Windows 7 Release Candidate: Now What?
Now that it's at RC, what's next?
Now with the Windows 7 RC here, many of us are more confident than ever to run it as our primary OS – despite Microsoft telling us not to. The fact is that Windows 7 RC as it is feels like a complete OS, which gives Microsoft the confidence to commit to a release sometime this year.
So the next big step for Windows 7 is hitting the final release code that gets sent out to OEMs – release to manufacturing (RTM). The Windows 7 team has blogged about what the next steps are before we’ll be seeing the new OS shipping on new PCs as well as boxed copies on the shelves.
“The path to RTM starts with downloads of the RC. The RC is ‘done’ and what we are doing is validating this against the breadth of the ecosystem and with partners,” wrote the software engineering team. “The primary difference with the RC is that we will not be changing the functionality or features of the product at this point—that’s the sort of thing we’ll save for a future release.”
Basically, the RC is feature complete and now all Microsoft is doing is collecting data from its now massive pool of testers to see where it can smooth things out for more systems.
“We are primarily focused on monitoring the behavior of the product through the telemetry, and of course making sure we did not introduce any regressions in any dimension from Beta quality,” the blog continued. “One of the things we have done since Beta has continued to beef up telemetry—we’ve put in additional monitoring points in many systems. We’re particularly interested in seeing what devices are installed, drivers that are required, and overall system performance.”
All users of the Windows 7 RC right now are contributing to Microsoft’s data sets with reports regarding their usage (private and anonymous). In the final shipping version of the OS, the sending of telemetry data of Microsoft is optional.
Those using the RC right now and having a good experience likely won’t see much change in the final shipping version. Between now and the final release, Microsoft said that it is looking mainly to improve in the following areas:
- Installation
- Security issues
- Crashes and Hangs
- Device installation and compatibility
- Servicing
- New Hardware
“Delivering the highest quality Windows 7 is the most important criteria for us at this point—quality in every dimension. The RTM process is designed to be deliberate and maintain the overall engineering integrity of the system. Many are pushing us to release the product sooner rather than later, but our focus remains on a high quality release,” wrote Microsoft. “Ultimately our partners will determine when their PCs are available in market. If the feedback and telemetry on Windows 7 match our expectations then we will enter the final phases of the RTM process in about 3 months. If we are successful in that, then we tracking to our shared goal of having PCs with Windows 7 available this Holiday season.”
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A new 7127 beta was leaked today i noticed. haha
You should NEVER run a testing operating system to be your primary system since you should be prepared to encounter bugs even if it's an RC release and the fact that it seems stable. I know this from experience as I test a lot of software in the open source community. It may look stable and then suddenly you do something then the program crashes... Then you go WTF?
iv only got one system at my place but i could hardly resist testing out the beta and RC, but to be safe i just got my self a cheap 500gb hard drive and set up a dual boot.. to simple
You should NEVER run a testing operating system to be your primary system since you should be prepared to encounter bugs even if it's an RC release and the fact that it seems stable. I know this from experience as I test a lot of software in the open source community. It may look stable and then suddenly you do something then the program crashes... Then you go WTF?
lol the funniest part is windows 7 rc is more stable than windows xp x64. so logically, your statement is correct, but just not in this situation
how much for windows 7?
lol the funniest part is windows 7 rc is more stable than windows xp x64. so logically, your statement is correct, but just not in this situation
I agree. A lot of final versions of open software work less good (have more bugs) as Win7 RC.
I expect the final verison of Windows 7 to be somewhat like 5GB in size. Since the current version has a lot of debug and tuning programs, and feedback programs) running that probably won't be there in the final versoin. At least if they do I hope we can strip them down from them.
Despite their use in boosting the OS and provide more stability, once they have done their job, they are no longer needed and can be turned off.
Also, I really hope MS is going to do something about defrag, to support better SSD defragmentation support, as well as keep the OS from spreading files arround the HD, but keep files and folders as clusters on the HD (together, and not spread out).
I can't wait for the retail release!
cletus.... you cant buy it yet...
Does nobody else feel like windows 7 is vista ... but fixed?
kinda, but its satisfying
btw i cant find the 7127 in my regular resources
7127 is a internal build. MS still does weekly builds. It doesnt mean there has been any major changes. It just consists of whatever work they did that week.
It could be a very minor change and without release notes you would never know.
w7 appears to be more stable than vista ever was...
it certainly runs faster and ties up less resources...
But does anyone notice a difference in loading times from start-up between the Beta (7000 build) to the RC (7100 build)?
Dub7 is easily the most stable version of windows I have used in a long time; I might actually go out any buy this one.
I agree. A lot of final versions of open software work less good (have more bugs) as Win7 RC.
the word you look for my sir, is worse
I'm glad the people at Microsoft are caving into the pressure to release Windows 7 earlier than they plan.
I am using Win 7 as my primary OS without problems. No it is not my only OS. It is on a separate hard drive, by primary I simply mean it is what I am booting into and using day to day as I slowly install more programs to see if they all function. So far the only ones not to work do not work in Vista either, no surprises there.
All of my data is kept on two separate hard drive. One of which has Vista and XP installed the other with Mac OS X Leopard. So though it is my primary OS now it is by no means my only OS. If Win 7 has some catastrophic failure I can simply hit the reboot button and use one of my other OSes.
Also, I really hope MS is going to do something about defrag, to support better SSD defragmentation support, as well as keep the OS from spreading files arround the HD, but keep files and folders as clusters on the HD (together, and not spread out).
Has it ever been proven that defragging an SSD even accomplishes anything?
Now what? Duh... another EU fine and biotch fest.
how much for windows 7?
That's the big question ATM.... I expect prices similar to Vista's pricing, in other words rape, rob and pillage time for M$. US prices, ~400USD for professional. 30 to 50% higher in the rest of the OECD.
You should NEVER run a testing operating system to be your primary system since you should be prepared to encounter bugs even if it's an RC release and the fact that it seems stable. I know this from experience as I test a lot of software in the open source community. It may look stable and then suddenly you do something then the program crashes... Then you go WTF?
I do agree. I have installed the RC1 and suddenly the Event Notification service crashed. I could not even log on to the system. Had to remove and install the XP again. Too early to use the RC as a primary system. I even will not use the final retail version until the some period will pass and microsoft addresses common issues
You should NEVER run a testing operating system to be your primary system since you should be prepared to encounter bugs even if it's an RC release and the fact that it seems stable. I know this from experience as I test a lot of software in the open source community. It may look stable and then suddenly you do something then the program crashes... Then you go WTF?
All I hear is blablabla.
I had sound and graphic errors/bugs that I never encountered with XP64 on Windows 7. I had updated drivers for Windows 7 for my hardware.
Also the Windows 7 default shell was more bloated than XP's which is sub par begin with compared to a replacement shell. Personally I use(BB4WIN) as my replacement shell for windows. With customizing it's more functional better looking and requires less system resources. I'll stick with XP64 for now.
You should NEVER run a testing operating system to be your primary system since you should be prepared to encounter bugs even if it's an RC release and the fact that it seems stable. I know this from experience as I test a lot of software in the open source community. It may look stable and then suddenly you do something then the program crashes... Then you go WTF?
Logically right, as others have stated. But ultimately it's our own choice if we want to gamble on a new system, or a proven, but proven faulty, one.
I've so far only encountered a single severe problem with rc, and it resolved itself. As a comparison, I had to reinstall the 'final release' of vista 5 times over the course of 1½ years due to severe malfunctions that weren't repairable from within windows. So sure, I've only been running rc for 10 days and encountered one severe incident, one cosmetic flaw, and one feature that didn't work as intended. But it's still a much better track record than vista, where I had to unplug all but the system drive in order to even install it.
I'm not going to claim it'll perform flawlessly and be rock stable. I can't know. But it does look promising right now. So I'm quite confident running it as my only os on my computer at home. But obviously I won't run it on any computer at work. I'm not willing to do diagnostics of unforeseen effects from the AD GPO's in a non final product.
Dub7 is easily the most stable version of windows I have used in a long time; I might actually go out any buy this one.
Agreed.
I skipped Vista because of issues, though I never did bother with it when most of the issues were dealt with.
However running x64 7 vs x32 XP, the only crashes I get is hardware failure.
Get real. There just isn't enough difference between Windows 7 and Vista.
lol the funniest part is windows 7 rc is more stable than windows xp x64. so logically, your statement is correct, but just not in this situation
well stop running xp 64 on an ancient computer
For those that can run XP x64 correctly(meaning they have the drivers,etc) it's a great OS, but sadly it never got much push in to the consumer market back in the day due to the fact many people were still running a max of only 2GB or so lol. Today most PCs have AT LEAST 4GB, which pushes the need for x64 and thus x64 drivers (which is what mainly killed XP x64). If more manufactures and Microsoft worked on XP x64 drivers,etc then it would have been really great. And indeed, Vista x64/Win 7 x64 IS much stabler than XP x64. I run all three OSes and I'm happy with it.
Get real. There just isn't enough difference between Windows 7 and Vista.
You haven't tried both have you? I mean - the first glance looks similar, but that's about where the similarities stop. win 7 is so much more than just a directx compatible gui on top of a 2003 server base system.
as for xp 64 - it was a good idea killed off by poor implementation, and eventually failed to work as vendors and industries couldn't support it. See one of the earlier windows 7 news for a more indepth explanation (by me) on why xp64 never worked.
Actually I have noticed the load times for the RC are significantly better than the beta. My laptop, although I didn't time it, seemed to take about 3 minutes from power up to login with the beta. It still surprises me how responsive it is now.
I had one glitch that I finally solved. It involved IE being broken after reinstall and the easy transfer. It took quite awhile to figure out that the options for IE could be found in the control panel. However once in there, I found some odd settings for the WHS I'm running the network through. I disabled the home server sttings and suddenly IE8 is working again.
I don't like it though. Have to learn how to do everything all over again. I find the interface as clunky as the new media player.