The official Windows 7 thread.

[topgear]

Windows 7 RC Date Officially Confirmed

Mark your calendars, Microsoft has given us the official Windows 7 RC date

It’s official. Finally. Windows 7 Release Candidate will be publically available for your testing purposes – for FREE – on May 5.


This shouldn’t come as a big surprise as Microsoft accidentally leaked a download page listing May 5 as a date for the download, with MSDN and TechNet subscribers getting it a little bit earlier. Today, we’ve learned about that date as well.


Windows Communications Manager Brandon LeBlanc wrote on the Windows Team Blog, “I’m pleased to share that the RC is on track for April 30th for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th.”


The Release Candidate incorporates many changes and fixes since beta build 7000, partially thanks to feedback from millions of testers. LeBlanc said that at the peak of the feed back cycle, the team was receiving a “send feedback” report every 15 seconds.

Source : *www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-release-candidate-rc-download,7632.html

 

[soumya]

Revealed: More Windows 7 RC details

AAC/H.264/MPEG-2 support will not be provided to Windows 7 Home Basic and Starter customers. That functionality will only go out to Home Premium, Professional, and Enterprise/Ultimate users. But it looks like there will be add-ons made available (free or paid, it's not clear) to users of low-end Windows 7 versions.

Maximum RAM. All 32-bit versions of Windows 7 "support" 4 GB of RAM, of course. But if you go 64-bit, you can add up to 8 GB in Home Basic and Starter, 16 GB in Home Premium, and 192 GB in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Windows Media Player Remote Media Experience (RME) is not available in Windows 7 Home Basic or Starter. However, all versions can share media over a home network.

All Windows 7 SKUs support 20 simultaneous SMB connections. This works out to 10 users, apparently.

XP Mode (formerly Virtual PC). As we first revealed yesterday, only Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate are licensed to install XP Mode.

Source

 

[topgear]

Windows 7 System Requirements Finalized

System requirements for Windows 7 aren’t any great mystery, but now we’re getting a much better idea of what it’ll say on the retail box.

Microsoft posted relatively modest system requirements (at least for any computer belonging to a Tom’s Hardware reader) when it released the Windows 7 public beta in January and only slightly modified them for the release of yesterday’s Release Candidate.

The system requirements for the beta at the time called for:
1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
1 GB of system memory
16 GB of available disk space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme)

The system requirements published yesterday for the official Release Candidate are the following:
1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of RAM (32-bit)/2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
16 GB of available disk space (32-bit)/20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with Windows Display Driver Model 1.0 or higher driver

The only real changes to the system requirements since January are slightly bumped up ones for the 64-bit version, though we suspect anyone who plans to run the x64 build will have a machine that’s way beyond the minimum (having at least 4 GB of RAM would be a good starting point).

While the system requirements posted yesterday apply to the Release Candidate, Microsoft told ZDNet that they were ‘final’, though it’s unknown if there will be different requirements between different SKUs such as Starter Edition or Ultimate Edition. “The system requirements are final and not SKU-specific,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

Those who plan to run XP Mode will need at least 2 GB RAM, 15 GB of additional hard drive space and a processor that supports hardware virtualization.

According to early tests, Windows 7 performs better than Windows Vista on the same hardware.

"It's been a long time since we've had a version of Windows that will actually run better [than the previous version] on the hardware that most customers have," Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows product management group, said during a conference call with reporters, quoted by ComputerWorld.

Windows 7 does carry with it slightly heftier system requirements than Vista does, despite it being a better performer. From one generation to the next – and three years later – Windows 7’s system demands does seem positively modest.

For reference, Windows Vista’s system requirements are:
1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
512 MB of RAM (for Home Basic); 1 GB of RAM for all other versions
15 GB of available disk space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory (for Home Basic); 128 MB of graphics memory plus WDDM support for all other versions

source : *www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-system-requirements-hardware-rc,7701.html

 

[alexanderthegreat]

Has anyone got any leads on the price of the various editions? Will it cost a fortune too?

 

[Krazy_About_Technology]

Windows 7 Release Date Leaked!!

Sockatume writes "Yesterday, two Acer executives in Europe separately let
slip details that give us a good date for the release of Windows 7.
First, Acer's vice-president for Europe discussed a new product,
launching this September, that will support Windows 7's touch features.
Asked whether this confirmed the Windows 7 release date as September
2009, he coyly remarked that 'when it's in store it won't have Windows 7
pre-loaded.' Microsoft would probably prefer that he had stopped there,
but he added: 'We won't be actually selling [Windows 7] [0]a day before
the 23rd October.' Then, Acer's Managing Director for the UK helpfully
clarified that while their product will ship with Windows Vista at
launch, because it is on sale [1]less than 30 days before the Windows 7
release date, it will be eligible for the 'upgrade program' to get a free
upgrade to the new OS."

Source : Slashdot.org

This is quiet understandable i guess from the arrival of RC this month

 

[topgear]

Just take a look at this blog :
*windows7center.com/news/windows-7-pricing-details-leaked/
though I'm not sure if it's correct or not it will give you an idea about pricing

 

[topgear]

Don't know if you guys already know it or not

Burn ISO Images Natively in Windows 7

 

[Krazy_About_Technology]

Windows 7 RC Official Download Available Now!

Visit Here

 

[Disc_Junkie]

^^ Thanks!!

 

[topgear]

Microsoft Windows 7 SDK (ISO) Release Candidate -download
*www.microsoft.com/downloads/detail...2a-fc94-4027-b67e-46bab7c5226c&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft Windows XP Mode for windows 7 - download
*www.microsoft.com/downloads/detail...FamilyID=0e8fa9b3-c236-4b77-be26-173f032f5159

 

[desiibond]

Hiiiiii from Windows 7 RC

Damn, it is breathtakingly crisp and clear.

i would say, even win 7 beta is nothing before the clarity of windows 7 RC.

 

[Devrath_ND]

Is this time limited and can be used for lifetime.

 

[desiibond]

no. it's not for lifetime. the os will be active only till March 1st 2010.

 

[topgear]

Microsoft: Windows 7 on October 22

It's getting pretty solid.

Until there’s a press release on the Microsoft website, the speculation and analysis will continue. A recent news report has a Microsoft executive committing to a hard date.

“We feel confident that we will deliver Windows 7 with our partners on Oct. 22,” Bill Veghte, senior vice president for Microsoft's Windows business, said to Dow Jones.

That’s the best piece of information we have yet regarding Windows 7’s release date, which also falls right in line with what we’ve heard before from Acer.

Of course, that could just mean that Windows 7 will hit RTM (release to manufacturing) on that date, except Dow Jones’ headline read, “Microsoft: Windows 7 To Be Generally Available Oct 22.”

Microsoft then later clarified to Gizmodo, “General Availability (GA) is when consumers can actually purchase the software and PCs with the software preinstalled.”

This, along with all the guesses pointing at October, seems to indicate that Windows 7 will be out well in time for the holiday shopping season.

Source : *www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-windows-october-release-date,7957.html

 

[Desmond]

Windows 7 official support ended yesterday. RIP.