Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Windows 7 Hits Build 7600 (Possible RTM)

Posted by timothy on from the all-aflutter dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One Microsoft Way is reporting that Microsoft has significantly incremented the build number of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: 'Reports across the Web are pointing to a build 7600 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This is significant because the bump in the build number would suggest that Microsoft has christened this build as the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. The RTM is expected to be given out to Microsoft partners sometime later this month and launched on October 22, 2009, the day of General Availability (GA). The build string is "7600.16384.090710-1945," which indicates that it was compiled just a few days ago: July 10, 2009, at 7:45pm. Microsoft only increments the build number when it reaches a significant goal, and the only one left is the RTM milestone. The last builds that were leaking were all 72xx builds, so such a large bump is suspicious but at the same time it is something Microsoft would do to signify that this is the final build.'"

26 of 671 comments (clear)

  1. Windows 7 makes me excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Windows 7 is the first version of Windows that has me excited since as far back as I can remember.

    1. Re:Windows 7 makes me excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Windows 7 is the first version of Windows that has me excited since as far back as I can remember.

      "As Microsoft strives to migrate their core technologies from the desktop onto the Web, so too is their propaganda machine migrating from the established press to the informal social web. Microsoft shills are invading social web sites everywhere - in forums, discussion groups, comments to news items, edits to Wikipedia, manipulation of search engines, comments to blogs - posing as innocent participants to promote their agenda and counter wide spread complaints about their shady marketing practises. Even in the comments section of blogs by Microsoft employees on their own corporate site they employ sock puppets to say the things the author felt inappropriate to say directly. They race to place their shill postings at the top spot in the comments section of news and blogs, or perhaps they are given advance notice enabling them to do this where they are a sponsor. The evidence is here on Slashdot for all to see, without embellishments from me. What I say here is amounts to only a digest of hundreds of postings by others. A careful investigator can see for himself the evolution of discussions on Microsoft related issues, especially those accusing them of their usual hard ball tactics. As one reads from Slashdot's historical record on through to recent times, the evolution of Microsoft's efforts to pervert Slashdot's discussions becomes readily apparent. Microsoft's ambition is to twist internet discussions around a full 180 degrees until these discussions become a platform for propaganda from Microsoft's "Ministry of Truth". A study of the comments of the shills posted here can be cross-correlated with postings on other sites. Their pattern of saturating a discussion with shill postings, and the repeating of mindless memes becomes obvious. Their harassment, ridicule, and suppression of criticisms is designed to intimidated those who would speak out against them. They seek to establish and enforce a discipline of giving Microsoft "fair treatment" and their propaganda the same consideration and respect a real person would deserve. In the process they are destroying Web 2 as we know it. This insidious attack on the infrastructure we rely upon to form our opinions in a complex world has both a direct and an inhibitory effect on free speech as a side effect. We must stop this while it is in its infancy. Once it fully established, it will become much more difficult to root out, and other ruthless corporations, organizations, and even governments will want to emulate the success of Microsoft's campaign. This is the nightmare vision of the end of the social internet as we know it."

      http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1284651&cid=28502473

    2. Re:Windows 7 makes me excited by mckinleyn · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Performance numbers so far show the games to run at the same speed _or_slower_ under Win7. The only things that run better (like video) are due to MS spending all of their time streamlining the DRM code that will prevent you from using *your* legally purchased files wherever you want.

      Citation needed.

      There won't be any decent use of D3D11 for a long time. Not even MS sponsored games are going to require D3D11, since they want everything to also support D3D9 for porting to the 360.

      Citation needed.

      Personally, I game infrequently - but the half-dozen games I play (mostly HL2 engine games, CoH/V, and WoW) now run just fine under Wine.

      Irrelevant. Unless of course you want to prove that WINE is faster than / as fast as native execution. AND that Wine is compatible with everything. Why don't you go work on those three things? Then perhaps the scorn you are receiving from almost everyone here will fade.

    3. Re:Windows 7 makes me excited by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I don't entirely disagree with you - it's clear just by doing a google search for "Windows 7" that MS has the propoganda going out overtime. If you search my history, you'll find I posted a similar sentiment -- when I tried looking for help with Windows 7 issues, I could only find blog, news (real newspapers!), and forum articles telling me how great Windows 7 was. It was a very frustrating experience -- all the more so because whenI posted it here, I was basically accused of being an /anti/-MS shill.

      Now - that being said. Eventually I found answers for those issues, and I'm pretty pleased with Win 7. There are a couple of quirks, but I'm fairly hopeful that the final build will have them fixed. However... discrediting every pro-Win7 poster as "shill" sounds a bit ridiculous. So with that in mind, where's your evidence that this is the case? You say it's "clearly visible" -- where is your "clear proof" that GP was a shill? Am I a "shill" now because after my initial issues I have had a relatively good experience (and holy shit, a TON better than Vista - even under SP1/SP2). How do you tell the difference between real people who like Win7 and shills?

      Amusingly, your post - a copy-paste of someone other AC's unsubstantiated rant actually got modded "interesting", while mine will likely get modded down.

    4. Re:Windows 7 makes me excited by parlancex · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Now benchmark Windows 7 against XP in both GPU and CPU limited graphics intensive applications.

      Seriously, I've done the tests myself a thousand times. I use to dual boot Vista with XP, kept both completely up to date, all the latest drivers, patches, trimmed down my Vista services, disabled indexing and all that good stuff, and Vista was literally 40% slower in completely GPU bound applications (RTHDRIBL was my main test suite, as it is a good example of higher GPU load with modern shaders and little CPU processing). This was both with Aero on and with Aero off, both fullscreen and windowed. In reality most games these days are CPU-bound so most benchmarks probably don't reflect this gap, or to a smaller degree, that isn't the main port here, the main point is that graphics performance decreased substantially. The only two possible explanations for this are that the new user mode graphics driver model makes writing a graphics driver that is as efficient as XP's was impossible, or Nvidia's Vista driver team couldn't even come close in the performance they achieved in the XP driver for some other reason.

      Fastforward a few years to Windows 7. Now I dual boot the RC with good ol' XP, and likewise again I keep both up to date, latest drivers as well and I boot back in to run the same tests every few months. RTHDRIBL shows 7 with about a 25% performance disadvantage to XP, which is an improvement I suppose, but there's still absolutely no way in hell I'm sacrificing that kind of performance for any number of new features.

    5. Re:Windows 7 makes me excited by dbIII · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not so sure that they are just clueless fanboys instead of paid shills. For example, there was one clueless fanboy here the other week that was convinced that RMS had written linux and that linux needed a "runas" feature despite the fact that it had been in linux since 1991 and other forms of *nix long before then ("su" and more recently "sudo"). A paid shill would know more. It's just like the cult of Apple cheering for the technological underdog this time.
      Despite the hype MS Windows will get better, and hopefully by the time MS Windows 7 is released it will actually recognise my IDE DVD drive and actually install from it (yes I know it is a beta).

  2. OK, Since this is a non-event... by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have a question I've been trying to figure out. What exactly is going to be the effect of Windows 7? I think there are a few issues, but I haven't been able to come to a clear conclusion. There are a few issues:

    * Windows 7 is like Vista, except without as many obvious bad things.
    * If Microsoft writes it, people will put it on their systems. OK, Vista showed that's not entirely true, but it didn't cause a switch away from Windows, only down to XP. So, will people begin to switch away from Microsoft, or move on to Windows 7? All it has to do is be no more annoying than XP.
    * Netbooks: hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper. WIll this cause people to switch to Linux (it's a $50 - $100 savings on a $200 computer)?
    * Apple: OSX keeps getting better and better. Will they make enough improvement that people want to switch away from Microsoft?

    I don't really know the answers to these issues, but I've been trying to figure out.

    --
    Qxe4
    1. Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The difference is that people are excited for 7, something that did not happen with Vista. It took almost 2 years for most techies to admit Vista was ready for the desktop. Win7, on the other hand, is on a LOT of techy desktops already.

      --
      Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
    2. Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      ...Because making cheap computers has destroyed all other companies? If Apple can make a huge quantity of computers running OS X they can make a huge profit. You can see effectively the same thing with iPods, they have sold quicker when the prices have decreased. Back when an iPod cost $500, sure, people still had them, but not in the quantity people do today when they cost less then $200. If Apple can reduce a good laptop down cheaply enough, they can do the same thing as with iPods and get people to buy them like crazy.

      It almost /did/ destroy Apple as a company, utterly, in the 90's. Thank god they put a stop to that, or things like iPod's wouldn't exist.

      The problem wasn't just licensing and selling cheap crap, it was the fact that Classic Mac OS was overly outdated. Windows was actually better in many ways than Mac OS. Today, you have the exact opposite, OS X is built on more solid design principles than Windows is, has a better looking GUI, and in general provides a better user experience. Back with Classic Mac OS when compared to Windows NT, you had Mac OS having an older looking GUI, (I mean, comparing Windows 98 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows98.png and OS 9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mac_OS_9_screenshot_2.png ) to the average person Windows 98 looks more "advanced".

      As for licensing OS X out to third party manufacturers, it might be disastrous, or it might be a rampant success. You have to remember, its not the '90s anymore, after Vista the mindshare for MS products went way down and unless Windows 7 can salvage it, people are going to be looking for another OS. Perhaps licensing a OS X "compatibility pack" or GUI pack?

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    3. Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... by cheesybagel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oh such things would exist. Ever since Napster showed the power of P2P song sharing and the Diamond Multimedia Rio came out, it was only a matter of time until someone nailed it. As usual, Apple gets credit for something they didn't invent. GUI (Xerox PARC), WebKit (KHTML) and the list goes on.

    4. Re:OK, Since this is a non-event... by Tony+Stark · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Windows 7 is going to be the "reassuring" Windows. I believe this is Microsoft's business plan: release something good, hook the people. Release something crappy, the hooked people will buy it, then pay for the tons of tech support they will need. Release something good to remind the people why they got hooked in the first place. Release something crappy to make money off tech support, etc, etc, etc. I just don't think Windows users will ever catch the dragon.

  3. Build number by VGPowerlord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This does indicate it may be the RTM build, but not because it has a new build number... but because it has a build number ending in 00.

    Larry Osterman's post Thinking about Windows Build numbers goes into this in more depth.

    --
    GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    1. Re:Build number by snowgirl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It does seem like this may be the RTM build, although the timing is a little early yet.

      My first reaction was the build number 7600 is very similar to the XP build of 2600 (yeah, I'm grasping at straws here.) It would be in MS favor to strongly relate this to XP and try to distance themselves from refencing Vista, which the correlation I just noted might help backup in people's minds.

      However, the timing is just a little too early. The stated general retail release date from June's Computex is October 22. Historically, a MS OS RTM is released 30-45 days prior to the general retail date. That would place the RTM as beginning of September at earliest. Even a generous 60 day RTM date would place the date in mid-August, a month from now. Pressing and stamping aside (and what's to say a RTM DVD can't be downloaded over the net from a registration server similar to how volume and open license customers can already do), that's a little early yet.

      And can anyone draw any significance from 16384 being 2^14? Or would that just indicate something like the 14th build of the master OS?

      Build numbers by Microsoft follow an algorithm that encodes some odd information. Usually, it's desired by Microsoft to have a simply power of 2 for significant build milestones, especially for RTM builds. Why skip build numbers? That way you can still make builds of previous versions for commercial support, in order to make available patches for say, RCs and Betas, which both have a support lifetime as well. (Crazy short lifetimes, but they do.)

      Messing with version numbers is a crazy stupid wrench in the "smooth" gears of the build system, and it requires authorization from significant master project managers. They would NOT be doing this if they were not important.

      RTM builds also happen fairly early for things, especially because they have to have the RTM build, before they can complete localization, which means that if they want a synchronous release across X number of languages, they need to complete the RTM early enough that each of those localizations will be complete on time. Some of the localizations are just left for a late release anyways. But Japanese and German being Tier 0 languages pretty much means that they are important major goals to get as close to synchronous release as possible.

      More interestingly is that this build was started at 7:45pm on a Friday... The build takes about 14 hours to complete, so someone was on call the whole weekend for completing the build... which potentially could have even TAKEN all weekend...

      I think this is all just a really round about way of saying it, but "I. HATE. SAUERKRAUT!" No, really, you're totally on to the build number being of the form 2^x, but not that 14 has any significance to the build itself.

      --
      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
    2. Re:Build number by snowgirl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nice comment. One question: How do you know how long it takes to build windows? Is it public information? or do you work for Microsoft?

      I worked for Microsoft. I'm actually one of the few people who have compiled Windows.

      They may have improved the build time since I worked for them, but the build times were a monotonously growing function of time when I left...

      --
      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
  4. Re:I just got sweaty palms... by Pentium100 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The backup utility actually lets you select what files to backup again, rather than just "Pictures" or "Documents".

    So it's back to the NT4/2000/XP version?

    You can burn ISO files straight from Explorer.

    Nice, or I can use CDRWIN.

    It's easier to enable BitKeeper. BitKeeper is pretty crap - it needs about 1.5GB unencrypted space to hold the 'system' files - but the installer now creates this space by default, so it's easier to actually turn encryption on.

    Truecrypt

    It's easier to enable BitKeeper. BitKeeper is pretty crap - it needs about 1.5GB unencrypted space to hold the 'system' files - but the installer now creates this space by default, so it's easier to actually turn encryption on.

    Seriuosly, why? 200MB is a wring size if you want to record to a CD (3*200MB and 50-100MB of wasted space) or DVD (22 files and 49MB of wasted spae) which would be the most common media people back up to. Is/was there any recordable media with a 200MB capacity?

    Do I really need to pay $XX, or install some spyware-infested freeware crap, just to mount ISOs?

    You can use Virtual CloneDrive from the makers of AnyDVD HD http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

  5. Re:will they update the rc? by AndrewNeo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A lot of builds for 7 go on internally that aren't released to the public as Betas or RCs. Most of them have been leaked to BitTorrent. I can promise you that there's a newer build number available after 7100.

  6. Re:I just got sweaty palms... by BatGnat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is so funny, When XP was released I couldn't wait, and loved it, but a lot people said, that they were going to stick with win98, Then vista (which I liked) comes out and everyone says "i'm gonna stick with XP". Just accept it and move on.....

  7. Re:I just got sweaty palms... by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 2, Interesting

    * The backup utility actually lets you select what files to backup again, rather than just "Pictures" or "Documents".

    Does that justify a multi-hundred euros upgrade?

    * You can burn ISO files straight from Explorer.

    Wow, something that it's being done in linux since... 2003? And what timing. Who burns CDs anymore? Microsoft releases that functionality exactly when people are starting to use memory cards, USB flash drives and external HDs instead of CDs (measly 700MB of data) and even DVDs.
    So what exactly does windows 7 have that is either exciting or even worth a hundred euros?

    --
    Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
  8. RE: a product people actually want by symbolset · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The main change is that Microsoft goes back to marketing a product people actually want. From what I can see, pushing Vista damaged their credibility pretty strongly, but with 7 they'll likely regain much of that trust, and in fact already have with the open beta/RC.

    Let's fix that - a product people might actually want. It's well established that Vista is a product that people don't want. Whether or not Vista 7 is a product people actually want will depend on what's in the RTM version: whether it's more useful than XP, if it's not more painful to use, if it supports enough hardware and software, if it includes enough new functionality to replace the utility of the inevitable incompatibilities, if it's secure enough to get through the first six months without a major worm.

    Since we don't have it yet, we don't know yet how it weighs in the balance.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  9. Re:apple needs better hardware like a real desktop by FreakyGeeky · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'll bite, you troll. A Dell eight 2.26GHz, 6GB of RAM, a 512MB video card, and a 500GB hard drive is $3,157. That's $142 less than a Mac Pro with the same specs (though the Mac has a hard drive with 140GB more space). $142 less - for a Dell. Try to build an eight-core HP for less than $4,000. Good luck!

  10. Re:This guy needs a mod-up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I enjoy a pro-Linux article as much as anyone else. Usually I'll give them my vote, but what turns me off on a Linux article is when the author tries to promote Linux by throwing negativity at Microsoft. If we ever want Linux to be an actual threat to Microsoft, it has to stand on its own, and not just be an alternative to Windows. Whining about your position in the market will do nothing to improve it.

  11. Re:The "Lord of HOSTS" sayeth READ (serious) by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wow. Helluva rundown. Almost over my head, too. Now I have to do some reading, to see how well I can really understand all that. Oh, don't worry, I got the "in a nutshell" idea of it. Firewall is a layered defense, and Microsoft took away the layers. Which just begs the question: do 3rd party firewalls provide the layers of defense, or do they just rely on Window's API's? And, if 3rd party firewalls provide a good layered defense, which ones do so?

    I'm glad I have a good gateway machine, lol. I just didn't realize how important it might be!!

    And, I understood the HOSTS thing just fine.

    Thanks for the info, and I'm off to find more. :-)

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  12. Re:apple needs better hardware like a real desktop by vux984 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'll bite, you troll.

    Have you actually looked at the PCs in those office buildings full of thousands upon thousands of cubicles. The current hardware refresh is 1GB XP (or 2GB Vista) entry level core 2 duos.

    Most big IT shops supporting thousands of users wants standardized PCs that they can swap the monitor out when it dies without having to touch the pc. And if the hard drive goes they want something they can open, plug a new one in, image it, and send it back. ditto the power supply and optical drive. And if the motherboard fails they just replace the PC.

    So the imac and mac mini are both out of the running.

    The problem isn't that the mac pro isn't good value for what's in the box. The problem is that almost nobody needs what's in that box. And Apple doesn't sell a box with the stuff business needs the way business wants it. They want imac specs in an easily maintained box, separate from the screen.

    Apple refuses to make one, and simply puts themselves out of the running in this market.

  13. Re:The "Lord of HOSTS" sayeth READ (serious) by ericfitz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The AC is a retard.

    NTFS reads blocks. If your hosts file is smaller than 1 block, it doesn't make a disk I/O difference HOW BIG each address is.

    String parsing is fast. Perhaps it would be a reduction of a couple dozen CPU cycles to read a "0" rather than "127.0.0.1", but that actually might be offset if the code to look for 0 caused a page fault due to code bloat to support special cases. Under the covers Windows would still have to alloc a SOCKADDR so we're only talking about a difference in parsing complexity.

    Plus, the AC poster obviously isn't familiar with Windows DNSClient service. It is not actually necessary to parse LMHOSTS every time a network connection is made by name; the file is only parsed when it changes.

  14. Re:I just got sweaty palms... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hello girls,

    I am sorry for interrupting your discussion:

    http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/620/xp_small_free_way_to_use_and_mount_images_iso_files_without_burning_them/

    This app is provided by microsoft (without warranty and support, as with most microsoft products). It lets you mount your warez^H^H^H^H^H personal backups and Linux ISOs.

  15. I Sing of the Body Microsoftic by DannyO152 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Any company that employs a public relations company has had the opportunity to pay for astroturfing for years. In fact, I sort of wish we could recognize and reward the companies that don't do it. In Microsoft's case, there are documents from the Iowa case which basically lays out the tactics, like astroturfing, they use to influence the public perception of their technical merits.

    Now, over at ZDNet, all the Windows 7 articles are accompanied by legions of talk backs wherein the writer relates how flawlessly the beta and RC of Win7 have operated. Then, the weekend that the Wall Street Journal reports Jobs' liver transplant, Dan "Fake Steve Jobs" Lyons makes a blog post wherein he describes his frustration in trying to write an article in Word on Win7 beta while it kept crashing. He had to go to his Plan B, write it on his Mac, and he excoriated Microsoft for the quality of its software. His commenters took issue with him critiquing a company for beta software, which is a fair point. But, in one place, dozens of testimonials that they are testing it and there's never a cough in the carload and it's ready to ship now, and at another place, for an arbitrary user, it fails when he needs it to get his job done. It's possible that that's just the way it broke. I think it's more probable that some of the "flawless" posts are pr product.