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Windows 7 RC Download Page Points To May Release

Posted by timothy on from the by-dribs-and-drabs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Someone over at Redmond flipped the wrong switch, it would seem. Ars Technica spotted that the Windows 7 download page on TechNet had switched to say Release Candidate instead of Beta. It's now back to Beta, but not before Ars got all the details off the page: 'The public RC will apparently be coming in May 2009, and not in April as previously rumored. The RC testing program will be available at least through June 2009, and the actual build will expire June 1, 2010. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions will be available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish.' A screenshot and all the text on the RC download page, which was set to be published 'May 2009' is saved over at Ars."

31 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Excellent by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm looking forward to this, new stuff to play with and if it really is faster than Vista, yay for me :)

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
    1. Re:Excellent by mc1138 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So far the beta while not huge amounts different, is a very nice polished UI update to Vista. It helps to both correct some of the problems Vista had, plus adds some spiffy new features.

      --
      The musings of just another geek and his junk.
  2. The longer the better by linuxci · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least it looks like they're happy to delay the 'release candidate' presumably to allow some more time for bugfixes, etc. Although calling it a release candidate is really innacurate. A proper release candidate should be something that could be signed off as the official release if testing goes ok, however, it's widely known that there's going to be multiple release candidates.

    1. Re:The longer the better by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

      A proper release candidate should be something that could be signed off as the official release if testing goes ok, however, it's widely known that there's going to be multiple release candidates.

      I'm not sure what you mean by that, exactly. Any open source project of reasonable complexity has at least 2-3 release candidates, usually more for really big releases like when they merge a development branch with the main trunk. The difference between a 'beta' and 'release candidate' seems to be that with a release candidate you are saying that the code is more or less frozen; you're not going to change much unless there are serious showstopper bugs. With a beta there's a little more flexibility.

      I would expect that Microsoft's development methods internally aren't all that different.

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:The longer the better by xenolion · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I hope Microsoft does do more than one release candidate. I remember 2000 pro and server had two or three Release Candidates, and look how well that one went over. More time into a RC will help crush any other bugs and errors that are there. Vista seemed to be rushed now that we have sp1 for vista which made it usable but still needs a lot of work just dump vista along with its fellow friend ME.

    3. Re:The longer the better by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem with the 'issues' quoted in your linked comment is that they are actually personal opinions about changes, and not actual functional issues that need resolving. You are more than welcome to disagree with changes, and they may indeed alter your established personal routines for the worse rather than the better, but that doesn't make them issues that need 'correction'.

      See my post earlier in this thread for an actual issue that requires correction: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1177883&cid=27355721

    4. Re:The longer the better by drsmithy · · Score: 5, Informative

      See here for example.

      Also, the breadcrumb bar, time and time again I've tried to hassle people for an OPTION to disable the ghastly thing, I don't mind if new users prefer it, good for you! I work on machines to get things done, I need it quick and efficient and the breacrumb bar frankly frustrates me. I don't know about you guys but I 'think in' paths, directories and drives, even if Microsoft doesn't want me to think that way anymore, it's likely how I will ALWAYS think of things on a machine, I translate things back in to paths when using the breadcrumb bar, so it's just slowing me down and... again I'm not 'getting the data' to my brain quick enough.

      In all that, you don't actually manage to say _what_ is wrong with the breadcrumb bar. Ie: *why* is it not "quick and efficient" ? The "breadcrumb bar" offers a superset of the functionality in earlier Windows versions (as is typical with Windows UI changes). What's the problem ?

      The control alt delete menu (the grey box under XP with 6 buttons) previously you could just hit space to lock the machine or t for the task manager - now you have to hold down alt. (I admit this is a small problem)

      Win+L will also lock the screen. Much quicker.

      He's absoloutely right, but the problem is WHY, WHY! and WHY did they introduce a 'requirement' to hold down alt before using the shortcut keys on the control alt delete menu? The problem isn't the issue itself the problem is WHY did they do this when it simply changes something which didn't needed to be changed and adds a layer of complexity.

      Because that's how it's _supposed_ to work, as per the Windows UI guidelines (Alt+accelerator key to access UI elements). Quite arguably, they've fixed a long-running UI bug.

      Ctrl+Shift+Esc for Task Manager is quicker and has been around a _lot_ longer (at least NT 4.0, most likely NT 3.1). It was derived from Ctrl+Esc to get the running task list in Windows 3.x and OS/2.

    5. Re:The longer the better by Kaboom13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lower memory usage, in exchange for a worse ui (unless you like low res icons), no security features (say goodbye to NX bit and other hardening features) and generally at this point worse in every way. Now when XP first came out, it was reasonable to keep using 2k for quite awhile, but now that 4 gb of ram is like $50, saving the 128 mb of ram you get from running 2k over xp definitely isn't worth it. Considering with some tweaking you can make the xp ui look and act almost identical to the 2k ui, the only thing 2k has going for it is nostalgia. If you actually try to use it (I run into machines still running 2k every now and then in my work) you will realize it's a piece of crap.

    6. Re:The longer the better by totally+bogus+dude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Any project of sufficient complexity will likely have multiple release candidates, just because once all the release critical bugs are found and fixed... more will be found.

      That doesn't mean a release candidate isn't actually a candidate for release, or at least is supposed to be. An RC is supposed to be, "we think we're done, unless you can show us there's major bugs remaining this is exactly what we're going to release". The final release should be nothing more than the last release candidate with the version strings to say it's a final release rather than an RC.

      Vista had one RC, and when it was made available Microsoft made it absolutely clear that the RC was not actually a candidate for release; it did not include a bunch of changes and fixes that were going to be in the actual release. They abuse the term: Microsoft's "release candidates" are actually more like "late betas".

      The term "release candidate" is actually entirely self-explanatory and leaves less wiggle room for misrepresenting the status of a project than "alpha" or "beta". The final release should be identical to the last RC. In practice there's often some small changes made or diagnostic/debugging code removed; but any actual changes in functionality or any non-trivial fix should cause another RC to be made. It is a bit of a balancing act between cost/time and thoroughness though.

      However, calling something a "release candidate" when you have absolutely no intention that it will actually be the released version is disingenuous. If is not a candidate for release, then it is not a release candidate.

    7. Re:The longer the better by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Informative

      For the breadcrumb part, I've used computers long enough that my brain more or less keeps a map of where I am and I want to go 'up' rather than click on the folder I'm looking for. I think in directory structures now and it's hard to change it.

      All you need to do is click the higher level directory you want in the breadcrumb trail.

      Eg: if you are in "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc", then the breadcrumb trail will look something like "Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Windows > System32 > drivers > etc".

      To get to, say, "C:\Windows\System32", all you need to do is click on the "System32" part and you're there, in one step. So, to simulate the effect of the "Up one directory button", you just need to click on the second last thing in the breadcrumb trail.

      Bonus: If you wanted to move to, say, "C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy" (to just pick a directory at random), then you could click on the ">" next to System32 in the breadcrumb trail, get a list of System32 subdirectories, then click on one to move directly to it.

      I'd be fine with it if they brought back the up button and/or made the tree in the left panel a bit cleaner/easier.

      Another alternative is Alt+Up arrow, which will move you one step up the directory tree.

      I used to miss the up arrow toolbar button as well, until I understood how the breadcrumb trail worked. The latter is a _far_ better UI construct.

    8. Re:The longer the better by socrplayr813 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I understand it fine. That doesn't make it good.

      Oh, you want to go up 8 levels? Yeah, that no longer shows in the box. So I should go to the tree? Wait, that doesn't fit in its box either? Wonderful... Now I have to click on a bunch of different folders in the breadcrumb thing to get there, or waste a bunch of time scrolling around in the tree (of which I can see very little). Alt-Up is fine and I like keyboard shortcuts, but that one is awkward to get to with my hand on my mouse and I don't see any strong reason why they can't have left the up button or given more space for the tree...

      Their system is fine if you don't have a lot of files and you use the folder system they've set up for you, but I have hundreds of gigabytes of files broken up into very logical directories that are accessed from multiple computers. It is painful to get through them in the tiny open and save windows.

      Again, don't get me wrong. There are things I like about Vista and you'll see me fighting for it more often than against it, but some things just seem to me like they needed more work.

      --
      The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
    9. Re:The longer the better by AbRASiON · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I used to miss the up arrow toolbar button as well, until I understood how the breadcrumb trail worked. The latter is a _far_ better UI construct.

      No it's not, it's slower to work with.
      Look at Expose on the mac, blindly push your mouse in X direction.
      It requires almost no thought at all.

      This is the same as the inclusion of the up arrow.

      "Oh man I'm in E:\Media\Porn\High definition\Asian girls\Mika Tan\Bondage sessions 5\ and I want to be in just E:\Media\Porn"
      Now I can use my eyes to analyse the very clumsy looking breadcrumb bar, find the folder I want and click on it but this finding, selecting, confirming will take me maybe 1 or 2 seconds.
      Or I can see the up arrow and i know I'm about 3 or 4 paths deep, I can just blindly hit that up arrow (as I know where it is, ALWAYS - especially as a maximised window user) and just go bam bam bam and I'm there.

      To state again also, what's wrong with the option of BOTH - let us enable the up arrow if we want, 2 different ways of doing things won't kill people.
      They are fiddling with the UI to try and create something 'clever and amazing' - they've seen too many movies of Mac OS or Ubuntu with the 3D stuff enabled and think they need to copy and they sure as hell aren't planning exactly what to do and how to do it.

  3. I for one am excited about this. by ringbarer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Windows 7 has proven to be the most stable Windows release for a good decade. By combining the visual enhancements of Vista with a focus on performance and stability worthy of hard-iron, this OS proves once more that Microsoft are on top of their game in the desktop environment.

    Although the only realistic competitor, Mac OS X, comes close in the eye-candy department; Windows 7 will have the advantage of supporting countless items of consumer hardware, as well as the tremendous decades-long back-catalog of games and productivity software.

    XP has ruled the desktop market for almost a decade now. Windows 7 shall rule the next.

    --
    "Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
    1. Re:I for one am excited about this. by AlterRNow · · Score: 5, Funny

      [quote]Windows 7 will have the advantage of supporting countless items of consumer hardware, as well as the tremendous decades-long back-catalog of games and productivity software.[/quote]
      Don't forget the countless items of hardware, games, and software that won't work :)

      --
      The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
    2. Re:I for one am excited about this. by Sporkinum · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What is so earth-shatteringly better that it would be worth spending $100+ on and a chance of breaking a working system? My Vista system really is not that bad. Sure, 7 may be a bit faster and a bit more stable, but I doubt it is worth the money or the hassle.

      --
      "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
    3. Re:I for one am excited about this. by Sporkinum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, not at all. I just don't see it as being a practical upgrade for most people. I did not go out and purchase Vista to upgrade my XP box. I ended up getting it with a new computer. I think the same is the case with 7. Not worth the cost to upgrade.

      --
      "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
    4. Re:I for one am excited about this. by gbarules2999 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree. The issue I have with upgrading to Windows 7 is that I (and most people I know) simply don't care about any of the new features. Yeah, it looks nice. But other than that, that feature set on Wikipedia looks rather dull; certainly not worth paying money for. It's closer to an Ubuntu update than it is a full new operating system. I'll use it when I get it on a new computer, but no sooner.

  4. Re:32 bit AND 64 bit by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2, Informative

    Since you have to buy two licenses, I'm guessing you are going to have to buy two upgrades...

  5. Vista is that bad for general and non gamer users? by Ilgaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I recently "fixed" a Sony Vaio (from .kr) which has "designed for Windows Vista" mark and serial number of Vista at its bottom. What was its problem? Someone thinking he is making a favour downgraded it to XP guaranteeing endless problems.

    The machine was clearly "designed for Vista" as even the Intel disk controller was nightmare to get supported on XP. Machine's owner is a girl who only cares about office, MSN, Skype and other general stuff, not games.

    When I gave up struggling to fix XP and got Vista DVD, guess what happened? It downloaded all the drivers, everything started to work fine and guess what? Damn fast. It is not a high end Vaio, it has only 1 Gig of RAM with low end hard disk (not 7200 or anything). It even has the scandal Intel i965 integrated gfx.

    It seems her mistake was getting help from a Korean die hard gamer. As I had to browse Korean Sony site (don't ask how), I can understand the "XP Downgrade" is still a big deal for them so Sony was forced to pack XP "if it compiles, ship it" type drivers and offer them.

    This is the second time I try to fix a virused XP (as Mac user) on a PC which was "Designed for Vista" and every problem goes away and machine runs really fast right after Vista is restored and updated. Stop this "XP downgrade" madness, at least on non gamer machines. You aren't doing a favour, you are putting the non technical types in huge risk along with the old OS you are installing. Another thing is, they paid for Vista, somehow.

  6. Re:32 bit AND 64 bit by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think I got marked redundant because some people are so overzealous in their damnation of anything MS that somebody with a more open mind who gives them a fair chance is dangerous/annoying in their eyes.

    I got the karma to spare though, don't really care about it.

    Anyway, I have 2 licenses for Vista Ultimate. 32 and 64 bit for my 2 pc's. I did read a while back that people who had Vista Ultimate or Vista (Enterprise I think, I'm not sure) could upgrade to Win7 $Corresponding_edition for free.

    I looked up the link, here's the skinny
    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-7-vista-free-upgrade,7018.html

    Too bad I won't be eligible then, but I get the license for next to nothing anyway, so it's all good :)

    P.S. For the mods, if you disagree with me, don't mod me down, mod me sideways :P

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
  7. Yes, "accidentially flipped the switch" by not+already+in+use · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Kinda like they "accidentally" leaked the beta. Looks like Microsoft is finally catching onto this whole marketing thing.

    --
    Similes are like metaphors
  8. Why still 32bit? by jernejk · · Score: 2, Informative

    Remember? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/17/1452228

    1. Re:Why still 32bit? by perryizgr8 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      because at that time (may 07), ms thought vista was going to be as long term as xp. so by their reckoning they would have been releasing another verion in 10 years, when the transition from 32bit to 64bit would have been over and we would be talking about our new 128bit cpus. but it failed miserably, so they had to rebrand it in desperation, only that the transition to 64 is not complete yet. so they have to have a 32bit version too.

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
  9. Re:Wait... WHAT ? by Valtor · · Score: 4, Informative

    > ... will be available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish...
    Different install media for different languages ?...

    They never said it was a different download per language. You chose the language at install time.

    --
    "Sockets are the standard networking API, also useful for stopping your eyes from falling onto your cheeks" zeromq.org
  10. Re:Vista is that bad for general and non gamer use by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When I gave up struggling to fix XP and got Vista DVD, guess what happened? It downloaded all the drivers, everything started to work fine and guess what? Damn fast. It is not a high end Vaio, it has only 1 Gig of RAM with low end hard disk (not 7200 or anything). It even has the scandal Intel i965 integrated gfx.

    I don't believe you. There's no way Vista is "damn fast" on any machine with only 1GB of RAM.

    We bought a brand-new (last year) HP laptop with a dual-core Sempron and 2GB of RAM, and Vista has run like frozen molasses since we unpacked it. Now, people are quick to blame that on problems specific to the HP distro and claim that Dell's distros (particularly of the small business variety) are better, but as an end user none of that stuff matters to me. It's clear to me that Windows is not ready for the desktop.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  11. Re:Vista is that bad for general and non gamer use by digitalhermit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Stop this "XP downgrade" madness, at least on non gamer machines. You aren't doing a favour, you are putting the non technical types in huge risk along with the old OS you are installing. Another thing is, they paid for Vista, somehow.

    I downgraded my Dell XPS 1530 from Vista to XP a few months ago because of very, very bad problems with the network card disconnecting. Under XP it runs perfectly, but Vista is plagued with random disconnects that require shutting off then restarting the interface before it reconnects. Maybe it's better now, but it was the absolute best thing I did for my sanity when I replaced Vista (I did hedge my bets though and used a separate HD).

  12. Re:Is windows 7 that good? by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... over Vista?

    First is speed, I have tried Windows 7 beta and I didn't see any speed improvement over Vista at all. (I have turned off unnecessary services and features that I don't use). Windows 7 is more secure than Vista? Vista can be pretty secure itself if the user doesn't do anything stupid + proper setting + updating regularly.

    So the only thing that Win 7 seems to be better than Vista is eye candy, UI features like 'bat light' or thumbnail on the taskbar. But I think they are overated, I prefer using multi workspace as in Linux, so I can organize the windows myself, and don't have to worry about cluttering. I even removed the windows list widget on the panel and replaced it with icons box instead (only show the icon of the running programs). I'm even thinking about removing panel completely and switching to tiling WM like Xmonad so I can throw away my mouse, but until I got a 2nd monitor, that doesn't seem like a good idea.

    (Yes, I have a fetish for keyboard, but hey, we have ten fingers, better use all of them)

    7 is drastically faster than Vista for general OS tasks on machines with 1 gig of RAM or less. On a machine with enough RAM, Vista's already plenty fast, certainly faster than XP for these things. Vista and 7 are both slower than XP for transferring large chunks of small files around, though part of the reason for this is that XP says the move is done when the data is read into RAM even though it's still waiting to write to disk, while Vista and 7 tell you the move is done when the data is written to the new location.

    Vista is more secure than 7 if you use UAC, because 7's UAC has been sadly neutered. Sure, MS may claim that UAC isn't a security barrier, but every one of the non-techies who used to get their XP boxes pwned every 3 months have now had no malware issues since switching and using UAC. MS may not want us to look closely at UAC as a security barrier, but in practice it's the most effective one I've seen on any system.

    The "bat light" was from a list of features that never made it into 7. The thumbnail on the taskbar isn't a big deal, but the "peek" functionality that gives you a full size view of a window of interest is actually very useful.

    --
    "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  13. Re:Wait... WHAT ? by perryizgr8 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    no, actually there are different dvd isos for each language, it is not an installation time option.
    well it was that way during the 7000 build. maybe that's changed now but it's highly unlikely.

    --
    Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
  14. Re:Mod me down if you must but... by Richy_T · · Score: 2, Funny

    everything that worked on Vista should work just fine on 7.

    Now, there's damning with faint praise if I've ever seen it.

  15. It's not like the Win95 UI is perfect by RulerOf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I cannot honestly say that I've actually noticed the missing status bar

    You know, I prefer the look of windows without the status bar, but AFAIK it's the only UI item that keeps a running tally of how many items you have selected at a time...

    With respect to the GP though, it takes an open mind to adjust from one interface to another, but I find a lot of his gripes about Vista/7 to be very backward. IMHO, my personal tell-tale of whether or not someone will be able to adapt to a new version of any software is to look at their start menu. If it resembles Windows 95 and doesn't have Computer, Documents, etc., in it, then they're going to have a problem.

    Also, the breadcrumb bar... pure genius. I don't have to click "up one level" seven times to get to a specific folder, nor do I have to do so to get to any other subdirectory of a parent in my current path. Paths are also more visibly defined, as the hard arrows make better separators than "i\i" does, visually speaking.

    Microsoft's UI element changes have, for the most part, been expressly for the better as far as Windows (and Office) are concerned. If you can't at the very least get used to them, then you may not have what it takes to move forward in the ever-evolving IT industry.

    OTOH, I hear COBOL programmers still make boatloads of cash, so I could be wrong.

    --
    Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
  16. Re:Leaked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    they accidentally the whole beta!