“I am pleased to announce that Windows 7 has RTM’d!

As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM. Then, it goes though all the validation checks required for RTM including having all languages of that build completed. If all the validation checks have passed – sign-off for RTM can occur. Today after all the validation checks were met, we signed off and declared build 7600 as RTM.

Not only is RTM an important milestone for us – it’s also an important milestone for our partners. Today’s release is the result of hard work and collaboration with our partners in the industry to make Windows 7 a success. We delivered Windows 7 with a predictable feature set on a predictable timetable that allowed OEMs to focus on value and differentiation for their customers.

Our customers told us what they want (and expect) and we defined those specific experiences and then built features to support them (like HomeGroup and the Windows Taskbar enhancements). Our customers also told us that “fundamentals” on both the hardware and software side was extremely important. Windows 7 today runs great on the broadest array of hardware types ranging from netbooks to high-end gaming machines. We worked closely with OEMs so that their PCs delight customers with the new features in Windows 7.

Of course, today’s release is also the result of the amazing amount of feedback we received from the millions of people who tested Windows 7 – from Beta to RC. We actually had over 10 million people opt-in to the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). That’s a lot of people opting in to help us make Windows 7 a solid release.”

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/buy/offers/pre-order.aspx

Note that these are an “E Edition” of Windows 7

Q: What are the differences between standard editions of Windows 7 and E editions of Windows 7?

A: The only functional difference is that the Internet Explorer 8 component is not available.

Not to worry – we all use firefox right!?!?!?!

Microsoft’s blog site says  “the RC is on track for April 30th for  download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th.” – take a look at their blog site http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/04/24/windows-7-release-candidate-update.aspx

It will be available through the microsoft download site

What id like to know and love to be able to do is run the GUI as if it were a service i can stop and start (as you can with xserver in linux). Why would you want to do that? – Ah well here you go, 1 for security reasons, every man and his dog can get there way round a windows box, so for security reasons id like to be able to leave it in command line only – this way any body going on to the box that isn’t totally clued up might be put off by this and not bother with it. and last but not least, it free’s up resources.

I have not yet had a definitive answer on this one so maybe some one can answer it for me.