Microsoft is offering free and unlimited support for the Release Candidate of Windows 7, but only to company partners. As far as the participants in the Windows 7 RC Customer Preview Program are concerned, the software giant is offering no technical support, informing testers that this is the standard strategy related to all pre-release software. However, the same is not valid for Microsoft Partners. Windows 7 RC has been recently added to the list of supported technologies of the Online Technical Community. The first RC bits for Windows 7 Build 7100 started shipping on May 5th, 2009.

“The Partner Online Technical Communities are one of the best kept secrets at Microsoft. Actually, they are not a secret, but I keep running into Partners that haven’t heard that they have unlimited no-cost support break-fix, developer, and presales incidents for over 50 Microsoft technologies,” revealed a technical service coordinator on the Gold Certified Partner team. “Windows 7 RC was just added to the list. These are not newsgroups where you hope someone eventually comes along that has seen your problem before, the Partner Online Technical Communities are staffed by Microsoft employees that guarantee a response time.”

The fastest response time from Microsoft Support Professional is four hours, when the queries are break-fix related, for Gold Certified Partners and members of the Small Business Specialist Community. OEM System Builder Partners can wait as much as 2 business days for answers to pre-installation issues.

“Access unlimited online technical support for Microsoft products and technologies as part of your Microsoft Partner Program benefits —at no charge. Online Technical Communities can help you resolve customer issues and build customer loyalty and satisfaction. Share ideas with other partners and receive guaranteed responses to your break-fix, developer and presales questions from Microsoft engineers,” the company informed.

32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 (Release Candidate) RC Build 7100.0.090421-1700 is available for download here.