As Microsoft is getting ready to roll out Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, there are some that want to do thorough testing before deploying it throughout the organization. For those people, Microsoft has released a blocker tool that stops the user from installing the service pack through Windows Updates.

A blocking tool is available for organizations that would like to temporarily prevent installation of Service Pack updates through Windows Update.

This tool can be used with:

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (valid for 12 months following general availability of the service pack)

Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (valid for 12 months following general availability of the service pack)

This toolkit contains three components. All of them function primarily to set or clear a specific registry key that is used to detect and block download of Service Packs from Windows Update. You only need to use the component which best serves your organization’s computer management infrastructure.

A Microsoft-signed executable

A script

An ADM template