Microsoft has recently achieved the milestone of Release To Manufacturing (often abbreviated simply as RTM) for the Windows 7 product. This is the last step before the final shipped product arrives on store shelves.
As most of you know, Windows 7 will be widely available on October 22, so you can be sure to see tons of deals on laptop and desktop computers. It is a given that all the OEMs (ex: Dell, HP) and online retailers (ex: NewEgg, TigerDirect) will be offering some really good deals come later October – so watch for that.
The RC of Windows 7 is still available for download, and will continue to be until August 20. Product keys for that will be available until March 2010.
For those that want to get ahead with announcements concerning technical resources for the OS, it’s suggested you subscribe to Microsoft’s Springboard Series Insider.
If you are using Windows 7 now and wanted a way to provide feedback to Microsoft now, the easiest method is to use input.microsoft.com. Yes, you need a Windows ID (ex: Hotmail account), and once in the system you can weigh in your opinion on a boatload of different stuff:
…so if you wanted a voice, there you go. There’s no better way.
Remember all those complaints that Microsoft never listened to its user base? That’s certainly not the case any longer.
Lastly, if you want to see the blogs authored by Microsoft concerning the Windows 7 product, they are all here: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/
Big name players post blogs there, including but certainly not limited to: AMD, nVidia and Lenovo to name a few.
Did you find any of these resources useful?
Microsoft put a huge effort into not only informing but listening to the audience (that’s you) concerning the Windows 7 product. Do you find any of it useful or was it not what you were looking for? Weigh in with a comment or two.
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Our first commentator; weighing in at far too much weight, is the ever-delectable Sharron.
Sharron is in her forties and lives in the South of the UK; not too far away from places such as Stonehenge, Avebury, and the local lunatic asylum. Sharron is a computer builder, geekette, and a blogger. Having just eradicated a plate of salmon sandwiches by consumption, adding another couple of pounds to her weight in the process, she told us in her dulcet tones, although somewhat scathingly, that she is delighted with Microsoft’s new approach to customer relations:-
“Following on from the massive fiasco of Vista; where Microsoft took absolutely no notice whatsoever of the requirements of its customers, this comes as somewhat of an anticlimax.”
“Microsoft have, until recently, gained a reputation for always knowing what’s best for its customers; despite what its customers actually want. This came to a head with Vista where Microsoft secretly put together what they considered to be a winning formula for an operating system without consulting anyone whatsoever. – Not even the hardware manufacturers.”
“When Vista launched they said “Surprise surprise; here’s our new operating system that requires ten times the resources of the last one just to produce a blank screen, and also requires hardware that isn’t yet in production, other than for a number of special computers on which it’s preinstalled – made only by Microsoft’s top partner companies…” ”
“As you can imagine; that didn’t go down that well and it had people thinking they were trying to monopolise further. – Yet when their shiny new operating system proved to be worse than the last one; so much so in fact that the softies had to rush out a service pack as fast as they could to make it work properly, combined with the fact that older computers were unable to run it without a significant upgrade, people started turning to alternatives such as Linux and Mac.”
“Microsoft had no choice but to change their tactics and start listening to their customers, as it was by now clear that they, Microsoft, weren’t able to come up with a new product that their customers thought was the bees knees; nor one that competitors envied either: In fact, competitors laughed at it as the software giant’s customers bought those competitors’ products in preference to Microsoft’s.”
“Out of necessity, then, the softies have gone overboard on public consultation this time around; and what they’ve produced appears to have been pretty impressive in most people’s view. The RC at least appears to be what the customers are looking for. The RTM version? – Well it’ll be tweaked further, and should by all accounts be better yet. Whatever it turns out like; surely nothing can be much worse than Vista was?”