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Michael Kleef, the Senior Technical Product Manager on the Windows Server and Cloud team, announced today on the Windows Server Division WebLog that Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 has been Released To Manufacturing (RTM).  This is a significant milestone in the development of any software from Microsoft as it indicates the team has signed off on the final code and is ready to get the product out the door to the end user.

Of course RTM of a service pack and the general availability of a digital product like this is much shorter because there are no discs to be created, software boxes to be filled and packages to be shipped.  According to Michael SP1 will be available for the general public on 22 February 2011.  I read in other reports that the service pack will be available for TechNet and MSDN subscribers on the 16th of February.

So what fixes and updates are to be expected with this service pack?  Well on the server side two new features are being released:

Two new features in Windows Server SP1, Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX, enable sophisticated desktop virtualization capabilities. These features build on the comprehensive virtualization functionality already included in the Windows Server operating system.

As for Windows 7, there are not any new features but as Brandon LeBlanc posted yesterday on the Windows Blog client side updates are being added to support the two new Windows Sever 2008 R2 features mentioned above.

For Windows 7, SP1 will help keep your PCs well supported by delivering ongoing updates, many of which have been made previously available through Windows Update. It also includes client-side support for RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory which are two new virtualization features enabled in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Read more about those updates here from the Windows Server Team.

There are two interesting follow on comments from Brandon relating to this update in the comments I want to highlight.  One is an answer to a request for the SP1 build number and the other was concerning how to clean up SP1 installation files once you no longer need the backup files from the install.

The full build number is 7601.17514.101119-1850

Using the built in Disk Cleanup tool in Windows 7, you can choose to "Clean up system files" and then choose to remove Service Pack Backup Files that should free up space and do what you’re asking. See link to screenshot. However, I recommend only advanced users do this.

Let us know how your installation experience goes.