Windows 7 without Service Pack 1 is out; Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 is in
A quick note on two Microsoft updates: One on its way out and the other, on its way in.
As I blogged a couple months back, the RTM (release to manufacturing) version of Windows 7, with no service pack installed, will no longer be supported as of April 9, 2013. That means no more security fixes will be coming for that release. Support for specific Windows releases ends 24 months after the release of a new Service Pack, and Windows 7 SP1 was released in February 2011.
This means you should, if you haven't already, move to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) if you want to keep getting updates and support from Microsoft.
Windows 7 SP1 mainstream (free) support continues until January 13, 2015. Extended (paid) support for Windows 7 SP1 is available until January 14, 2020. (Microsoft continues to provide security updates for free during the Extended support phase of a product.)
For more product-support phase-out dates for Windows and Office that are happening in 2014 and beyond, check out my ZDNet colleague Ed Bott's post.
On the "phase-in" side, Microsoft made available for download on April 4 its second update for Visual Studio 2012, known as VS 2012.2.
VS 2012.2 is the second update to Visual Studio 2012 that Microsoft has delivered since the core Visual Studio product launched six months ago. The latest update adds new functionality in the areas of agile planning, quality enablement, Windows Store development, line-of-business development and the general developer experience, according to a post by Microsoft Corporate Vice President Soma Somasegar.
Somasegar noted that on the line-of-business front, Update 2 adds the ability to use Microsoft's LightSwitch tool to build cross-browser and mobile Web clients using HTML and JavaScript, with support for targeting SharePoint 2013 and Office 365. It also includes support in Blend for SketchFlow, WPF 4.5 and Silverlight 5.