Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate: An Early Look

The Release Candidate puts some finishing touches on some new features and adds a good deal of polish to the OS.
The Windows 7 Beta, the next version of Microsoft's flagship operating system, was all about finalizing underlying changes to the system architecture. The Release Candidate, which the company will make available on the TechNet website on April 30th and available for public consumption on May 5th, puts some finishing touches on some new features and adds a good deal of polish to the OS. And that polish is apparent from the first moments you begin installing it: The install routine has been refined, with new icons and a few splash screens ("Checking video performance") with a starburst-type effect. Even the Starting Windows and log-on screens gain a cool, patterned background.The Windows 7 Beta was lauded for its stability. The Release Candidate makes the operating system feel just a touch faster; it's quicker to load and just a bit more responsive. And you'll be happy to hear that it installed in no time, too—as little as 20 minutes in my experience. Compared to the hour it often took to install Windows Vista, this thing flies.

Users will find many welcome additions to personalization options, including substantially more themes, more user icons, and new sound effects. New Aero Themes (they're no longer called Windows Themes) include Architecture, Scenes, and Characters, and you'll find 36 user icons rather than the 12 included in the beta. The aged Device Manager and the Control Panel have gained new icons as well, but more important, if you pin the Control Panel to the Taskbar, you'll note a very versatile new jump list. As you play with these "smart" jump lists, they become more and more useful, learning the most recently or most commonly opened files; how did we live with "dumb" Taskbar icons before?

The Control Panel itself has seen a few minor tweaks. A new "View by" menu appears beneath the Control Panel search box, which defaults to the category view but also lets you see all Control Panel items (rather than clicking the "All Control Panel Items" item, as in the beta). The Windows 7 Beta had a whopping 59 Control Panel items; the Release Candidate whittles that list down to 47. Gone are: Biometric Devices, ClearType Text Tuner, Default Location, Feedback (released just for the beta, this one doesn't really count, I suppose), Game Controllers, iSCSI Initiator, Offline Files, Pen and Touch, System Icons, Tablet PC Settings, Text to Speech, and Windows SideShow. Many of those features have been swallowed by the Devices and Printers control panel, but a few are surprising. What's happened to SideShow, for example?

On the Internet side, IE8 is out of beta! The Windows 7 beta came with a beta version of IE8, build number 8.0.7000.0. In the Release Candidate, the beta tag is gone, and IE8 is updated to version number 8.0.7100.0. Is this a newer version? Hardly. The build string of Internet Explorer is tied to the operating system you've got it installed on. The beta was build 7000, and the Release Candidate is build 7100. Install IE8 on an XP system and you'll see a 6001 in that build string.

Windows Media Center has gone through dramatic changes between Windows Vista and Windows 7. Eagle eyed users of the Release Candidate will note that PlayReady, Microsoft's new DRM scheme for protecting recorded television shows, is being updated to version 1.3—no word yet on what changes are included there, or when the scheme will be available for download on Microsoft's Web site. The inclusion of Internet TV in the Guide is a big leap forward, exposing even those without an integrated TV tuner to the fun of IP based TV. This feature was in the Beta, however, and despite the recent efforts to alphabetize items listed under the Movies, News, Sports, and other categories, the hoped for integration of Hulu, TV.com, and other IP-based TV doesn't exist. Yet.