According to The Register, Intel plans to deploy Windows 7 on its employee's computers. When asked at a Technology Summit with reporters and analysts in San Francisco whether the company would wait until service pack 1 to deploy Windows 7, Intel's EVP and chief sales and marketing officer Sean Maloney said, "This time I think we'll go faster."   This is good news for Microsoft since Intel and many other companies skipped Vista. The company's top salesman also sympathized with those who passed

It's been a three year long ride. Windows Vista was released January 2007, and its reception by the press was very negative, which made sure public perception was very negative as well. Sales were slow, people wanted Windows XP, and businesses didn't care about Vista either. Microsoft needed something that would make the world forget about Vista, and it needed it fast. The journey is over: Windows 7 has gone RTM.   via > http://www.osnews.com/story/21879/Windows_...omplete_Hit_RTM   video

Beginning next month Microsoft will start an upgrade to the Windows Update and Microsoft Update services. Microsoft plans to start the infrastructure update in late August, claiming "it will take a couple of months to complete the rollout." The update is required to "maintain and improve service quality, reliability, and...   more > http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/07/16/m...-windows-update

here's a Video explaining the changes in 7 relating to activation and it goes into some details about   * Your KMS host * KMS keys * MAK keys   In summary:   Windows 7 volume licensing customers have two options of licensing, KMS and MAK, by default, all customers will get a KMS key.   * you can activate Windows 7 using KMS as long as you have 25 machines (same as Vista requirements) however now that total can be made up of virtual machines as well as real machines * you can activate

We are close, but have not yet signed off on Windows 7. When we RTM you will most certainly hear it here. As we’ve said all along, we will RTM Windows 7 when it’s ready. As previously stated, we expect Windows 7 to RTM in the 2nd half of July.   Windows 7 will be available in many languages from around the world. For us to consider RTM “done”, it requires that all languages be completely finished. So there is a lot of work that needs to take place for us to finalize all languages of Windows 7.

"One Microsoft Way is reporting that Microsoft has significantly incremented the build number of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: 'Reports across the Web are pointing to a build 7600 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This is significant because the bump in the build number would suggest that Microsoft has christened this build as the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. The RTM is expected to be given out to Microsoft partners sometime later this month and launched on Oct

Service Pack 2 for Configuration Manager 2007 delivers new platform support for Windows 7 client, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. In addition, Service Pack 2 delivers continued innovation with Intel vPro technology, support for Branch Cache enabled environments, and continued development for 64 bit architectures.   You can access more information and the beta download on MS Connect by logging in and choosing Downloads in the left side navigation.   g

Despite the generally positive reception of Windows 7 so far, there will still be many people who will want to stick to Windows XP. For these people, downgrade rights are particularly important, and Microsoft has confirmed the rules of the game to El Reg.   via http://www.osnews.com/story/21698/Microsof...owngrade_Rights