The public beta of first service pack (SP1) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is set to be officially released by end of July, according Bob Muglia, President of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Business during the annual Tech-Ed conference, with final RTM bits of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 coming by Q4 (Quarter 4) 2010.

In mid June 2010, Microsoft Windows Customer Connection Team had sent out invitations to selected group of testers to invite them to join and participate in the early access and download of pre-release version of SP1 for the purpose of validating the release readiness. In fact, Microsoft had released the first beta version of Service Pack 1 in English, German, Japanese, French and Spanish language editions to the participants on June 22nd, 2010. The SP1 files comes in the ISO file named 7601.16562.100603-1800_Update_Sp_Wave0-B1SP1.0_DVD.iso with size of 1,254.15 MB.

The released Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 has the build version of 7601.16562.100603-1800 (6.1.7601.16562 v.178 with full version string as 6.1.7601.16562.win7sp1_beta.100603-1800). The build number indicates that the beta build was compiled on June 3rd, 2010. However, it’s unclear if the build will be the official SP1 beta that will be released for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Tip: The same service pack applies to both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta build 6.1.7601.16562 setup installers have been leaked to the Internet for anybody who is interested to download. Apparently, the SP1 will available in wave 0 only, which means there is only English, German, Japanese, French and Spanish available, as confirmed by a Microsoft Help article.

Download Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta Build 7601.16562 v.178

32-bit (x86) : Windows6.1-KB976932-x86-INTL.exe

Size: 300,592,880 byte
SHA-1: DDF007FA19A372579F91AA6EEA4A3D84B7D50163
MD5: 251F3B55A1AEAE5BDFD07F1394520BBB
CRC: 779B6D7C

64-bit (x64): Windows6.1-KB976932-X64-INTL.exe

Size: 562,976,752 byte
SHA-1: D0BBF9B7D762F6503E507530EE12C52432CA1E76
MD5: 639F6DF608E17805F6C61A02A134D8E5
CRC: 41C97038

ia64: Windows6.1-KB976932-ia64-INTL.exe

Size: 450,749,152 byte
SHA-1: 136CF777B064897CF24D634E8E52118C78650C34
MD5: 5BCB26E0116FB7C43304A62F26228FCE
CRC: E3617D26

Download the complete Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta ISO: 7601.16562.100603-1800_Update_Sp_Wave0-B1SP1.0_DVD.iso

The SP1 is said to be not contained much enhancements or new features other than roll-up of previously released hotfixes and security updates. However, there is some new features that may be exciting to some users, such as Dynamic Memory Allocation with Hyper-V and RemoteFX. Check out on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 notable changes for more details.

Build Information:

6.1.7601.16562.win7sp1_beta.100603- 1800 – actual build in win7sp1_beta branch
6.1.7601.16562.win7sp1_beta.100603- 1800 – Previous build
6.1.7601.16561.win7sp1_beta.100527- 1447 – previous build
6.1.7601.16560.win7sp1_beta.100524- 1800 – previous build
6.1.7601.16559.win7sp1_beta.100506- 1349 – previous build

Update: Official Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta download links.