14 DAY TRIAL // After the past week, when third-party sources started reporting that Windows 7 Service Pack 1 has been released to manufacturing, Microsoft is not offering official confirmation. Moreover, the Redmond company is denying the fact that the finalized version of Windows 7 SP1 has been handed over to original equipment manufacturers.
Ironically, the software giant is doing so on the only company web property that announced the RTM of Windows 7 SP1 as well as the debut of OEM availability in the first place.
Sources familiar with the development process of the first upgrade to Windows 7 revealed that Build 7601.17514.101119-1850 was the RTM milestone for the service pack.
A member of the Microsoft Russia Virtualization team confirmed on Friday, January 14th, that Windows 7 SP1 had gone gold. The company representative also noted at the time that the Windows 7 SP1 RTM bits were being handed to Microsoft’s OEM partners.
The initial wording of the blog post that announced the signing-off of Windows 7 SP1 was in Russian. Subsequently, the article in question was updated with what the author calls Microsoft’s official position on the matter at hand, this time in English:
“Microsoft has not released SP1 to OEMs at this time, though we are on track for a Q1 release, as we previously announced. The comments made in this blog entry included some inaccuracies,” the message reads.
Windows 7 SP1 Build 7601.17514.101119-1850 has not only been announced, but the bits have already been leaked in the wild, and generated quite an interest.
Microsoft however, continues to say very little about the evolution of Windows 7 SP1 after the Release Candidate (RC) Build was released in late 2010.
The company has yet to announce or confirm the release to manufacturing (RTM) deadline, or to make public the general availability deadline for the service pack.