Windows 7 RC Public Download

The official Windows 7 Release Candidate is now available for all users through Microsoft's Customer Preview program.

Officially the folks at Redmond had said the release would be available tomorrow (May 5), and while it's not May 5 anywhere in the US at the time of this writing—hey, it's May 5 somewhere.

To download Windows 7 RC, you'll need to hit up the link below, head to the bottom of the page to select which version of Windows 7 you want (32-bit or 64-bit), select your language, and then sign in with your Windows Live account (that means you'll need to get one if you don't have one already). After that, just grab yourself a cold drink and wait. So far the download is moving swiftly for me (around 450KB/s) and should be done in just over an hour and a half. Hopefully they can keep it up, but if not, remember: This download and product keys will be available through the end of June, so you've got plenty of time.

If you give it a go, let's hear how the download goes for you in the comments. Maybe Microsoft won't underestimate the web this time around. Thanks Travis!

Update: The download page—which worked just a few minutes ago and will very likely start working again in the next day (if not much sooner)—appears to have been pulled. I'm getting a "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found" error message." My download's still going strong, but you may not have the same luck I did. Not a great start, Microsoft, but we won't hold it against you until it's officially May 5.

Update 2: Okay, it's five minutes later and it's working again. Let's just hope that we're just seeing a few getting-started hiccups. If you aren't having luck at first, it might be worth trying again in a few minutes. We're going to check out of the minute-to-minute updates at this point, but you can help us out by keeping your fellow readers up-to-speed on how it's worked for you in the comments.

Update 3: The gHacks blog recommends signing in with a Windows Live ID at the TechNet or MSDN servers, even if you're just a member of the RC-grabbin' public, and grabbing your registration keys and downloads from those servers to avoid the release-day bum rush.

Windows 7 Release Candidate: Download instructions [Microsoft]