It only seems a short time ago when we were upgrading to Vista (then, as a result, having to pay to upgrade all of our software so it was 'compatible' with Vista). However, Microsoft is touting Windows 7 as a bigger release, primarily as it's aimed at all those XP users who decided that it simply wasn't worth upgrading to Vista. Corporate users, who use multiple licenses, are still going to be difficult to convince.

Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) 32-bit and 64-bit editions are now available to download from the Microsoft website. The won't time out until June the 1st 2010, so you can use Windows 7 for over a year, before you decide whether it's worth upgrading or not. Although this is still only a Release Candidate, it should be feature complete, which means that only small bug fixes and improvements will be made between now and the final release, slated for later this year.

Windows 7 RC 32-bit and 64-bit edition links.

06 May 2009