14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 7 is advancing at fast pace through development milestones, in its way from Beta to Release Candidate stage, with interim builds cooking over in Redmond even though served only to select company testers and dogfooded internally. The start of March 2009 is synonymous with reports indicating that Microsoft has signed off Windows 7 Build 7048, again. Previous news that the Redmond company had wrapped up Windows 7 Build 7048 from the Release Candidate branch were squashed by Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group. The Windows boss indicated a couple of weeks ago that Microsoft had at that time not even compiled Build 7046, let alone any superseding development milestones.
Since the initial Win 7 Build 7048 proved a fake, Microsoft moved the next iteration of the Windows client to 7047. Last week, David Lowe, group product manager for Windows Server, Microsoft, revealed that he had finished wrapping up the installation of Windows 7 Build 4047 on two of his machines (via Neowin). One change compared to previous releases of Windows 7 emphasized by Lowe was the fully functional Homegroup. But 4047 is of course nothing more than an interim build on the way to RC.
The end of February 2009 and the start of March brought to the table Windows 7 Build 7048 yet again. This time around the Build tag is no longer labeled Release Candidate, but just 6.1.7048.0.x86fre.winmain.090219-1845. However, the little information available on Windows 7 Build 6.1.7048.0.x86fre.winmain.090219-1845 points out that the new build is another fake (!), just as the last 7048. According to the build label, the development milestone was compiled on February 19, 2009. However, on February 20, one day after the new 7048 was supposedly compiled, Sinofsky revealed that the Windows team had not even wrapped up Windows 7 build 7046.
Fact is that at this point in time, Microsoft has not confirmed officially the existence of any Windows 7 Build beyond 7046. This is not to say that they don't exist; 7047 has a strong chance of having indeed been compiled. However, a new Windows 7 Build 7048 with the code signed off on February 19, 2009, is just as fake as the previous 7048, as well as the reports that the build no longer features the Send Feedback link. However, Microsoft is indeed changing Windows 7 as the operating system evolves from Beta to RC, with modifications impacting the UI, touch and additional components of the platform.
