The Windows 7 beta release is already a few months old now, and Microsoft has already made quite a number of changes to its new windows release after that, as detailed in the Engineering 7 weblog. These changes would make it to the public via the release candidate, but it has always been a bit unclear as to when it would arrive. Thanks to a slip-up, we now know the RC is coming in May.
The release candidate download page accidentally appeared on Microsoft’s TechNet today, providing us with all the details we needed to know. We now know the RC will be released somewhere in May, and that it will continue to function until June 1, 2010, when it will expire (the beta will expire August 1, 2009). The RC program will run at least through June 2009, and there will be no limit on the number of keys given out, so hopefully we won’t have the same situation as during the beta, when the download servers buckled under the pressure.
There will be downloads in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish, both in 32bit as well as 64bit versions. The hardware requirements listed are still the same as those for the beta release.
It’s not far-fetched to assume that this “leak” is a simple marketing ploy by Microsoft. The automotive industry does stuff like this all the time, with “leaks” originating from the companies themselves, in the hope of making a double slam: all over the news when you “leak”, all over the news when you announce.
Damn! Mandriva will release version 2009.1 just before that! I just can’t wait until May. I guess I’ll install Mandriva. Close call though. Too bad…
Edited 2009-03-26 20:04 UTC
Maybe so, but Ubuntu ‘should’ release 9.04 before that….. That will the Linux of choice on this machine. Dual booted with XP or course as Win7 has nothing for me.
not avalible to the general public. sorry guys. but for those with an active tech net subscription it will be avalible (i can say that right?). for those who manage to get it through other means (i am not here to judge) the speed and feature enhancements will please and amaze. mmmm i can’t wait.
I’ll wait until SP1 comes out thank you very much.
Microsoft has cocked it up too many times to take chances otherwise. :-))
Isn’t Windows 7 really just Vista SP3 anyways..? so it should be great!
But yeah I get your point. 🙂
al server releases since 2003 have been very well tested and rather stable. 2008 was absolutly steller (though it had SP1 for vista in it). There is no need to wait for 7 or 2008 R2 service pack 1. if you have been keeping up on the MSDN dev blogs you will know why.
I’ll use it, if only to see what all the fuss is about. I’ve been using Linux Mint for so long though. It will be a tough act to follow.
It’s really not, just so long as you remember that Windows is like Firefox. Without any addons, it’s really nothing exciting. It’s only when you start adding stuff to it that it becomes anything special.
But it does come with powersshell, so that’s a step in the right direction
Scripters might also want to try out AutoIt, and its distant cousin, AutoHotkey.
However, just like Linux, Windows ain’t for everyone. For example, if your killer apps consist of a terminal window and a bunch of CLI utils, then you’d just be running Cygwin on top of Windows and a bunch of GNU tools, along with some sweet toppings like perl, which is kind of a waste of your time, since you can do all that on Linux already.
Edited 2009-03-27 01:24 UTC