According to the latest internet leaks of Windows 7 development plans, the engineers over at Redmond have already been hard at work on the coding processes of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. Russian website Wzor.net, the site known for its credible accuracy of Windows 7 news leaks during its development phases, has recently released some timeframe information regarding SP1.

Wzor’s latest internal findings state that Microsoft is set to release two betas of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and two release candidates (RCs) before the final OEM verison. In particular, Microsoft Gold Partner beta testers will be able to test the first beta release as early as the end of December 2009 in a few weeks, while a public beta will subsequently be offered in early January. If all goes as scheduled, we could see the first public beta of Windows 7 SP1 during CES 2010.





Over the next few spring months, Microsoft will publicly launch two Release Candidate builds of Windows 7 SP1 similar to what it did with Windows Vista SP2 Release Candidate 2 back in February 2009. Finally, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 RTM is scheduled to be released in summer 2010, likely around the end of Q2 or early Q3. It is important to note that Microsoft’s service packs usually have shorter turnaround times between the Release To Manufacturer (RTM) date and the Release To Web (RTW) public download date as the company can post the download directly instead of waiting for physical copies to arrive.

We remain very impressed by the fact that Windows 7 was released just thirteen days ago and the internet is already learning about plans for a major service pack update. This is undoubtedly one of Microsoft’s quickest turnarounds for a maintenance release as of yet, and it would not be wrong to give thanks to the newest Windows Division head leader, Steven Sinofsky, for making this possible.