Microsoft Corp. has reached a significant milestone with the Release Candidate (RC) – Build 7100 of the highly anticipated Windows 7 operating system, now available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin 5th May 2009, and will be accessible from the Microsoft Windows 7 website. Windows 7 delivers improved management, security, reliability, productivity, and performance and in the RC build things are coming together quite nicely. I have already installed it on 5 different PCs and will be posting up some how to’s and my findings up here over the next couple of days.

“Listening to our partners and customers has been fundamental to the development of Windows 7,” said Bill Veghte, Windows senior vice president. “They told us simplicity, value and choice were paramount. We heard them and worked hard to deliver the best Release Candidate of Windows in our company’s history.”
More than 32,000 participants from approximately 10,000 companies have signed up to have access to a breadth of helpful tools and resources needed to prepare for Windows 7. Partners such as Corel, Cyberlink, Sonic, ATI and NVIDIA have already invested significant time and resources to preparing for Windows 7.

An RC milestone is an important step on the path to final delivery for Windows 7 as it indicates the operating system is entering the final phases of development and is ready for thousands of partners to test, evaluate, and develop new applications, device drivers, and services. The company says this milestone also indicates now is the time for IT pros to evaluate Windows 7, put it through its paces, and examine how it will operate in their environment. For IT professionals in enterprise environments, Windows 7 along with the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, an add-on subscription, helps enterprise customers make people productive anywhere, enhance security and control, streamline IT management, and reduce costs. Some key features for IT professionals include:

• Direct Access: This feature enables IT Managers to provide the mobile user with reliable and secure access to the corporate network resources when user is on the Internet, without having to initiate a VPN connection. It also allows servicing and updating of remote PCs, even when they are on the road. This helps to ensure that all mobile PCs are always up to date and Powershell means IT Pros can automate many standard tasks, to help reduce helpdesk costs, minimize user disruption and ease PC management. Direct Access is delivered by Windows 7 with Windows Server 2008 R2.
• BranchCache: Delivered jointly by Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, this feature enables IT pros to decrease time branch office users spend waiting to download files from remote servers by caching the previously accessed content locally in a branch’s network.
• BitLocker and Bitlocker To Go Drive Encryption : This helps ensure that sensitive data is protected across PCs and removable storage devices.
  New to the RC are advancements, such as Remote Media Streaming, Windows XP Mode (beta) and Windows Virtual PC:
• Remote Media Streaming: Enables secure, remote Internet access to home-based digital media libraries from another Windows 7 PC outside the home.
• Windows XP Mode: Utilizing Windows Virtual PC, Windows XP Mode allows small and medium business users of Windows 7 users to run many Windows XP productivity applications, launched right from the Windows 7 desktop. Windows XP Mode will be available to Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate customers via download or, in some cases, preinstalled directly on new PCs. Microsoft is releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC at the same time as the RC.

To learn more about Windows 7 from an IT professional perspective, check out Microsoft’s screencasts as well as our resources on Deployment, Application Compatibility, Security, Imaging, and more—all of which are available through the Springboard Series on TechNet. 

Some things to be aware of with the Windows 7 Release Candidate:

• Please plan ahead for Windows 7 Beta and Windows 7 RC expiration dates. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to rebuild your test machine using a genuine version of Windows 7 before the software expires. Windows will remind you when the expiration process is beginning; two weeks after this notification your PC will begin shutting down every two hours.
  • Windows 7 Beta expires on August 1, 2009, and bi-hourly shutdowns will begin July 1, 2009.
  • Windows 7 RC will expire June 1, 2010, and the bi-hourly shutdowns will begin on March 1, 2010.
  In both cases, you’ll need to rebuild your test PC to replace the operating system and reinstall all your programs and data.
• Since Windows 7 RC is not the final release, your PC will gather and send information to Microsoft engineers to help them check the fixes and changes made based on testing of Windows 7 Beta.
• Windows 7 RC requires that you do a clean install. Before installing Windows 7 RC, please read the Release Notes and Things to Know for important information. You can do an upgrade, but MS wants you to do a clean install to help in providing feedback on the RC build and an upgrade may introduce bugs.
• Keep your PC updated. Be sure turn on automatic updates in Windows Update in case we publish updates for Windows 7 RC.
• Microsoft doesn’t offer technical support for prerelease software, including Windows 7 RC. If you have problems or questions, we encourage you to visit Microsoft’s online forums, where you can get answers from our Windows Community and Support Professionals.