After a bit of a bumpy start, Microsoft has re-released 2014 SP1:
Note that due to the goofy release schedule – SP1 was released, then pulled, then released again – SP1 doesn’t have all of the fixes from CU7. This is where reading the 2014 update list gets kinda tricky – in a perfect world, you’d read all of the release notes in detail to see whether SP1 or CU7 has the fixes you need most.
But back here in reality, it comes down to your patching schedule:
- If you patch less than once every year or two, go with SP1 so that you’re under support longer.
- If you patch more frequently, go with the “newer” CU7 (which has more hotfixes) and patch again to SP1 later when there have been more cumulative updates for it.