News Windows 7 Released to Manufacturing

Brandon LeBlanc has announce that Windows 7 has officially been released to manufacturing and now preparations can begin for its official release in October.

I am pleased to announce that Windows 7 has RTM’d!

As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM. Then, it goes though all the validation checks required for RTM including having all languages of that build completed. If all the validation checks have passed – sign-off for RTM can occur. Today after all the validation checks were met, we signed off and declared build 7600 as RTM.

Not only is RTM an important milestone for us – it’s also an important milestone for our partners. Today’s release is the result of hard work and collaboration with our partners in the industry to make Windows 7 a success. We delivered Windows 7 with a predictable feature set on a predictable timetable that allowed OEMs to focus on value and differentiation for their customers.

Our customers told us what they want (and expect) and we defined those specific experiences and then built features to support them (like HomeGroup and the Windows Taskbar enhancements). Our customers also told us that “fundamentals” on both the hardware and software side was extremely important. Windows 7 today runs great on the broadest array of hardware types ranging from netbooks to high-end gaming machines. We worked closely with OEMs so that their PCs delight customers with the new features in Windows 7.

OEMs will recieve copies very soon and MSDN/Technet users will have access to the operating system starting August 6th. For more information on the various dates check out the blog below.

:source: News Source: Windows Team Blog via Neowin

 

Well I think they also want it to be a success. Another issue that some are experiencing now and more would be experiencing, is hardware/driver support. When Vista first came out, I mean FIRST came out, before it was publically released but was on MSDN/Technet/released to OEM's - good GOD the driver problems! I have a few things I'm working out with regards to drivers atm.

Granted, support is much better than the first few days of Vista, but there are things that vendors (NVidia, AMD, Intel, ATI, etc.) need to work out. They get the bits so they can get their images going (more for Dell, HP, etc.), but also so the experience will be as solid as possible for consumers. Keep in mind, Technet/MSDN is not meant for production use, just evaluation.

 

Well this time around the AMD graphic drivers (if your lucky enough to have a supported card) work great, that is very different to Vistas release and if you consider that they release drivers monthly then there are going to be another two or three revisions before general availability.

 

Here are the hashes/checksums if anyone ends up downloading it from a torrent. Use them to verify that you're downloading the real Windows 7 and not a virus.

• Windows 7 Retail Ultimate English (x86)
  Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULFRER_EN_DVD.iso
  CRC: 0xC1C20F76
  SHA-1: 0×5395DC4B38F7BDB1E005FF414DEEDFDB16DBF610
• Windows 7 Retail Ultimate English (x64)
  Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso
  CRC: 0×1F1257CA
  SHA-1: 0×326327CC2FF9F05379F5058C41BE6BC5E004BAA7
• Windows 7 Retail Ultimate E English (x86)
  Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_cliente_en-us_Retail_UltimateE-GRMCEULFRER_EN_DVD.iso
  CRC: 0×953EFBCC
  SHA-1: 0xBC10F09B86DCBAF35B31B0E6FBA7D006ACAAD28D
• Windows 7 Retail Ultimate E English (x64)
  Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_cliente_en-us_Retail_UltimateE-GRMCEULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso
  CRC: 0×77BE890E
  SHA-1: 0×029DCCEDD7691206010F84CE58343405A4DA92C9

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/dmelanchthon/archive/2009/07/23/windows-7-rtm.aspx

I'll be waiting for the actual release to download it.

 

& the OEM hashes

32-bit (x86) Windows 7 Ultimate RTM OEM English ISO File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_en-us_OEM_Ultimate-GRMCULFREO_EN_DVD.iso
Size: 2,501,894,144 bytes
SHA1: 9018D76CD7EB1098257F8474D9D7D40AF948E143
MD5: 28ECC57D83286BC15E7CF7A80CB940F3
CRC: FDFFFF5A


64-bit (x64) Windows 7 Ultimate RTM OEM English ISO
File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_en-us_OEM_Ultimate-GRMCULXFREO_EN_DVD.iso
Size: 3,224,686,592 bytes
SHA1: 82C8C36423A1511516E54DC7E54B96603AA88F01
MD5: DAD9F7A0B4D5D928A6A67BA6CD896350
CRC: 2211FE19

 

Why doesn't Microsoft release Windows 7 already? My beta expired!

 

RC1 will expire march 2010...