The Windows 7 Team blog has posted a great update which describes what happens once Windows 7 hits that all-important milestone, Release to Manufacturing (RTM). See the blog post to read about the nuances of RTM, but here’s the gist of what to expect once it’s attained (still anticipating the latter half of July):

First, TechNet and MSDN subscribers will be offered the final version of Windows 7 to download a few weeks after the RTM announcement. Then, those of you who are volume license customers will be able to get Windows 7 on September 1.  And finally, the retail versions of Windows 7 will be in stores October 22, the same time as it becomes available on new PCs. If you preordered Windows 7 through the Microsoft Store, you can expect delivery around October 22.

More to come,

Mitch

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Want to better understand and use Microsoft security release information, processes, communications, and tools? Download the new Microsoft Security Update Guide for IT professionals, designed to help you manage organizational risk and develop a repeatable, effective deployment mechanism for security updates. In this Guide, you will find a convenient glossary of terms, an overview of the Microsoft Security Bulletin process, and a stage-by-stage review of Microsoft Security Updates.

Also on the security front, you can now download the Microsoft Office Visualization Tool (OffVis), a free tool designed to help combat file format-based software vulnerabilities and exploits. OffVis enables you to better understand and deconstruct Microsoft Office-based attacks. As a result, security vendors can build deeper, more precise malware detection signatures and develop new techniques for analyzing malware.

More to come,

Mitch

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The answer to that question is “sooner than you might think.” The Windows Team Blog has posted details on when customers will be able to download the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) bits, and the availability depends on who you are.

For instance, independent software vendors and independent hardware vendors will be able to complete their testing on the final version of Windows 7 by accessing the Windows 7 RTM via Microsoft Connect or their MSDN subscription beginning August 6, 2009. Developers will be also be able to access the RTM bits through their MSDN subscription on August 6, 2009.

Volume License (VL) customers with an existing Software Assurance (SA) license will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English starting August 7, 2009 via the Volume License Service Center (VLSC). The rest of the languages for Windows 7 RTM should be available within a couple of weeks following the English release.

For IT professionals who are not part of the VL program, if you have a TechNet subscription, you will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English on August 6, 2009 and the remaining languages by October 1, 2009. Evaluation versions of Windows 7 Professional for IT professionals will be made available via the Springboard Series shortly after RTM.

Microsoft Gold/Certified Partners will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English through the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) Portal on August 16, 2009. The remaining languages will become available to download by October 1, 2009.

Microsoft Action Pack subscribers will be about to download Windows 7 RTM in English starting August 23, 2009, with the remaining languages available by October 1, 2009.

And finally, for consumers, retail stores will begin offering Windows 7--and it will start shipping on new PCs--on October 22.

More to come,

Mitch

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For those who didn’t sign up in advance last week for notification on the availability of the MDT 2010 Beta 2, just click here to get the toolkit. If you are already a member, click here. MDT 2010 is the next version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, a Solution Accelerator for operating system and application deployment. MDT 2010 will support deployment of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 in addition to deployment of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP.

Microsoft announced today that it has contributed 20,000 lines of code to the Linux kernel community. The code contribution, a Linux device driver, will be published on CodePlex, and will be immediately available to the Linux Community and customers, enabling any distribution of the Linux operating system to be virtualized on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008.

This is significant for a couple reasons: The Hyper-V Linux device drivers enable Linux machines to run as virtual machines on top of Hyper-V. Without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows, but without the same high performance levels. Second, this marks the first time Microsoft is directly contributing code to the Linux kernel. Microsoft has made the long term commitment to update and maintain this code over time as the next versions of the Linux kernel are released.

For more, check out the Channel 9 video, the Virtualization Team Blog -- Microsoft and Red Hat Cooperative Technical Support, and the Microsoft Open Source site.

More to come,

Mitch

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