but according to The Register, don't expect one to "rock up any time soon."
Here's where a little bit of a history lesson is in order. Vista, by most accounts, came busted out of the box. And not just minor niggles, but piss-poor file transfer performance and a bunch of other performance hampering bugs, not to mention various stability woes. Despite limping out of the hyped-up gate, it was still 14 months before Vista's first Service Pack emerged.
While Microsoft has shown a desire not to make the same mistakes with Windows 7, the Redmond outfit has already succeeded in doing so, at least for the most part. Windows 7 doesn't exhibit the same problems Vista had, so it's hard to imagine Microsoft would be in any hurry to pump out a collection of updates.
"Our Partners are also excited for Windows 7, demonstrating fantastic ecosystem support. As of today, there are more than 800,000 unique apps and 238,000 unique devices that work great with Windows 7. That's more than a million reasons to choose Windows 7," said Microsoft's Brandon Le Blanc in a blog post.
So when exactly when the first Service Pack hit the Web? "There is currently no news around this at the moment," a Microsoft spokesman told The Register.
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Metalmorphasis
January 10, 2010 at 4:31pm
But if they can make a good product better, GREAT! And I will wait.
tdizzy
January 08, 2010 at 1:23pm
In the final paragraph of the article, it says "So when exactly when the first Service Pack hit the Web?" where it should say something similar to "So when exactly will the first Service Pack hit the Web?"
RtDK
January 08, 2010 at 1:20pm
The few-and-far-between tiffs I have with Win7 are probably the result of a program incompatibility with x64-edition OSes. Otherwise, it runs faster than my XP set-up ever did, likely due to the fact that XP didn't know how to use the full potential of a multicore processor. Now I'm running a 2.6 GHz Phenom with 8GB of RAM and I don't have to wait fifteen seconds after startup anymore for my browser to come up. Email comes up right along next to it, as does my IM client.
Overall, I give Microsoft an "A" in all categories for this one. See what happens when you listen to the customer? People are made HAPPY! ^_^
MleB
January 08, 2010 at 9:54am
Ah, well - no worries there, then...
Unless Microsoft was to release a full and functioning Win7 (read: not Win7 Hobbled Edition for Netbooks) at under $100 (say, an Apple'ish $39), this netbook isn't moving off of XP for it or its possible SPs anytime soon.
As it is, Win8 is already in the pipeline, so unless it turns out to be nothing more than a renamed SP (much as WinMe was for Win98), an update to Win7 seems unlikely.
Quakindude
January 11, 2010 at 3:14am
Don't blame you one bit there. My wife's Netbook has XP on it and it will stay on it even if it does have 2GB of ram. We don't use that computer for banking or anything important like that, so there's no reason to really. And while Windows 7 will run much better on lesser equipment than Vista could ever hope too, XP is a no brainer for Netbooks.
MaximumPC Moderator
***The views I express are my own and do not represent the views of MaximumPC Magazine or Future US.***
MeTo
January 08, 2010 at 8:15am
I have Win 7 64 on a machine with ASUS M3N72-D and in order to get it to run right I had to install Vista 64 first then upgrade to Win 7. The driver CD would not install in WIN 7. So for me "NO" win 7 is not perfect and it is not that much faster then Vista SP2. So if you like Vista SP2 stick with it i don't see what all the fuss is about.
legacy2013
January 08, 2010 at 10:53am
Itwas stated multiple times by Microsoft that you couldn't upgrade from a 32-bit to a 64-buit system, and 7 is different from Vista in many ways so it is a good idea to upgrade from Vista or even from XP though I do understand the concerns that people have.
MeTo
January 08, 2010 at 7:11pm
If you are replying to me what the hell are you talking about? I stated clearly Win 7 64 and Vista 64. I built the machine installed Vista 64 with a free upgrade of Win7 64. When the Win 7 64 came in the mail i tried to do a clean install it installed fine but had problems and the driver CD would not let me install the drivers for the motherboard in Win 7. Now i format HDD install Vista 64 install driver CD upgrade to Win 7 it installs fine. I gained about 3 to 5 seconds bootup and shutdown time. I still don't see what all the fuss is about. I still have three machines with Vista 32 & 64 and they will stay that way i will not "PAY" for Win 7 upgrade or full.
jihnn
January 08, 2010 at 12:42pm
are you suggesting you know my situation well enough to say it's a good idea for me to switch to windows 7?
possibly you should choose what toilet paper i need.... but hey why stop there you should pick the next movie i go to .....
i do not think of myself as an xp fanboy there just isn't any reason @ this point in time for me to switch
for me just to switch because it's new and shiny is a foolish way to run my life
fyi i manage a nonprofit and can get an upgrade to "7" for $9 from the "techsoup" site.... it's just not worth anything to me
like buying a car because "the ashtrays are full" ( i do not smoke,,, nasty)
Quakindude
January 11, 2010 at 3:11am
Yeah, keep holding onto that XP. It's one of the single most exploited and unsecure MS Operating Systems out there, but there's no reason to upgrade right? When it was coded and released, it was awesome,no doubt. But cyber space has changed drastically, as has the hardware we use, and updating is pretty good advice.
Seriously, do some people do any research at ALL before just having this knee-jerk reaction to something new?
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***The views I express are my own and do not represent the views of MaximumPC Magazine or Future US.***
nekollx
January 08, 2010 at 12:49pm
"but hey why stop there you should pick the next movie i go to ....."
Yes, Avatar now, Iron Man 2 later.
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Quakindude
January 08, 2010 at 7:27am
When Vista first came out, I was an early adopter. Mainly because MS gave me a copy of Vista Ultimate 64 and Office 2007 CE. From the first moment after starting it up until I removed it and went back to XP Pro 12 hours later, Vista gave me all sorts of problems, but primarily the Nvidia driver shutdown/recovered error. And everyone is well informed of the horrible implementation of UAC!
Not good for a gamer.
Vista was finally "fixed" gaming wise about six months later through updates. The large file transfer speed about two months later but even then, it was still slow compared to XP. These resolutions were implemented well before the Service pack ever came out. Even then, Vista was slower on moderate gaming equipment to the point of making some games unplayable. If you had enthusiast level gear, Vista was OK.
Windows 7 has all the right pieces of puzzle that was Vista along with the performance of XP and Win7 is more secure than either OS ever hoped to be. It doesn't require dual GPU's, 12GB of ram or an expensive quad core to perform. I've had it on a dual core E6320 with 1GB of RAM and a 9600GT and it performed tremendously better than Vista ever did.
MS got this one right this time. People shouldn't have any reservations about upgrading to Win7. However, with the PITA that Vista was, there will surely be a good sized chunk of people who will understandably be hesitant to make the move.
But I'm here to tell you hesitant folks something. The only thing you're doing by hesitating is increasing the amount of hits you'll give your own ass for not making the swap sooner!
And if anything does creep up on the fix-it-now radar, as with Vista, MS will get an update out there first. Service Packs are updates you download as they are released all rolled up into one. So waiting to upgrade until a Service Pack comes out is just plain silly.
MaximumPC Moderator
***The views I express are my own and do not represent the views of MaximumPC Magazine or Future US.***
Tekzel
January 08, 2010 at 6:24am
Well, Windows 7 isn't exactly screaming out for a service pack. My sense, having used it since RC1 and now with the retail version on 3 machines, no one should wait for a service pack before switching. Its more stable, faster, and over all better in every way than XP was for me. Hell, I am even running it on my Acer AspireOne netbook with only 1 gb of memory and it runs as well as XP did. The only lockup or crash or anything I have had since switching to 7 is Crysis locking up, but that wasn't 7s fault. Crysis is just a buggy freaking game.
nekollx
January 08, 2010 at 9:17am
that and Crisis on a Netbook is begging for a crash amiright? ;)
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
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