We’ve seen build after build of Windows 7 through its beta existence. It all started with build 7000, which was released to public testers in early January.
Through each incremental update to the beta, which bumps the build number by several digits at a time, we see Windows 7 inch closer towards the Release Candidate.
While we’re all holding our breath for the release of the RC that’s supposed to land on May 5, Microsoft hardware partners such as Dell and HP already have the RC in their labs for testing.
According to a post from Microsoft-following journalist Ed Bott’s Twitter this morning, the build number for the RC that we hope to be seeing in a couple of weeks is 7100. Bott does warn that the build 7100 downloads that are making their way onto torrent sites have so far been fake.
The last build number that we know of is 7077, which we heard was being considered for RC status. Microsoft may have decided that 7100 would be the RC number for it’s obvious leap over the beta.