MrDave's (David Yack) Blog!

There have been rumors floating around for a while, but today Microsoft confirmed via the Windows 7 blog that Windows 7 RC is on track for April 30th download on MSDN and public downloads on May 5th.

You can start reading now about some of the changes since the beta here and here.

There’s also a good blog post here on the end to end security changes.  One highlight I saw was the right click enable of Bitlocker on a disk volume.

Another good one is on mobile security here – it talks about how in Windows 7 you will be able to have multiple active firewall policies.  The DirectAccess sounds real interesting I will have to add that to my list of things to research.  DirectAccess basically sounds like it deals with the need to jump on / off VPN to get to server resources like a SharePoint stored file.  BitLocker To Go (sounds like take out food!) is for removable USB drives – I’m hoping this will make it easier to protect the contents without driving me crazy!

Windows 7 will be able to Burn ISO Images Natively which will be nice (details here).  I didn’t see though what everyone wants ability to simply mount an ISO – let’s just hope I missed it and it will be a surprise!

I’m really looking forward to the RC, I’ve been running Windows 7 Beta since it came out on a desktop machine and my X61 tablet.  In reality the desktop was a better experience, but with the tablet the main issue was with the suspend and issues after it wakes up.  So like all things if you just don’t sleep you won’t have problems!  I chalk that all up to the drivers and hopefully now as we hit RC with this drop of Windows 7 things should be smooth on both computers.

So go put a note on your calendars to check MSDN on the 30th!