The Windows 7 Release Candidate is complete. It’s currently being unofficially distributed on BitTorrent networks, and the official release has begun as well. Technical beta testers, MSDN/TechNet subscribers, and the general public (in that order) will be allowed access to Microsoft-run download servers in waves between now and May 5.
I have a copy of the RC code, obtained through official channels, and I’m spending this weekend in a flurry of upgrades and clean installs. I’ll be sharing details and lessons learned from my experience over the next few days and weeks, mostly at ZDNet.
Based on my initial experience, though, I think I can solve one mystery. It’s not one of the great riddles of the ages, but I’ve been curious to know which of the 70xx builds wound up being declared the official release candidate and recompiled into build 7100. I think the answer is 7077.
I found the best clue is in the Sources folder on the installation media. The file Cversion.ini determines whether upgrades are allowed or blocked from the current build. The settings in the official release are as follows:
[HostBuild]
MinClient=7077.0
MinServer=7000.0
If you try to use this media to upgrade a system running the December Beta release (build 7000), you’ll be blocked unless you edit this file. You’ll also be blocked if you try to upgrade from most of the interim builds (7022, 7048, 7057, 7068) that found their way onto BitTorrent sites in the past few months.
But if you’ve been running build 7077 or later, the upgrade will complete without any problems. I can’t say for sure, but that suggests to me that the underlying code is identical and that the only change is the date stamp and the build number.
Update: Several Microsoft insiders have made it pretty clear to me that there were indeed significant “iterations” in the code base between 7077 (April 4) and 7100 (April 22). Thanks for the correction.
If you’re already running 7077, you don’t need to jump through any hoops to upgrade to the RC when it’s available. You can run Setup directly over that installation and it will work just fine
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Posted By: KirubaKaran
Microsoft Certified Professional