Announcing the Preview of Windows Embedded Standard 7 SP1

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We’re pleased to announce that a Technical Preview of Windows Embedded Standard 7 Service Pack 1 is now available for download at https://connect.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/ . This download delivers all the updates and notable changes in Windows 7 SP1 to Windows Embedded Standard 7, including RemoteFX, with an expected RTM/General Availability in Q1, CY11.

A Service Pack already?

You may be wondering why we are releasing a service pack so soon after the release of Windows Embedded Standard 7. The answer is that, because Windows Embedded Standard 7 is based on Windows 7, we wanted to make the service pack functionality of Windows 7 SP1 available to our customers as quickly as possible.

So What’s in SP1?

Service Pack 1 for Windows Embedded Standard 7, has two components:

Windows 7 SP1 updates
All the updates in Windows 7 SP1 are included in Windows Embedded Standard 7 SP1. A description of the updates can be found at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817622(WS.10).aspx
This includes RemoteFX – RemoteFX is a set of RDP technologies,  most prominently graphics virtualization and the use of advanced codes, that are being added to Windows SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. For more information, please visit https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/rds-remotefx.aspx

The updates in Windows 7 SP1 include RemoteFX for remote desktop, enabling users to access a rich graphics experience directly from the server.

Windows Embedded Standard 7 SP1 updates

There are several fixes in service pack one and two notable enhancements:

  1. PMQ Mapping to Out of Box Drivers. This allows drivers in the out of box drivers folder of the distribution share to be picked up automatically during installation in the same way as in box drivers.
  2. SKU Compliance Packages. We received feedback that customers were unsure if they were complying with all the functionality of a particular SKU of the product. For SP1 there are three new packages included in SP1 that can be included when building an image that will only enable the functionality appropriate for the selected SKU. This gives customers confidence that they are complying with the requirements of the SKU. Details on the available SKUs for Windows Embedded Standard 7 are at https://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/products/westandard/component-library.mspx

How do I upgraded to SP1?
There are two ways to upgrade to SP1 for Windows Embedded Standard 7:

-
Windows Embedded Standard 7 Toolkit for SP1. The set of three ISO files available for download provide an updated toolkit and allow you to build an image that includes all the SP1 updates, and IBW disks that can be used to install SP1 from scratch on target hardware. SP1 Distribution Shares are installed as part of the toolkit ISO and will be added to any existing RTM distribution shares on the development machine.

  • SP1 Update CAB
    For existing devices with a Windows Embedded Standard 7 image SP1 .cab files are available that can be applied online to the image using DISM. The update cabs are available for both x86 and x64 architectures and will update the functionality and features already included in the image with SP1 updates. For example, the RemoteFX functionality will only be provided as part of the update if the image includes the Remote Desktop functionality as RemoteFX is an update to Remote Desktop.

How to Provide Feedback

We’d really appreciate feedback on the Technical Preview release of Service Pack 1 for Windows Embedded Standard 7 to enable us to address critical issues in time for the final release of this Service pack. There are two ways to provide feedback:

The team here is very excited to bring you this preview and we look forward to your feedback, both positive and negative!

Thanks,

- Dave

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