Microsoft unleashes Windows 7 SP1

It has arrived, finally. Microsoft has freed Windows 7 Service Pack 1 onto the world, with home users now able to download it.

It’s now been 16 months since Windows 7 arrived in our lives. Here was the operating system that was going to be everything Vista wasn’t, the one that would banish all memory of that terrible experience two years previously. Lo and behold, Microsoft pulled it off, delivering an OS that was safe, secure, and (just a little bit) sexy right from the off.

However, as good as Windows 7 was at launch, all operating systems (particularly Windows, admittedly) need updating regularly in order to remain as strong and capable as they can possibly be. So talk of a Service Pack began mere months after Windows 7 shipped. The main reason for the rush was the assumption that many businesses would hold off upgrading to Windows 7 until SP1 arrived.

Whether that has proved to be the case or not, the wait is now over. Microsoft let it be known in January that Windows 7 SP1 would be released soon after, and by the beginning of February it was starting to be shipped out to dealers. Last week it hit MSDN and Technet, and today it’s available to all.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is available a number of different ways. Most will receive it via Windows Update, through which it will weigh in at around 44MB. It can also be downloaded directly from Microsoft’s Download Center, where it will be around 537MB for 32-bit users, around 903MB for 64-bit users. It can also be purchased on a DVD, and new Windows 7 stock will have the major update integrated into it.

I’d advise everyone with Windows 7 to grab Service Pack 1 in the next few days, but be sure to back your system up beforehand, just in case. There isn’t actually anything all that cool (like new features, for example) included in SP1, but a number of back-end improvements and the usual bug fixes make it an essential update all the same.

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