Windows 7 Service Pack 1

After a couple of false starts, Microsoft have finally announced the official release date for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1). If you are an MSDN or TechNet subscrber then you will have access to the download on the 16th February. The general public release will come one week later on the 22nd February.

So what's new in SP1? Well, like all Microsoft Service Packs, the primary purpose is to package all the existing updates/patches since Windows 7 was launched into one single download. This means that if you have been keeping your copy of Windows 7 up-to-date then chances are that you already have 95% of the benifits. This will also mean that your update to SP1 from Windows Update will be relativily small (and hopefully painless).

There is however one significant new feature included in SP1, which is an enhancement to the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

The new feature is known as RemoteFX and it aims to deliver a full Windows 7 experience over a remote desktop session. This includes multiple displays, full Aero effects and multimedia streaming. This is a major breakthrough for remote desktop, as it means, for the first time, virtualised computing and thin clients (such as Oracle/Sun Ray Clients) will be capable of recieving a full audio and video experiance.

RemoteFX is able to achieve these results by using a technique known as host-based rendering. This technique allows for the final screen image to be rendered locally on the remote PC or thin client after being compressed and sent down to that remote host. The enhancements are expected to greatly improve video streaming across remote sessions which is currently one of the major drawbacks of virtualised computing.

When SP1 is made available, you can go grab it from the Microsoft download center, or simply wait for it to appear as part of Windows Update. For more information on Windows 7 SP1 head over to Microsoft TechNet.