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.