An early development milestone of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 has reportedly made its way into the wild, with the first taste of the leaked Build already available. When it started offering the first details related to Windows 7 SP1 in mid-March 2010, Microsoft made it clear that the first service pack for the latest Windows client and server releases would be nothing more than a standard upgrade, nothing of the magnitude of Windows XP SP2.

Of course, customers should have become used to this by now, especially after releases such as XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1 and SP2. Windows 7 SP1 will also bring to the table minor updates and bug fixes released post-RTM, but this should be sufficient, as the general consensus is that Windows 7 RTM doesn’t really need an SP1 in order to be ready for adoption.

Users that choose to ignore recommendations and warnings related to illegal releases, and will take the step of jumping the gun and grabbing a leaked copy of Windows SP1 from BitTorrent trackers or warez websites will have the chance to download Build 6.1.7601.16537.amd64fre.win7.100327-0053, according to GeekSmack. Reports indicate that Windows 7 SP1 Build 6.1.7601.16537, compiled on March 27th, 2010, is a leak of the first Beta for the service pack. However, Microsoft has yet to confirm this aspect.

What was leaked is the standalone SP1 installation package, and not an ISO image of Windows 7 with SP1 already integrated. Via the screenshots at the bottom of this article, courtesy of GeekSmack, you will be able to get a taste of the Windows 7 SP1 installer and the deployment process. Apparently, installation has been optimized and now comes with a boosted speed compared with older service-pack releases.

No word yet from Microsoft or from third-party sources on the specific details of SP1. The Redmond company has so far confirmed and offered information on just two new features impacting the virtualization stack of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, namely RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory.