It’s Official, we have RTM’d Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Article
07/22/2009

After a lot of speculation and hype all over the blogosphere, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 officially was RTM’d today! We have spent a great deal of time and money as a company over the last number of months promoting these 2 products. This has included here in Ireland where we have twice toured around the country showcasing Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and the better together message these products bring. Now all of the hype over and the job of selling and deploying these solutions.

“Of course, today’s release is also the result of the amazing amount of feedback we received from the millions of people who tested Windows 7 – from Beta to RC. We actually had over 10 million people opt-in to the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). That’s a lot of people opting in to help us make Windows 7 a solid release. Through CEIP, our engineers were guided by customer feedback all the way to RTM. We also have had a great group of beta testers who have dedicated a great deal of their time to testing Windows 7 too. A special thank you goes out to all the people who helped test Windows 7. ”

For more detailed information on the RTM process and information from the product teams see the Window 7 Team Blog and Windows Server 2008 R2 Team Blog.

As I blogged yesterday, there is a very specific set of release dates for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 from early August through to October 22nd and the official release of the consumer version.

For Business Customers:

If you are a Volume License (VL) customer with an existing Software Assurance (SA) licenseyou will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English starting August 7th via the Volume License Service Center (VLSC). The rest of the languages for Windows 7 RTM should be available within a couple of weeks after that.

For IT Professionals:

There are a few ways you can get Windows 7 RTM. IT Professionals with TechNet Subscriptions will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English on August 6th and remaining languages by October 1st.

IT Professionals at companies with Volume Licensing see above on how you can get Windows 7 RTM.

We have quite a bit of resources for IT Professionals to use to become experts on Windows 7 and to aid in their deployments. Those resources can be found at the Springboard Series.

There is so much fun ahead of us!!!!!!!

cheers