There's no need to wait for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 in order to embrace the next iteration of the Windows operating system from Microsoft. At the end of March 2009, analysis company Gartner revealed a similar conclusion, indicating that Service Pack 1 was no longer the OS evolution milestone it once was, especially when it comes down to Windows 7. Microsoft saw eye to eye with Gartner on this matter and revealed that SP1 would not be a milestone designed to mark the maturity of Windows 7 in terms of security and stability.

“Windows 7 is an operating system that from the get go will be as secure as possible, and even from Beta stage is extremely stable. It's not recommended for customers to deploy it in production environments just yet, however, they should not hesitate to test the platform in technology adoption programs. And we actually are recommending that customers test Windows 7,” revealed Tudor Galos, Windows Business Group Lead at Microsoft Romania, exclusively to Softpedia. “And yes, it wont be necessary for users to wait for SP1. Practically, not even Windows Vista required users to hold out for Service Pack 1.”

Galos referred not only to businesses but also to end users when indicating that “conventional wisdom” to postpone the adoption of a new Windows operating system until Service Pack 1 was an unnecessary strategy. But while for Vista RTM SP1 represented indeed a landmark in evolution, Windows 7 RTM will already have had its predecessor take in the heavy barrage of fire related to software incompatibilities, lack of hardware support and poor performance.

Being built as an evolution of Vista, Windows 7 comes with the guarantee of compatible software products and extended hardware support, and Microsoft has made sure of this aspect by only bumping the version number from 6.0 (Vista) to 6.1 (Windows 7). Testers that have been already running Windows 7 pre-release builds have been able to evaluate the stability of the platform on their own, even if the operating system has yet to hit Release Candidate. At the same time, Microsoft indicated as early as the Beta Build 7000 that the Windows 7 performance cat was already in the bag, revealing that the client left Vista in the dust, and exemplifying with the start-up time measuring contest.

Still, Galos also indicated that customers should look to Vista for the time being. “We recommend that they start with Windows Vista, with SP1 or SP2. And the reason is that Vista is a fully supported OS. Microsoft will not offer support for Windows 7 until launch. And we're advising users to run Windows Vista SP1. The difference is consistent between Vista RTM and Service Pack 1. The operating system now offers great performance and a high level of security, that security that end users need.”

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) Release Candidate (RC) is available for download here.