My money is on January 13
"Mary Jo Foley still thinks Windows 7 Beta 1 is going to be available in mid-December, specifically, December 17.
My money is on January 13.
So who’s right? Probably both of us. Mary Jo is probably right that the Beta 1 build will be locked down and signed off in mid-December, But I’m probably right about when everyone outside the hallowed halls of One Microsoft Way gets their hands on it.
The process of locking down a major release of Windows (which this will most certainly be) is a complex one. Right now, as I write this, Microsoft has already created “escrow builds” of Windows 7 that are feature complete. You could also call these release candidates, and although purists within the Microsoft dev teams might grimace, you would have the right idea. (Raymond Chen has an excellent explanation of how and why the terms have evolved. Money quote: “The term escrow does a good job of conveying the true state of the build: ‘It’s over, and we’re not going to touch it unless there is a real emergency.’”)
Those escrow builds are solid and stable enough to use every day and to test extensively, which is no doubt what is happening right now inside the Microsoft corporate network. The goal of the testing is to uncover regressions and showstopper bugs. At some point, after the list of potential showstoppers is cleared and no new bugs are found, an escrow build is declared ready to release.
December 17 is an ideal date to target for that to happen. If the Windows dev team hits its dates, everyone gets to enjoy the holidays and the code is ready to show off at CES. (And if any last-minute glitches appear, there’s still time to iron them out, even if it means a miserable Christmas and New Year’s for the engineers assigned to do the ironing.) Meanwhile, manufacturing can get busy cranking out DVDs and accompanying documentation for distribution to press, analysts, partners, and customers (like attendees of the MSDN Developers Conference).
In the old days (mid-2006 and earlier), invited beta testers had a special place in this hierarchy. They typically got builds that the general public never saw, and they got a head start on downloading and testing milestone releases. Today, under the current Windows management, that group officially doesn’t exist. If you’re not a Microsoft employee or part of a very small group of privileged corporate partners and OEMs, you’ll get the release at the same time as everyone else.
As a principal author of a book on Windows 7 under the Microsoft Press imprint, it’s frustrating as hell to work under the new system. Knowing that beta code will be ready some four weeks before I actually receive it and can begin dissecting and documenting it is maddening. But that’s the way things work at Microsoft, circa 2008."
A closer look at Windows 7 release dates | Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise |
SK
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sorry but i cant wait.....
