Last week Microsoft released Windows 7 Release Candidate to the general public to download & test. In contrary to previous Windows development cycles, Microsoft (so far) has indicated that there will be only one release candidate. Also to note is the fact that technical beta testers have only gotten the same builds as the public, that is the (build 7000) beta and now the (build 7100) Release Candidate.

Technical beta testers have had only minimal input in testing Windows 7, and I know many that have given up participating in this beta altogether. It was clear that Microsoft's new "strategy" to increase "buzz" for Windows 7 was to "leak" interim builds on the Internet, and newer builds could be found on torrent sites frequently, while beta testers where supposed to stick with the old build 7000 to test.

There has been wide speculation on the expected date that Microsoft will release Windows 7. Microsoft's official word still points to a release in early 2010, but most pundits (including myself) expect Windows 7 to be available well before the 2009 holiday shopping season. You will note however that the expiry date of the Windows 7 RC build has been set to June 1, 2010, so you can run the OS for "free" for well over a year.

In this review I will look at Windows 7 and the changes that Microsoft made to it since the beta. To learn more about Windows 7, read my review of the beta first.

I first installed the Windows 7 RC build on my 2007 laptop. It's a Dell Latitude (D820), has a Intel Core2 Duo Mobile Processor T7200 (2GHz), 4GB memory (only 3.25GB usable thanks to Intel's 945GM chip set), a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120M (256MB) graphics card and a 160GB, 7200RPM Seagate Momentus SATA drive.

The Windows 7 User Interface

This is (for obvious reasons) the most talked about feature in Windows 7. The User Interface (UI) is the part of the OS that most users will interact with on a daily basis. It is also quite similar to the Windows Vista UI, but the differences are noteworthy. There are also persistent rumors that Microsoft is still working on a new UI that they want to include in the final version of Windows 7 (not to 'tip off' any potential competitors?)

  Some of the included desktop backgrounds:

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