Woots, it’s finally arriving. I just got an email from Microsoft saying that the Release Candidate is going to be available to the public for free starting 5th May till at least 30th June 2009. Not to mention it’s going to be available for download without any limits, that means to say you can download it as many times as you want without having to worry about product keys and the like.
I did try out the earlier public beta of Windows 7 back when it was released in January, and I left my impressions here. On the whole, I really liked Windows 7. It loses a lot of the bulk that cluttered Windows Vista (I don’t use Vista at all, still sticking with XP) and adds plenty of new features. That being said, I don’t think I’m going to bother with the RC this time around. Mainly due to the fact that I’m just too lazy to reformat an entire partition just to install an entire OS which I’ll stop using after a few hours. I’ll stick to my Mac now, till the final version of Windows 7 is released, and even then I’m going to pick it up purely for the fact that I need it to run all my games. Furthermore, it has DirectX 10, which I’ve been missing out on thanks to the bloated Vista.
Thus far, Microsoft has certainly been going in the right direction with Windows 7. Everything from features to the way they’re considering user feedback, to the way it’s being distributed. Except for one big problem of course: if only they’d get rid of the gazillion different versions of Windows 7 which just serve to confuse the consumer.
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to release this on my blog considering how I’m still under the NDA (Non-Discolsure Agreement), but who cares. It’s only a few days away: