Microsoft has just released the SP1 of Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2, so go and get it via Windows Update right now! Look after the break for notable changes.
The excerpt of the notable changes in Windows 7 below were taken from Winspark’s website:
Changes Specific to Windows 7 SP1
- Additional support for communication with third-party federation services.
Additional support has been added to allow Windows 7 clients to effectively communicate with third-party identity federation services (those supporting the WS-Federation passive profile protocol). This change enhances platform interoperability, and improves the ability to communicate identity and authentication information between organizations.
- Improved HDMI audio device performance.
A small percentage of users have reported issues in which the connection between a computer running Windows 7 an HDMI audio device is lost after a system reboot. Updates have been incorporated into SP1 to ensure that connections between Windows 7 computers and HDMI audio devices are consistently maintained.
- Corrected behavior when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents.
Prior to the release of SP1, some customers have reported difficulty when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents (documents containing pages in both portrait and landscape orientation) using the XPS Viewer, resulting in all pages being printed entirely in either portrait or landscape mode. This issue has been addressed in SP1, allowing users to correctly print mixed-orientation documents using the XPS Viewer.
The excerpt of the notable changes in Windows Server 2008 R2 below were taken from the Virtualisation & Management Blog:
Dynamic Memory – Dynamic Memory allows for memory on a host machine to be pooled and dynamically distributed to virtual machines as necessary. Memory is dynamically added or removed based on current workloads, and is done so without service interruption.
• Microsoft RemoteFX – a new set of remote user experience capabilities that enable a media-rich user environment for virtual desktops, session-based desktops and remote applications
• Enhancements to scalability and high availability when using DirectAccess – improvements have been made to enhance scalability and high availability when using DirectAccess, through the addition of support for 6to4 and ISATAP addresses when using DirectAccess in conjunction with Network Load Balancing (NLB).
• Support for Managed Service Accounts (MSAs) in secure branch office scenarios – enhanced support for managed service accounts (MSAs) to be used on domain-member services located in perimeter networks (also known as DMZs or extranets).
• Support for increased volume of authentication traffic on domain controllers connected to high-latency networks – more granular control of the maximum number of possible concurrent connections to a domain controller, enabling a greater degree of performance tuning for service providers.
• Enhancements to Failover Clustering with Storage – SP1 enables enhanced support for how Failover Clustering works with storage that is not visible for all cluster nodes. In SP1, improvements have been made to the Cluster Validation and multiple Failover Cluster Manager wizards to allow workloads to use disks that are shared between a subset of cluster nodes.
Sources:
Virtualisation & Management Blog
McAkins Online 