Down Time

Everybody is quite exciting about Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Now the wait is over Microsoft has released a beta refresh of its Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack (SP) 1 to selected PC and Technology Adoption Program (TAP) partners, company officials confirmed on August 30.

Microsoft made the refresh build — the build number of which is said to be Build No. 7601.17077 — available to a select group of testers on August 27. There’s no word (so far) on whether there is anything new in that refresh.

The spokesperson said Microsoft would not comment on whether the company will release to the public another interim SP1 build before the first service pack is released to manufacturing. Microsoft officials said earlier this summer that the company is planning to deliver the final SP1 code in the first half of 2011, and the spokesperson said on August 30 that Microsoft is still on track with that stated release date.

The server version of SP1 includes two new virtualization-focused features: RemoteFX and a dynamic-memory adjustor for Hyper-V. I’ve heard speculation that the server version of SP1 is what’s holding back the delivery of the client version, but have not heard this from any Microsoft officials.

Microsoft released a public beta of SP1 in mid-July.

Microsoft officials have been adamant that consumers and business customers don’t need to wait for SP1 to deploy Windows 7 and/or Windows Server 2008 R2. Still, a number of business customers use the release of SP1 as a milestone in terms of planning their deployments of a new operating system.

As we know Windows 7 is now become one of the most usage and successful windows after Windows XP. Everybody is now thinking When Will Windows 7 Overtake Windows XP ? And people are now really considering Windows 7 as compare to windows xp in many ways. I have noticed very strong evidence that Windows 7 has succeeded in a big way among early adopters and enthusiasts, who dominate the readership of a website like this one. I also see clear indications that businesses are adopting Windows 7 at a faster pace than in earlier Windows versions.

The monthly reports on operating system versions provide an ideal snapshot for my purposes, with data that goes back far enough to see meaningful trends. Using Excel, I plotted data from December 2008 (a month before the Windows 7 beta was made public) to July 2010 and then made some simple projections. Here’s what the chart looks like; actual Net Market Share data is to the left of the line in the center of the chart, and my projections are to the right:

Click to Enlarge Image

Yes, you can make a case for a hockey-stick growth curve with even a slight increase in the Windows 7 adoption rate. You could also argue for a slowdown, although I think that scenario is unlikely based on the overwhelmingly positive reception of Windows 7 in the market and where we are in the PC replacement cycle. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is that the pace of migration from XP to Windows 7 will accelerate over the next two years as XP gets closer to its end-of-life date.

In the Net Market Share data, the percentage of Mac OS X use has remained in a very narrow range for that entire period. In December 2008, the total for Mac Intel and Mac OS was 4.45%. For July 2010, the Net Market Share report breaks usage by OS X version rather than hardware platform, but the total for OS X 10.6 and 10.5 is nearly identical at 4.42%. In between, the percentage of users never rose above 4.45% and never dropped below 4%.

As someone who’s watched every Windows release since the early 1990s, I find it remarkable that Windows 7 usage has overtaken Vista so quickly, roughly nine months after it was released. NetMarketShare noted that trend with its July 2010 report. That same crossover appears in the ZDNet visitor data I posted yesterday, except that it happened about 8-10 months earlier. If the broad PC market is still lagging early adopters by that same gap, then I expect Net Applications will report that Windows 7 has passed XP in usage sometime next summer.

In less than a year Windows 7 is really getting popular and become one of the most use Operating System by people today, Windows 7 is now being used more than Windows Vista, according to market researcher.

Windows XP is still the most-used operating system, used by more than twice as many users as Vista and Windows 7 combined. Windows XP was used by nearly 62 percent of devices accessing the Web.

Windows Vista's 14.34 percent, marking the first time that the newer version surpassed its predecessor. Windows 7 was used on 14.46 percent of devices accessing the Internet, as compared to Microsoft has said it has sold 175 million copies of Windows 7 since the product went on sale last fall.

Usage of Windows 7 has been growing quickly since its release, topping the 10 percent level by March. Within a month on the market, Windows 7 was being used by four percent of Net-accessing devices, a level it took Vista seven months to reach.

Everyone seems to waiting for Microsoft another OS Windows 8 after the success of Windows 7, which should arrive in early-2012, has yet to receive much media attention. That’s probably because the most exciting thing we’ve heard about it so far is that it ‘might’ have an ‘app store’, and other leaks have all been centered around performance improvements (which are a given).

Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 8. Windows Vista hurt Microsoft’s reputation (rightly or wrongly), and Windows 7 was its savior. Windows 8 needs to be better than Windows 7 in ways that consumers can see, understand, and experience, and it needs to give consumers a reason to upgrade (or cross-grade) for it to equal or surpass Windows 7. The software giant’s latest release of Windows has “skyrocketed” PC sales, and scores a rating of”94 percent customer satisfaction”, according to CEO Steve Ballmer.

In the last few years, Microsoft has seen a lot of change – with the departure of Gates, and then Bach and Allard in recent months, and with constant management shuffling, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft pulls it’s resources together to make Windows 8 the success that many are expecting it to be.

If you have not upgraded your old windows version (windows xp 2 or windows vista RTM) to a latest version of windows (windows 7 or Windows Vista SP1) then you may faced some problem in near future because Microsoft is soon going to stop Support for Windows Vista RTM and Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2).

Support for Windows Vista (without any service pack installed) will be ending on April 13, 2010, meaning users must be running Vista SP1 or SP2 to receive any further product support. Users can upgrade to the latest service pack, SP2, for free, providing them with the latest security updates.

Support for Windows XP SP2 will be ending on July 13, 2010. Users still running Windows XP SP2 will no longer receive updates after this date, and are urged to update to Windows XP SP3, a free upgrade, or switch to Windows 7.

Users running Windows XP SP2 64-bit will still receive product support up until April 8, 2014, since Microsoft never released a 64-bit service pack 3.

• This update of Windows will detect more than 70+ known and potentially dangerous activation cracks and non-genuine copies.
• Deactivate their copies of windows and bypass their copies of windows activation process
• If any non validation or exploits found, the desktop wallpaper will be switched to a plain desktop (all of the customer’s desktop icons, gadgets, or pinned applications stay in place). Periodic reminders and a persistent desktop watermark act as further alerts to the customer.
• Customer has to re-install their copy of windows 7 or buy the genuine copy of windows for the future used of their windows.

Update: Microsoft reached out to us via email saying that IE9 will run on either Windows 7 RTM or Service Pack 1. It seems like IE9 could come out earlier than next year, and won’t actually require SP1 to work;

I want to follow up to let you know that the TechNet FAQ has been updated to provide further clarification about requirements for Internet Explorer 9.  Internet Explorer 9 will work on Windows 7 RTW and Windows 7 SP1.  When you install Internet Explorer 9 on a system that has Windows 7 RTM installed, additional operating system components are included as part of the installation of Internet Explorer 9.  Those “additional operating system components” will be part of Windows 7 SP1.  Either way, this will be a seamless process for the user.  Just wanted to make sure you had the latest.

Microsoft continues to push that it’s not essential for businesses to wait for SP1 and IE9, but to deploy now and roll out these updates later, when they are released. Microsoft explained on The Windows Blog why users shouldn’t wait for SP1 or IE9 to upgrade.

This gives an estimate of when a final IE9 release is expected, since Windows 7 SP1 isn’t due out until some time in the first half of 2011, but no specific date has been announced. A beta of Service Pack 1 is currently available.