Why No SP2 for Win7?

[GTaudiophile]

I refuse to downgrade to Win 8.X. I did a fresh install of Win7U with SP1 slip-streamed. But I keep fighting Windows Update. I've had a BSOD, I've had update installations hang for over an hour. It's nuts!

Why is there no SP2???

 

[aShufflinZombie]

Microsoft wants people to upgrade to newer versions of Windows and the best way to do that is to make supporting an older OS more difficult or impossible.

 

[thegummy]

I think you'll be able to sort out your Win7 problems; I've been completely fine.

But you'll only have to worry about it for a few more months as 10 will be out and you'll get a free upgrade

 

[Mem]

Microsoft wants people to upgrade to newer versions of Windows and the best way to do that is to make supporting an older OS more difficult or impossible.

It's more like people forget every OS is on a limited life span regardless of likes or dislikes,personally Win10 is way superior to Win7 so best wait for that like thegummy suggested.

Also remember Win7 is now on extended support only,mainstream support ended in Jan.

What is the difference between mainstream support and extended support?

• Mainstream support—Microsoft will offer mainstream support for a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer. For example, if you buy a new version of Windows and five years later another version is released, you will still have two years of support left for the previous version.
• Extended support—Microsoft will offer extended support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the second successor product (two versions later) is released, whichever is longer.

 

[escrow4]

Because its old and creaky. Its not 2009. Its install a modern OS like 8.1.

 

[RampantAndroid]

It's more like people forget every OS is on a limited life span regardless of likes or dislikes,personally Win10 is way superior to Win7 so best wait for that like thegummy suggested.

Also remember Win7 is now on extended support only,mainstream support ended in Jan.

This. Why should a company be forced to support an ancient OS? If you really want to speed things up, install Win7, do all updates and then create an image of the install.

If you have problems with Windows Update, post C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log on pastebin or something and link to it here.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Because its old and creaky. Its not 2009. Its install a modern OS like 8.1.

That's pretty ironic, since 7 and 8.0 and 8.1 are all very, very, similar.

 

[escrow4]

That's pretty ironic, since 7 and 8.0 and 8.1 are all very, very, similar.

7 has no native USB 3 support, isn't as versatile when it comes to UEFI/GPT and won't get DX 12. Plus the kernel has been tweaked security wise in 8/8.1. Its similar but not very very. The gap will widen with 10. And its out of mainstream support, MS doesn't care about it anymore. Security updates are it.

 

[Magic Carpet]

That's pretty ironic, since 7 and 8.0 and 8.1 are all very, very, similar.

And Vista SP2 isn't far off performance-wise

If Microsoft gave people an option of completely disabling Metro interface, we could have an argument. I like Win8+, but I can see why people still prefer using Win7, especially on the older hardware. Especially with the move of disabling the Win8.1 update to 64bit owners of the Win8.0 users running older dual-core AMD CPUs. That's just low, really.

Win10 x64 claiming to use even less resources than Win8 (both on ram and cpu), but unable to run on dual-core Athlons/Opterons? That's 2005+ era CPUs, not like MS is claiming, "this instruction has been supported for more than 10 years". Yeah right, that's just lazy. Security yeah whatever. Out of the box, you are restricted tp using only Win32 starting on Win8.1 and up, virtually limiting yourself to only usable about 3 gigs of ram on 4gb rigs (with some hardware limiting you to only 2.75GB). Just meh, microsoft. Lazy. Give people at least classic, mouse+keyboard GUI without of that touch crap non-sense and just maybe some people would actually bother to upgrade. Go to hell with your security, if you can't give people proper GUI. I'd rather use *nix.

 

[Mem]

And Vista SP2 isn't far off performance-wise

If Microsoft gave people an option of completely disabling Metro interface, we could have an argument. I like Win8+, but I can see why people still prefer using Win7, especially on the older hardware. Especially with the move of disabling the Win8.1 update to 64bit owners of the Win8.0 users running older dual-core AMD CPUs. That's just low, really.

Win10 x64 claiming to use even less resources than Win8 (both on ram and cpu), but unable to run on dual-core Athlons/Opterons? That's 2005+ era CPUs, not like MS is claiming, "this instruction has been supported for more than 10 years". Yeah right, that's just lazy. Security yeah whatever. Out of the box, you are restricted tp using only Win32 starting on Win8.1 and up, virtually limiting yourself to only usable about 3 gigs of ram on 4gb rigs (with some hardware limiting you to only 2.75GB). Just meh, microsoft. Lazy. Give people at least classic, mouse+keyboard GUI without of that touch crap non-sense and just maybe some people would actually bother to upgrade. Go to hell with your security, if you can't give people proper GUI. I'd rather use *nix.

Some people just don't want to move on,for example a lot of people still using XP over Win7 or 8?...Metro on Win8 does not even come into it.

End of the day some people like to hang on even after EOL.


Regardless you can bet some people will find some new excuses with Win10,some things don't change.

 

[owensdj]

Microsoft has been packaging fewer and fewer Service Packs for their operating systems over time. Windows 2000 had 6 Service Packs. XP had 3. Vista had 2.

 

[mikeymikec]

OP, investigate cause of BSOD.

 

[PliotronX]

Because it would make too much sense and save too much bandwidth :hmm:

Service packs are still in the realm of Microsoft, just under different names... er KB numbers. I consider the rather large seasonal updates for Windows 8 to be service packs. These cumulative updates (Spring '14, November, December) are pretty much equivalent. Thank god for constantly updated VMs and WDS :whiste:

 

[Mushkins]

And its out of mainstream support, MS doesn't care about it anymore. Security updates are it.

MS still very much cares about Windows 7. Focusing strictly on public installs is silly when the core of their business has always been enterprise.

Security updates are significantly more important than new features, and Windows 7 is still completely a viable OS to be running. Especially considering I know of approximately zero enterprise-level businesses running 8/8.1, and 10 has not been released yet.

 

[Gunbuster]

Yes, why does Microsoft not have its infinite resources working on a service pack for Windows 7 so you don't have to "Downgrade to 8.X" this is so perplexing.

 

[mikeymikec]

Yes, why does Microsoft not have its infinite resources working on a service pack for Windows 7

Yes, it would totally require "infinite resources" for Win7 to be given another service pack, I'm sure.

Furthermore, Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4 was released after its mainstream support period by the looks of it:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=18997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2000

However, given that MS plan to give away Win10 seemingly to more than half of Windows users out there, I think they're very much wanting Win7 and 8x (ancient beasts that they are) to go away ASAP.

 

[Maximilian]

That's pretty ironic, since 7 and 8.0 and 8.1 are all very, very, similar.

This x 1000.

OP there is no SP2 because Microsoft suck. If they had made a decent job of windows 8/8.1 to begin with there wouldn't be droves of people looking to stick with the older OS in the first place.

 

[vailr]

Hint: check for monthly updated installation disc .iso torrent files from a certain "Bay of Pirates" user named murphy**.

 

[master_shake_]

i'd take a second service pack over downloading and installing 800 gajillion updates after a fresh install.

 

[Magic Carpet]

This x 1000.

OP there is no SP2 because Microsoft suck. If they had made a decent job of windows 8/8.1 to begin with there wouldn't be droves of people looking to stick with the older OS in the first place.

Microsoft has been "messing around" ever since Windows 6.0 (Vista). Not sure what OEMs were thinking putting only 512 mb of ram on Vista systems. They fixed a few things, resulting in Windows 6.1, gave it a new name, Windows 7. Anybody compared Vista SP2 to 7 SP1? They are very similar. The 7 got very useful Windows XP emulation, which was handy to have.

So we have Windows 6.2 (Windows 8), the file explorer got back the navigation arrow (one level up) that had been missing since Windows XP. Metro interface, no more Aero. No more classic GUI. Many other good things were added, though. Faster start-ups/shut-downs were among the most noticeable ones, display driver model saw another update (not as significant as the Vista-to-Windows 7 one though). They got rid of the Windows XP emulation mode (basically VM w/ key).

In 8.1 they decided to revive the Start menu button, just that. Still no useable Start menu panel. Killed the software emulation support for older CPUs like Operon 180/Athlon 64 X2 on the 64 bit OS edition. Basically leaving dual-socket Opteron users with heaps of ram, no choice but to "downgrade" to Win7 x64. Except for the security updates Windows 8 is a dead OS, you can't even install IE11 on it (which is ironic, because the older Win7 has it), AMD stopped making drivers for 8.0, etc. Security-wise, Windows 8.1 is the best Microsoft OS so far, but it lacks proper GUI, Windows has been known for. If you don't play games, you don't need Windows anymore. Period. *nix has grown into something, even a housewife can use it (compared to what it was 20 years ago). And it's free, no more stupid re-activation every time you change XYZ in your computer.

N.B. Windows XP is classy, the best Microsoft OS of all times with hardware sound acceleration, even though, it's no longer supported and is indeed slower in modern apps on modern hardware. With an SSD and Google Chrome, it's still usable, since not every old computer is upgradeable with the same functionality (S3 support is very patchy on newer OS's w/ older hardware with CPUs often lacking power-saving p-states as well)

 

[RampantAndroid]

Microsoft has been packaging fewer and fewer Service Packs for their operating systems over time. Windows 2000 had 6 Service Packs. XP had 3. Vista had 2.

Or perhaps XP was the outlier? The only reason it had 3, I suspect, is because Longhorn took so long.

 

[mikeymikec]

Or perhaps XP was the outlier? The only reason it had 3, I suspect, is because Longhorn took so long.

I don't think so. NT4 had 6, Win2k had 4 plus a rollup package. A definite trend there methinks.

 

[JackMDS]

I keep fighting Windows Update. I've had a BSOD, I've had update installations hang for over an hour. It's nuts!

Why is there no SP2???

Partial solution for this issue.

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/139877-post-sp1-updates-for-windows-7-updated-25032015/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913086

 

[RampantAndroid]

I don't think so. NT4 had 6, Win2k had 4 plus a rollup package. A definite trend there methinks.

I'm not sure you can compare client and server versions. I expect there to be a bit more work on server OSes (or people won't use them.)

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Except for the security updates Windows 8 is a dead OS, you can't even install IE11 on it (which is ironic, because the older Win7 has it), AMD stopped making drivers for 8.0, etc.

I don't get why people are complaining about the free 8.1 update. Yes, you have to go through the Windows Store or find an ISO. No, you do not need a Microsoft account to install it. If your hardware can run 8, it can run 8.1. There is zero reason not to update. Unless you're running one of the (ancient) CPUs affected by the CMPXCHG16B debacle. In which case you're likely better of sticking with 7...

My 2c.