Consumers have seen smaller Netbooks and Mini-Laptops as a secondary machine to buy alongside a standard laptop or a desktop computer.

Microsoft has teamed up with Burger King to celebrate the release of Windows 7 in Japan. The celebration features a 7 layer whopper being sold at Burger Kings in Japan for the next - yes you guessed it - 7 days.

Windows 7 launches today and Microsoft hopes it will be a positive upgrade from the now outdated XP. If you bought a Windows Vista-based PC in the last four months, it's likely that you're eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7. Getting the free upgrade to Windows 7 might involve some work, and for some, the Windows 7 upgrade won't be totally free.

Some small system builders are advertising that they will start shipping Windows 7 early, basically building systems as soon as they gain access to the code. Microsoft will start shipping Windows 7 to OEMs starting Oct. 12th, though the much-hyped new OS is not scheduled to launch until Oct. 22nd.

On Wednesday July 22 2009, Microsoft officially announced (on the Windows 7 Team blog) that they have reached the RTM (release to manufacturing) milestone with Windows 7. This means that the OS will soon be available to Microsoft partners and vendors for pre-sale preparation but the official launch (aka GA or General Availability) for Windows 7 is still scheduled for October 22nd.

Microsoft on Thursday finally dished on upgrade options for Windows 7, international availability on launch day (Oct. 22) and pricing. It's hard to say which one is more important to me, 1) or 3), but in this economy, I'd go with 3).

Earlier, Acer told us that Windows 7 would be available on its new all-in-one Z5600 PC starting on October 23, 2009. Later, Microsoft told us we'd get Windows 7 "by the holidays." On Tuesday, Microsoft officially announced the date: October 22nd.

As promised, on Thursday Microsoft released the Release Candidate build (7100) to MSDN and TechNet subscribers at http://technet.microsoft.com. The fact that it's been available on P2P sites for about a week should in no way embarrass Microsoft.

In what should be no surprise to anyone, the release candidate (RC) of Windows 7, build 7100, has leaked to P2P sites, including Miniova and yes, even The Pirate Bay, despite last Friday's guilty verdict in their copyright infringement case.

Microsoft has, at least for now, postponed the release of the Windows 7 beta, while it adds additional servers to handle the load. Microsoft has struggled with server issues all day as users tried download the first public beta of its newest OS.

On Wednesday Steve Ballmer, during Microsoft's CES Keynote, announced that the beta of Windows 7 was open to developers in certain programs (MSDN, Technet, etc.). This morning, as promised, Microsoft has opened up the Windows 7 beta to anyone who wants to download it.