Microsoft Windows 7 RC1 to be available next week, chock full of new features

By on Apr 25, 2009 at 2:18 PM
General April 25, 2009

Microsoft confirmed on Friday the rumored May release of Windows 7 RC1. The release candidate version of Microsoft’s upcoming OS will be available on April 30th to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, with a broader public availability slated for May 5th. RC1 adds several new features to Windows 7 including remote media streaming, Windows XP mode and some slick new eye candy. Also the remote media streaming, if it works as well as promised, might just give services like Orb a run for their money. Associate your Windows Media player library with your Windows Live ID and you can stream your media across the Internet from any remote PC. Sweet! Before you get too excited, this is Microsoft we’re talking about so both computers must be running the same version of Windows Media player. This cool new feature will not work from Mac or Linux machines, so take note if your personal arsenal of computers includes any.

Windows 7 will also include a new XP Mode meant to assist businesses as they transition from Windows XP to Windows 7. XP Mode will utilize Windows Virtual PC to provide a full-fledged Windows XP virtual environment which, theoretically, will allow users to run all those legacy Windows XP applications without issue. Last but not least, Windows 7 RC1 will see some eye candy in the form of stunning background graphics. Microsoft has been slowly adding new background images throughout the development process and now the public will get its first look at Microsoft’s sense of style. All you folks still running Windows XP with its default green rolling hills background might just be pleasantly surprised.

[Via Giz]

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  • http://www.jphotog.com Eric

    “…and now the public will get its first look at Microsoft’s sense of style.”

    LOL!

    You mean since the introduction of Windows in 1983, this is the first look? Holy mother of Ballmer, what took so long?

  • Galvatron

    83 thats taking me back in time lol. i was 5 years old back then

  • Sureal

    after using windows7 7057 release and now rc1, i can say without a doubt, windows7 is the best windows yet, install was far and away the easiest i have ever had to do, all my drivers automatically downloaded and installed, something vista could not do as i had to fight with it to see the internet, and xp couldnt do cause… well i dont know :/ just didnt do it (and by all drivers, i mean all, sound card, video card, everything) the only issue i have had so far is with my creative sound card, but thats not windows fault, creative doesnt support vista very well (or at all) and so they dont support win7

    after being a long time windows bootlegger, i can honestly say that i will indeed fork over however much microsoft wants for win7, its worth it

  • MrNice

    Windows 7 is good. Even though the OS shares the same UI as Vista, the menus are more comfortable and faster to navigate through, and the OS overall is faster. I installed this on my AMD 64 3000+ computer. Nice collection of backgrounds, are these suspose to be the ones used for the Vista ulitmate extras?

  • Malicious

    We deployed Windows 7 on workstations and laptops on a small network in which so far has been operating more successfully than our Vista workstations on similar network. This includes Office 2007, Photoshop 7 and many other products. We have successfully deployed group polices, and other services to this operating systems through large infrastructure equipment from our servers. I personally am impressed by the reduction in higher level support requests for this operating system in comparison to the same numbers of users and machines that are hosting Windows Vista. We have had very little driver, goup policy, network service, network application compatibility issues and have successfully run lesser operating systems in Microsoft Virtual PC for our older legacy applications on these Windows 7 physical machines. We do not tinker heavily with Windows 7 configurations too much as most typical computer enthusiast would on their own home PC’s so I’m sure there are lots of other issues out there as you would expect from any release of any new operating system. I usually never roll out a new version of an operating system in a workplace, until the first service pack has been released and thorough work related OS environments have been setup and tested. Nevertheless, I believe that this is Microsoft’s best operating system platform so far and I would be looking forward to the final release for deployment considerations.

  • Malicious

    Hi,

    Alternatives:

    Most Vista Version of drivers will work with the blue tooth device inbuilt into your laptop. If not, either wait for SP1 or buy a bluetooth usb stick, there really cheap, if its that important.

    Want to transfer files, use the wireless or a wireless card.

    If it’s for your phone, use the phone cable and test the software.

    God luck :)

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