FORT SILL, Oklahoma -- Field Artillery Soldiers will soon be ready to test-fire the modernized Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Bravo Battery, 2nd.

Microsoft today announced service packs for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but declined to set a release date or a schedule for getting a beta in users' hands. According to a company spokesman, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) will primarily contain 'minor updates,' including patches and hotfixes that will have been delivered earlier via the Windows Update service, rather than new features. One of the latter: an updated Remote Desktop client designed to work with RemoteFX, the new remote-access platform set to debut in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2.

Windows Server 2008 R2 will also be upgraded to SP1, Microsoft said, presumably at the same time as Windows 7 since the two operating systems share a single code base. Besides RemoteFX -- which Microsoft explained yesterday in an entry on the -- Server 2008 R2 will also include a feature dubbed 'Dynamic Memory,' which lets IT staff adjust guest virtual machines' memory on the fly. [ Related: ] Microsoft did not spell out a timetable for the service packs, saying only that it would provide more information as release milestones approach. Two weeks ago, a Web site that has regularly predicted release dates for Windows and its service packs said that had dumped plans for a 22-month development cycle for SP1, and instead might in the fourth quarter of this year. At the time, Microsoft declined to talk about Windows 7 SP1, with a spokeswoman saying, 'We do not comment on rumors or speculation.'

If Windows 7 SP1 follows the pace set three years ago by Vista SP1, the fourth quarter is a good bet. After much hemming and hawing, Microsoft admitted it would create SP1 for the then-new Vista in late July 2007, in August, seeded an invite-only group of testers with an early build in September, for public download in December 2007 and formally launched SP1 in mid-March 2008.

From start to finish, the Vista SP1 process lasted just over eight months. [ ] That same timeline for Windows 7 SP1 would put its release in late November 2010. But Windows 7 SP1 may be less important than previous first service packs if a recent survey of over 900 IT administrators is on the button. According to the poll, which was conducted in January by Dimensional Research, said they wouldn't wait for SP1 before deploying Windows 7. By tradition -- if little else -- many businesses postpone their migrations to a new Windows until that version's SP1 shows up. 'That may not sound like a lot, but for IT, it's a huge number,' said Diane Hagglund, the senior research analyst with Dimensional who authored the survey and the follow-up report. S vlad models. The first hint of Windows 7 SP1 came more than two months ago, when Rafael Rivera, who writes the blog, sniffed out several keys in Windows 7's registry that.

But don't worry, most EEPROMs have a maximum re-write number of 1 million or more. Secondly, EEPROM will not be erased if you remove power from it, but it won't hold onto your data indefinitely. As long as you're not continuously writing to the EERPROM it's unlikely you'll hit this maximum. Serial eeprom programmer 93c56.