Windows 7 a Beta no more, moves to Release Candidate

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win7rc1

Tomorrow, May 5, the Release Candidate of Windows 7 will be made available to the general public. Insiders have had their greedy mitts on it since April 30th. The most significant tidbit about this release is that the rumor is that this RC should work for the next 12 months or so. What’s this mean? Get and use the most anticipated OS release out of Redmond for free for up to a year. Statement from Microsoft:

On Tuesday, May 5 (PST), the RC will be available to everyone via our Customer Preview Program. As with the Beta, the Windows 7 RC Customer Preview Program is a broad public program that offers the RC free to anyone who wants to download it. It will be available at least through June 30, 2009, with no limits on the number of downloads or product keys available.

You can download it here on the 5th.

19 thoughts on “Windows 7 a Beta no more, moves to Release Candidate”




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  2. @David Thanks for the link. I wonder how well Windows 7 would work on a netbook? I’m curious about it and might try putting it on one of mine. One of my other Mac friends told me that she was very impressed by it. That says a lot, so I want to take it for a spin. 🙂

  3. David Flowers

    @ Julie, As you know, I have been extremely impressed with its perfomance, especially on my handicapped much-hated HP laptop. If it could make that miserable piece of hardware run half way decent, I’d say it would be great on a netbook. I would think that disabling some of the visual effects and eye candy would make for a snappy experience. I’m very interested to hear some netbook stories!

  4. I’ve got Win 7 RC1, from Technet, running on an EEE PC (1000H)… Runs like a dream, faster than XP!

    Also running on my Media Center PC. A few quirks to get used to over Vista Media Center, and shame there’s no Webguide functionality, but good nonetheless.

  5. David Flowers

    @ PJ, Thanks for chiming in, that’s great to hear. I’ll be slapping it on a few machines at my place tomorrow. I’ve got to get hooked up on technet….

  6. I put release 7000 on my HP Mini – I believe it runs much faster and have had no compatibility issues. My only criticism though is that you cant make it look and work like XP – not an issue for me but there are plenty of luddites out there who religiously set the theme and look of Vista to operate and feel like XP; this capability has been removed from 7. A lot of people are gonna be pi$$ed……

  7. I’ve got 7 running on an MSI Wind U100-422CA (as well as my unibody MacBook). I will be downloading the RC and will install it on both machines as soon as I can get the software download to complete. I’m not sure if its going to be available right at midnight tonight or not, but I will likely give it a shot at that time…

  8. David Flowers

    @ Michael, You should do a clean install as Windows Update will not get you to the RC. Good Luck.

  9. Hmmmmm, might be time to get a dual-boot going so I can show Vista its’ soon-to-be obsolescence! Can you actually hear an OS whimper as it fades into extinction?

  10. Ok, I’m ignorant. I have the .iso, do I just burn it to DVD as data? And I was planning on wiping my old Fujitsu and putting it on there, but how do I go about installing it?

  11. @ Blacknimbus and everyone else, there is a pretty good how-to at ZDNet on how to burn your iso file using a free downloadable iso burner.

    http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3317

    @ Ryan, yeah, that is unfortunately true, the statement is made on Microsoft’s Win 7 RC download page. 🙁 But at least they warned us right? I could see millions of people under their desks trying to figure that one out next March…

  12. @David, I cant wait for March then. Hopefully I will close a lot of help desk tickets by telling my users to just buy Windows 7..haha

  13. I am looking forward to Vaio P with W7… altho i know the Vaio P didn’t fair well overall on this site… 😉

  14. I installed Windows 7rc on my Mini Wednesday night. Once I got a couple of download and burn issues dealt with (none of which were Microsoft’s fault), it went smooth as silk.

    It looks GORGEOUS, even on the Mini’s resolution and screen size. Some of the features and the games are absolutely stuperflifitously cool. (Yeah, made up word. Sue me!) Translucent windows, gauges, useful sub-windows, great organization, and ot goes on and on…

    But… everything is a bit draggy. Not bad, and probably nothing you would worry about on a bigger computer, but one of the key things about the Mini is its quickness… so I am going back to XP tonight.

    Or, maybe… Ubuntu again? Dual booting? I’ll have to think on this for a bit.

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