Windows 7 Reaches RTM

According to today's post on Microsoft's Engineering Windows 7 blog, "Windows 7 has also been one of the most broadly and deeply tested releases of software we have ever had". This is great news for enterprises who have have widely dismissed Windows Vista as a viable operting system for their systems and have stayed with Windows XP in hope of something better than Vista to come along.

The RTM version of Windows will be made available to OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) over the next few days. This will allow them to prepare and develop new products specifically designed for Windows 7 and to test whether or not it's a good fit to support on their existing product lines. The downside of this is that OEMs can now prepare the conglomerate of annoying applications that are installed on almost all new PCs these days.

Another announcement from Microsoft's Windows Server Division Weblog confirms that Windows Server 2008 R2 has also hit RTM today. This is good news for companies that wish to use Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 together to take advantage of new features available only when using both operating systems. Microsoft has done this very much on purpose to allow OEMs and other partners to validate and test both products at the same time and to develop products that can be shipped all at the same time to take advantage of what could possibly be a buying frenzy of tech hungry organizations.

What does all this RTM stuff mean to the general computer user? Well, since only about 5% of people actually buy a copy of Windows at retail price, it means nothing unless the purchaser is part of the 5% or if she is in the market for a new PC. Those people looking for a new PC may want to hold off until it starts shipping on October 22nd or purchase a PC from one of the many OEMs who offer a free or discounted upgrade path from Vista to 7.

In the grand scheme of things, Windows 7 may be the saving grace for Microsoft in a time when we are coming out of a major economic recession and recovering from the "not so great" sales performance of Vista. If Microsoft got it right this time we could see Windows 7 around for a very long time (similar to XP) and we may also see them produce many high quality enhancements throughout it's lifecycle.

Written by Dennis d'Entremont
dcdentremont@gmail.com
http://www.TheMadFatter.com/