Windows 7 RC Now Available to Everyone
Posted 05/05/09 at 09:13:16 AM by Paul Lilly
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Today is Tuesday, May 5th, and that means you can now officially download Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC). Microsoft had previously made the RC available to Technet and MSDN subscribers, and it didn't take long for the newest release to find its way onto Torrent sites.
Microsoft says the RC will expire on June 1, 2010, and starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. You'll be given a two-week reminder ahead of time.
The RC that's being made available is a full-featured edition, similar to Windows Vista Ultimate, Microsoft says. Those of you running the Windows 7 Beta can continue to do so until August 1, 2009, at which time you'll need to a clean install of the RC - an upgrade option is not available.
Windows 7 RC will be available at least through July 2009, and while that means there's no rush to go grab your copy right now, there have been no reports of a 'Server is too busy' error message like there were with the Beta release.
Wow
Submitted by dreamsburnred on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 12:35pm
I did the exact same thing. But I started my download at 11pm and it finished at 2am D:. Though due to H1N1 scaring everyone off, its a free day for W7 :).
DBR
Vista Drivers vs Win7 Drivers
Submitted by Granpuff on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 10:45am
Well, I have the RC 64bit all burned to the DVD and ready to go. My current system is Vista Home Premium 64bit that I installed less than a month ago on my new system build and have finally got the majority of my programs and settings installed and ready to go. I don't want to have to do a clean install from scratch all over again but the Microsoft site says an upgrade from Vista will work just fine.
My question is this: Will the drivers for my hardware and software work with Win7? I noticed that the drivers choice for my nVidia 295 GTX video card offer both Vista and Win7 64bit versions. I've already got the Win7 version ready to go on a flash drive. Do I need to uninstall the Vista drivers before I start the upgrade or will the upgrade process work with the Vista drivers still installed.
My previous system was WinXP Pro and I had to install a bunch of new drivers for my printers and scanners etc. to work. I also have the MSI Eclipse Sli MOBO with the MSI version of Sound Blaster X-Fi. The drivers for it came on the MOBO installation disk and Creative doesn't list the MSI version of X-Fi and their Auto Update feature does NOT work with 64Bit. The MSI auto update also does NOT work with 64 Bit. (these two companies need to come out of the 32Bit stone age)
I'm holding back on installing Win7 until I can get some feedback on how it will work with the issues I've stated. I'd really like to try Win7 but the thought of messing up my hard work with my Vista install is a bit scary!
Best Wishes, Granpuff
To answer your question:
Submitted by soccer1105 on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 12:59pm
To answer your question: No. You will need to reinstall new drivers. The upgrade process will work with your current drivers installed, but once it's done, you should download and install the new drivers for Win7. If you can't find any Win7 drivers for certain parts, you can try the Vista x64 drivers. The kernels for Vista and Win7 are very similar, so they might work just fine. However, remember that this is not the final release, and that many companies have yet to make drivers for Win7. You are in many ways a guinea pig, so don't expect everything to work perfectly.
Submitted by Kaasiim on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 8:59am
Dammit, I got up at 1 am, Started the download, went back to bed, got up at 5 am, showered, shut down the pc when i saw that the download was already done. then went to work.
Now I gotta wait till I get home to try it... this is turning into a long day.
Submitted by DropClaws on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 8:57am
Is there any good reason to not install 64bit windows 7 RC?
Submitted by soccer1105 on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 10:46am
No.
Long answer:
64-bit is the future, might as well start using it now. You might have some trouble finding some drivers though, especially for older hardware and/or some periferals. Scanners, printers, and cameras seem to be the worst. Just check to make sure x64 drivers are available before you install. However, because they're so similar (at the kernel level), you can often use the x64 drivers from Vista with Windows 7.
Submitted by skhills on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 7:48am
Anyone know if going with 64 bit windows 7 requires a clean install coming from Vista 32 bit?
Submitted by MvanA on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 8:09am
Microsoft does not provide a way to go from 32-Bit to 64-Bit without a clean install of the OS. Same goes for going from 64-Bit Vista to 32-Bit Windows 7.
Full Version Release Question
Submitted by the_river on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 6:52am
Paul, will I need to reinstall the OS from the RC release for the full version when I purchase it next year? I'm thinking of grabbing a new image of my PC with Acronis True Image (again) to capture my most recent changes and backing up Steam and L4D and giving this a go. I got a copy sitting in my hand for work, but I wanted to download a spare copy and license for home.
Will I be able to just buy a full license product key that will eliminate the RC tag, or will I need to do the fresh install? I got Vista Ultimate 64-bit installed currently from a fresh install a couple of months ago, with images of my PC before and after the reinstall. I will be doing a fresh install of WIN 7 RC but I'd like to eliminate the need to do that again in June 2010 if possible.
Thanks.
Reinstall
Submitted by One4yu2c on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 7:08am
Microsoft hasn't explicity spelled this out (that I'm aware of), but it's a safe bet you will not be able to migrate from the RC to a finallized version of Windows 7. Expect to have to do a clean install once the final version starts shipping, reportedly as early as late October.
-Paul Lilly
Submitted by MvanA on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 7:12am
Unless they change their minds between now and the final release the modification to the cversion.ini file is supposed to also work for bypassing the version check from the RC to the final version of Windows 7.
Submitted by One4yu2c on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 7:55am
While that may continue to work, I'm not sure Keith is asking about modifying files as opposed to simply inputting a retail key and migrating that way. Good find nonetheless, just be sure to note the disclaimer:
"If you do follow the steps below, you might run across some oddities after upgrade. We experience these internally at Microsoft occasionally but we don’t always track them down and fix them because they take time away from bugs that would not only manifest themselves during this one-time pre-release operation."
On a related note, even if an upgrade path is eventually made official, I'd still recommend a clean install whenever possible.
-Paul Lilly
Submitted by MvanA on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 8:07am
I too would always SUGGEST a clean install, I just wanted it known for those who feel that it isn't an option to go that route that there is an alternative (less tested) way for them to upgrade. Also since we noted the disclaimer we should also note that:
"To bypass the version check, the instructions below will use a
mechanism that is available for enterprise customers (so we are also
testing this as well). It is not a simple command line switch. We
didn’t make it multi-step on purpose but wanted to stick to using
proven, documented and tested mechanisms."So, even if they are not fixing these bugs for the RC release, if this is the solution that they are going to provide for enterprise customers then it's probably safe to assume that those bugs will, for the most part, be resolved before the RTM is released.
Submitted by MvanA on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 6:51am
This is from the Engineering Windows 7 Blog and describes how to upgrade from the Beta to the RC.
According to the blog it will also work for upgrading from the RC to the RTM version. Read the blog HERE!
Here’s what you can do to bypass the check for pre-release upgrade IF YOU REALLY REALLY NEED TO:
- Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.
- Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the
upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on
the machine running the pre-release build).- Browse to the sources directory.
- Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.
- Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000 (pictured below).
- Save the file in place with the same name.
- Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.
These same steps will be required as we transition from the RC milestone to the RTM milestone.
Awesome!!!
Submitted by nsk chaos on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 6:25am
Awesome!!!
Submitted by JupiterTrooper on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 3:50pm
http://pctalkonline.blogspot.com
I would love to try it but I dont have the patience for downloading
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