SP1 (Beta) Now Available for Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2, by Matt McSpirit

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Downloading as we speak!

Just over a month ago, straight from TechEd North America, we announced SP1 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 , and stated, at the time, the beta would be available before the end of July.  Well, it’s available now, from here .

What’s in there?

Well, Dynamic Memory for one, which I provided some useful resources for a few weeks back , along with RemoteFX, which has plenty of useful background reading here .  As a recap, what are Dynamic Memory and Remote FX?

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V introduces a new feature, called Dynamic Memory, in the Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta releases.  It allows customers to achieve increased density when they’re consolidating physical servers into a virtual realm, providing them with predictable performance and linear scalability.  With Dynamic Memory, IT administrators are able to pool available memory on a physical host and then dynamically dole that memory out to virtual machines running on the host, based on current workload needs.  For a technical overview of the new Dynamic Memory feature, download the Dynamic Memory Technical Overview whitepaper.

RemoteFX, a key feature of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) lets IT administrators deliver a rich graphics experience to end-users through virtualized desktops.  Using new protocol enhancements between Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, end users can now access virtual machines on a wide variety of target devices and still get a rich graphics experience with server-side graphics processing.  Learn more about RemoteFX and download the Remote Desktop Services Datasheet.

There is a load of reading to be done here too, which will keep you busy while you’re downloading the SP1 bits:

Once I’ve finished the download, and had some time to play around with it, I’ll make sure I report back with any useful information, but also, perhaps a cheeky video if I get the chance…

Once again, you can download the SP1 bits from here .