May
4
Download Your Own Copy of Windows 7 RC Tomorrow
Sometime tomorrow, Microsoft will make the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) available to the general public. The new Windows operating system will be completely free to download, and its license will last until June of 2010. That means you can try Windows 7 for free for over an entire year.
To download this final test version of Windows 7, just visit the Windows 7 page on Microsoft’s website starting tomorrow. If you are currently running Windows Vista with SP1, you will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 without having to do a clean installation. If you are currently running Windows XP, you must wipe your drive clean before you can install the new OS. The download will be around 2.5GB in size for the 32-bit version, and over 3GB for the 64-bit version of Windows 7. The download is a disk image (.iso) file, so that means you also need a DVD burner to create the installation disk.
Windows 7 will be shipping in its final retail form sometime before January 2010. That means you will able to upgrade your license to a full version well before your Windows 7 RC license expires that June. However, many people think the new Windows will ship well before then. The website Pocket-lint recently reported that Acer will begin shipping computers installed with Windows 7 on October 23rd. This confirms earlier rumors from inside Microsoft that Windows 7 will be ready in time for the Christmas shopping season.
Computerworld thinks Windows 7 will ship even sooner. In a recent blog post, they make the argument for a ship date between August 28 and September 20, 2009. These dates are based on the fact that Windows XP shipped 115 days after Microsoft made the release candidate available for download. Vista shipped 138 days after its release candidate version. Will this logic hold true this time around?
If you are planning on installing Windows 7 RC onto a virtual machine, VMware has a great installation guide. Even though this guide was written for the beta version of Windows 7, the procedures for the RC version will be very similar.
So go ahead and try the new Windows 7 RC for free. Let us know what you think! Will this version finally free Microsoft from the disappointment of Vista?
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