They also have slipstream installs that incorporate SP1 into the full product that are available, which is a nice time saver. There is a single .iso file that includes the x86 and x64 versions of SP1 for Windows 7, and the x64 version of SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2.

I burned the .iso file to a DVD, and then installed it on a fairly fast workstation (which has an Intel Core i7 930, 12GB of RAM, and a 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300 SSD that is plugged into a 6Gbps SATA III port). The Service Pack installation took 17 minutes to complete on this hardware. I really have to say that fast SSDs rock!

The most interesting new feature in this Service Pack (for Windows Server 2008 R2) is Dynamic Memory, which gives you greater control and flexibility about how Hyper-V allocates and manages memory among your guest VMs. This should let you run more VMs on a Hyper-V Host machine. You can see the differences in Figures 5 and 6, below.

Figure 1: Initial setup screen

Figure 2: Setup screen during installation

Figure 3: Final screen after reboot

Figure 4: Computer properties after SP1 installation

Figure 5: Old screen for Memory settings for Hyper-V VM

Figure 6: New screen for Memory settings for Hyper-V VM

It will be available for download on MSDN and TechNet on February 16, and on Windows Update on February 22.

The two main new features on the server side are Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX. Dynamic Memory gives you more flexibility in Hyper-V with how you configure memory settings to get better use out of your available memory and increase VM density on the host.

RemoteFX lets you use the GPU on the host Server to handle some of the graphical processing workload for remote clients. Personally, I am curious how well this works with the typical low-end embedded GPU in most commodity servers. I also wonder whether you could install a higher end, discrete video card and have RemoteFX use it?

Michael Kleef goes into more detail about these improvements here. More detail about Dynamic Memory is discussed here.