This is one of those posts where I’m truly excited to be writing. I get to tell you when Windows 7 will be on store shelves! According to input from customers and partners we’ve made a lot of progress with Windows 7.
Our milestone-to-milestone approach for Windows 7 is built on a great deal of feedback from customers and testers. This has been pivotal to the development of Windows 7.
I blogged a few weeks ago that it’s looking like we’ll have Windows 7 ready in time for the holidays.
Since then we’ve made enough progress to feel really good about announcing today that Windows 7 will be in stores beginning October 22nd.
I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to see Windows 7 sitting on store shelves!
Some people may not be able to wait for Windows 7 to arrive before having to order a new PC (like parents who are sending their sons or daughters off to school who need of a PC to take with them). Fortunately, there is no need to wait. Soon, customers will be able to take advantage of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program. This program enables participating retailers and OEMs to offer a special deal to upgrade to Windows 7 for customers purchasing a qualifying PC. I’ll be doing another blog post about this program with a date and more details when we get closer to availability.
Obviously, Release To Manufacturing (RTM) is an important milestone on the path to GA. We anticipate that we’ll be able to make the RTM code for Windows 7 available to our partners sometime in the 2nd half of July. We also expect to be able to make RTM code for Windows Server 2008 R2 available to our partners in this time frame as well.