Well, it's been quite a while since Build 7000 was leaked in December, 2008 and we've all been wondering when the Release Candidate will become available to the general public. Microsoft have said it may be Q2 2010 now, but there have been some rumours floating around of a May 2009 release. I myself have been wondering if there would be any more Beta builds before the RC is released, because being one of the people who have had Build 7000 installed since it was first leaked, it seemed pretty damn stable to me.
It looks better than Vista, it's a lot faster than Vista and it has a lot of cool perks here and there to make the general browsing experience just that extra bit special. However, it looks like they still wanted to make a few more adjustments to the OS because on the 4th April, 2009 Windows 7 Build 7077/7105 was released. However, it's been hard to find a link to this build through all the other fake torrents that have been surfacing, and the legitimate (as far as torrents.ru go xD) upload of Build 7077 was reported at stopping at 87.9% for everyone.
This is because the German female who uploaded it to torrents.ru requested for it to be uploaded ONLY on there, and on no other websites. Obviously, everyone ignored this request and decided to upload it onto ThePirateBay among other torrent sites. So upon this happening, the seeder decided to stop seeding it, so it would only seed to 87.9% for everyone before stopping, but it is available now for everyone to download.
The thing that intrigues me though is that a screenshot from Build 7077 x64 shows it expiring on the 2nd March, 2010.
A lot of people predicted a Release Candidate to be available to the general public in Q2/Q3 due to Build 7000 reportedly expiring in May 2009 (Why keep a beta running when the Release Candidate is out, right?), but maybe Microsoft is telling the truth this time, because this expiration date looks towards an RC release of at least Q1/Q2 2010 :(.
The problem with this is that there was apparently an expiration date of Build 7000 in August 2009 when the RC doesn't appear to be being released until sometime next year, so who knows how late the RC will be released?
To be completely honest, I'm not too bothered about Win 7 being delayed, I myself am happy with my x64 Vista Ultimate and OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard), I'm more looking forward to the release of Mac OS X 10.6 (SnowLeopard). We were all hoping for it at Macworld this year, but Apple's last appearance at the legendary week was a disappointing one, previewing only iLife/iWork '09, DRM-free iTunes, 3G iTunes and the new 17" MacBook Pro. I'm hoping for SnowLeopard to pop up during the Apple keynote at the WWDC '09 during June 8th-12th (when some guys at at&t say a new iPhone will be announced), but hey, who knows how things are going to go? All I know is, if they are both announced, that will be an expensive month for me xD.
Well, feel free to drop us a comment on your views on Windows 7, the new OS X, the new iPhone or anything you like! Have a good week ;).
Some Useful Links
Last Minute Addition - Explanation of Build 7077/7105
There’s been a lot of confusion with the build numbers, so to clarify, Windows 7 Build 7077 is the same as Build 7105 and you will see that both these builds were compiled on the same day. Build 7077 comes from the RC escrow branch and will be renamed Build 7100 if no showstopper bugs are found. Windows 7 Build 7105 is the first build of the RTM branch. In other words, Build 7105 is branched off from Build 7077. Here’s a quote from ArsTechnica for further information about the build numbers:
The build string for the latest build we know about is “7077.0.090404-1255,” which indicates that it was compiled less than a week ago: April 4, 2009, at 12:55pm. Some of you will realize that this is 20 minutes after the supposed build 7105 was compiled, which is widely rumored to be a milestone build. Microsoft only increments the second digit of the build number if an important point in development has been reached
With thanks to http://windows7center.com/ for the Build 7077/7105 info
