Who would've thunk anyone would say about Windows... "No need for SP1. The original version is working like a charm."
I had this with Win XP - I prob used it for 8 years+. Vista was no reason to upgrade. Then I discovered OSX and made the switch over to Mac.
Like every Windows user does: bundled with a new computer.
You are not Microsoft's client. Dell, HP, IBM, Acer are their clients. Your purchases are rounding errors.
Windows 7 just feels good, lots of small things their usability guys have gotten right. Haven't run into any major problems yet.
For me they got there with Vista. And, truth be told, I was a beta tester.
Let's not forget that it actually runs in 512 MB of RAM, and I can attest to this. I'm an OS X guy by trade and employment, but Windows 7 I can actually tolerate (which blows my mind, really).
The whole ecosystem is changing, and so maybe we dont demand so much from the OSes in themselves anymore, at least not in terms of feature-set itself.
Enterprises are not equipped to cope withe Steve Jobs style new OS every year - they want standardization and stability, and often be able to deploy their own build which they don't have to change for years.
Every time a new significant OS or SP comes out, many enterprises feel the need to do security audits, complete compatibility checks, acceptance testing while running their enterprise apps, rounds of 'training' for the people who can't work out how to do stuff on their own, etc.
Lots of reasons behind that, many will end over time. But for now that is why you don't see a lot of new feature orientated updates from Microsoft.
Helpful site design.
edit: okay, just got to the same document you did. Apparently microsoft considers 'release notes' to be 'notes about the process of releasing' which that document will have when there are any, rather than notes about the release itself, aka the Service Pack. There is another file on that link called 'Notable Changes in Windows 7 SP1' or something similar, which basically boils down the changes to: HDMI audio improvements, fix to XPS documents, and a change in the way 'restore previous folders at logon' works...
1) They released a SP as a milestone because it was 'about time'
2) They released a SP as a rollup to bring everyone to the same page
3) They need to push the HDMI audio updates extra hard...?
1. Hotfixes and Security Updates included in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
2. Notable Changes in Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
3. Deployment Guide for Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 and Windows 7 with SP1
4. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta Test Focus Guide
Depending on which type of information you are looking for you'd need to get the corresponding one. Note the list of hot fixes is an xls spreadsheet.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=...
Can't they just show them to me? In their own page, or, if they somehow need to be Word docs, using the Office web tools?
Did you have to do anything other than install SP1?
Fortunately the MSDN subscriber downloads inventory is publicly browsable: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/defa...
From there we can see the download details for all "Windows 7 with Service Pack 1" ISO files (all Windows 7 editions, all processor architectures and all languages).
From there we can for example see the following information for the English Professional x64 version:
File Name: en_windows_7_professional_with_sp1_x64_dvd_621750.iso
Date Published (UTC): 2/16/2011 8:49:08 AM Last Updated (UTC): 2/16/2011 8:49:08 AM
SHA1: 5ED2584110E03F498DB4458BA9FAFD5A7EF602ED ISO/CRC: 74F3CB73
It runs better than ever (2.4Ghz, 2GB memory). Media Center works great (looks like MCE 2005). For a 7 year old PC with AGP graphics (7600 GT) it's surprising how well Windows 7 performs. Assuming nothing breaks, it's still a good 'dev test server' for .NET and LAMP work.
Think of it... All previous MS OSes really became feasible after SP1 and started to shine after SP2.
Win 7 seems to be a notable exception (truthfully it is a Vista SP2). Anyways one supper happy Win7 user here - although 64 bit is STILL not what it should be - Firefox memory leaks are a bit worse and it is noticeably slower (I have 32bit W7 on laptop) plus some other minor issues - but that is hardly Microsoft's fault.
Oh wait, that's a fully patched W7, the update is really 100mb.
32bit x86 http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/A/F/0AFB5316-3062-4...
64bit x64 http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/A/F/0AFB5316-3062-4...
AllInOne http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/A/F/0AFB5316-3062-4...
Careful though: I managed to hose one of my Windows 7 VMs with the stock WU SP1 update. Do remember to take your snapshots. I didn't :(
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive...
Summary: SP1 is just a collection of hotfixes:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17855015/Hotfixes%20and%20Security%2...
See "Changes specific to Windows 7" section in "Notable Changes in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.doc": http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=...