David Flynn12 May 2009, 10:30 PM
Microsoft will skip a second Release Candidate for Windows 7 as it steams towards an RTM date in August ahead of an October launch.
Microsoft hasn’t named the date for Windows 7 but it’s closing in on the month. The latest update to the
Engineering Windows 7 blog helmed by senior Windows veeps Steve Sinofsky and Jon De Vaan indicates the next-gen OS will be signed off in August, with copies flying out to PC builders and DVD duplication centres in time for an October launch. (A launch date of
October 23rd was previously leaked by the UK marketing director of Acer).
“If the feedback and telemetry on Windows 7 match our expectations, then we will enter the final phases of the RTM process in about 3 months” says the blog, which indicates an August RTM (release to manufacturing).
And if that’s the case, the blog confirms that Microsoft is “tracking to our shared goal of having PCs with Windows 7 available this holiday season”.
Well, that’s a no-brainer. Windows XP and Windows Vista respectively took eight and eleven weeks to move from RTM to launch. Indeed, it’s worth noting that Vista was available to business customers under the ‘volume licensing plan’ a mere 22 days after it hit RTM. So the signals are good for an official launch in late October, which provided plenty of time for Christmas PC sales to kick into gear.
The post also decreed the RTM edition as “our next engineering milestone” past last week’s public debut of Windows 7 Release Candidate. However it stressed that “RTM is not one point in time but a ‘process’, as from RTM we enable the PC manufacturers to begin their processes of building Windows 7 images for new PCs, readying downloads for existing machines, and preparing the full supply chain to deliver Windows 7 to customers.”
“Once we have entered the RTM phase our partners will begin to make their final images and manufacture PCs, and hardware and software vendors will ready their Windows 7 support and new products. We will also begin to manufacture retail boxes for shipment around the world.”
“Thus RTM is the final stage in our engineering of Windows 7, but the engineering continues from RTM until you can purchase Windows 7 and Windows 7 PCs in stores.”