Starting Thursday, MSDN and TechNet subscribers can download the official release candidate for testing. The general public will be able to get downloads beginning May 5. The RC version of Windows 7 will not expire until June 1, 2010.

There were some initial reports that demand for the RC software was so heavy that Microsoft's servers failed under the load, and visitors were greeted with the message "We're sorry! The page you were expecting to see has been removed or is unavailable." By early afternoon, however, the servers were back up and running.

Almost Perfect?

The release candidate is considered by Microsoft to be a "near-finished" product, with only minor changes likely before to the official Windows 7 release late this year or early next year. According to company representatives, the milestone means the software is ready "for partners to develop new applications, device drivers, and services, and ready for IT pros to evaluate Windows 7 and examine how it will operate in their environment."

"Listening to our partners and customers has been fundamental to the development of Windows 7," said Bill Veghte, senior vice president for the Windows business at Microsoft. "We heard them and worked hard to deliver the highest-quality release candidate in the history of Windows."

Microsoft says more than 10,000 companies have signed up for access to development tools designed to help existing software and hardware work with Windows 7.

Home Run Needed

It's a little difficult to reconcile Microsoft's earnings last quarter of $13.65 billion with its palpable sense of urgency over the success of Windows 7. But there is no question that the software giant was surprised and frustrated by the lukewarm, even hostile, response to its much-touted Vista OS.

The new OS has a number of features designed to allay the concerns of IT departments and individual consumers. For instance, the user access controls have been toned down, the interface is less cluttered, and Microsoft has put much more effort into compatibility than it apparently did with Vista.

Still, the question remains whether the many Vista holdouts -- who are still happily running Windows XP -- will make the leap to Windows 7. Microsoft is planning the release shortly of an upgrade adviser to let consumers know if their hardware can handle the new OS (much as it did with Vista).

An even more telling development, however, is that Microsoft will offer consumers a separate program to enable Windows XP Mode under Windows 7, which will enable older programs to run directly from the Windows 7 desktop. Whether that will tip the scales in favor of the new OS, however, remains to be seen.