Windows 7 Release Candidate available to TechNet Plus and MSDN Subscribers

If you are a TechNet Plus or MSDN subscriber you can get your hands on Windows 7 Release Candidate today. If your not a subscriber then the Release Candidate will be made available to you on May 5th US time. I'm running Windows 7 Release Candidate x64 and loving it.

Please plan ahead for Windows 7 Beta and Windows 7 RC expiration dates. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to rebuild your test machine using a genuine version of Windows 7 before the software expires. Windows will remind you when the expiration process is beginning; two weeks after this notification your PC will begin shutting down every two hours.

Windows 7 Beta expires on August 1, 2009, and bi-hourly shutdowns will begin July 1, 2009.
Windows 7 RC will expire June 1, 2010, and the bi-hourly shutdowns will begin on March 1, 2010.

In both cases, you’ll need to rebuild your test PC to replace the operating system and reinstall all your programs and data.

Couple of things you should do after you install

Change your wallpaper theme, there are some cool ones in Release Candidate
Change your sound theme – my favourite is Cityscape
Visit the TechNet Windows 7 Springboard Site for all your Windows 7 technical resources
Check out the new Windows XP mode (XPM) in Windows 7
Set up Remote Media Streaming
Check out the changes in Windows Media Center
Start testing your organisations applications with the Windows 7 Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5