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Microsoft Leaks Windows 7 RC Date — Before May 5
CWmike writes "Microsoft will deliver a release candidate of Windows 7 in about two weeks, the company's Web site revealed Saturday. According to a page posted on Microsoft's partner program site, Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) may be available to paying subscribers to Microsoft's developer and IT services before May 5. Partners will be allowed to download the release candidate on that date, the first Tuesday of the month. 'Partners: If you have a subscription to MSDN or TechNet, you can download Windows 7 RC now,' the page read Saturday afternoon. 'Otherwise, you can download Windows 7 RC starting May 5, 2009.' The link to the download, however, shunted users to the TechNet download page, which did not list Windows 7 RC as one of the available files. This is the second time in just over three weeks that Microsoft's Web site has leaked information about Windows 7 RC. Accidental, or buzz-builder?"
The only reason to run Windows 7 is to know what the non-free software world is doing but you can just watch online videos to find that out. I recently did this and here are my impressions in bullet form:
* Windows 7 is a lot like Vista
* next desktop background feature is kind of cool but i saw it in kde4
* new task bar - makes it easier to switch to mac and more annoying to actually switch tasks using a mouse
* control panel still in the new harder to deal with style but not sure if it still loads piecemeal like Vista
* Libraries are introduced as another way to segment your data in an annoying and OS-locked-in way.