Microsoft has just confirmed that the next milestone in
Windows 7 development, a Release Candidate build, is officially set to be
available on April 10, 2009.
At this time, Windows 7 RC is internally being tested by
Microsoft developers and the Windows team is right on schedule with
development. If there are no significant problems over the next few weeks, the
release date will remain intact.
On another note, the public beta testing community has proved to be a strong
voice of feedback for Microsoft. According to a conversation
between Paul Paliath, founder of GeekSmack, and Steven Sinofsky, senior vice
president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, there have been
over 500,000 Windows 7 beta suggestions
since the public launch of the first beta.
Additionally, Sinofsky stated that "the [Release
Candidate] build will be available broadly." However, it is uncertain if
the release will be world-wide or region limited. Furthermore, it can be
inferred that TechNet and MSDN subscribers should be the first to receive the RC build when it is available
in six weeks.