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.

There’s no concrete roadmap (or tar one, for that matter) yet, but it’s good to see that, if Redmond sticks to it, the 22 month deployment cycle will be revised with a view toward tied-off user systems patched to baselevels. Microsoft suggests minor patches and hotfixes to be included in this roll-out.

The reason for the overlap between the service packs is the code-base overlap between the two operating systems – remind me to blog about the beauty of Windows 2008, or “how I installed Windows 2008 Enterprise in 6 minutes”.

We should be able to expect (unofficially) the roll-out from October 2010 onwards, with a focus on end November 2010.

Based on registry entries found in the base Windows 7 deployment, there are eligibility registry keys that may prevent the service pack to install — but that shouldn’t be a problem as long as it’s only linked to registered and legal software…