Update on the Australian Student… Netbooks

5:56 May 14th, 2009 | 0 notes

The latest news from the Department alludes to some big plans by Microsoft and the future of this whole scheme in New South Wales!

Just an update from my ‘sources’. The Student Lenovo Netbooks will be running Windows 7 Release Candidate! Well I can only presume it’s the release candidate, because they wouldn’t be running the full version right? Or would they? There is no doubt that the push for the RC to be put on these computers could only have come from Microsoft themselves. That means that the Education Department must have made a deal with the folks from Redmond (well, the folks from Redmond, in Sydney). It would seam that Microsoft have most likely promised the Education Department the full version on it’s release.

But wouldn’t that mean reinstalling thousands of copies of Windows 7 on computer spread all over the state? Yes it would. Here is where I can draw some interesting conclusions. There is no way that Microsoft would push out the RC on thousands of laptops if it meant a huge logistical nightmare in the near future. The same can be said of the Education Department. Neither of them would want huge hassle of installing new operating systems a few months after they handed out the laptops. In that case, it is not a big jump of logic to assume that the Windows 7 Release Candidate is closer to the final version than we might think. What if the final version only meant a small patch to the release candidate? What if I and many other people with the release candidate would only need buy a product key online, hit Windows Update and be running the final Windows 7 in a few minutes?

From my perspective, there is the only one posibility. If Microsoft wanted each and every student laptop running Windows 7, but knew that it wasn’t to be realeased for several months, what would they do? They wouldn’t install XP or Vista then send out Windows 7 a few months later, as I said previously, too much of a headache. What else would they do? They would send out the release candidate, knowing it was a small task to update to the final release.

It raises the possibility, the Windows 7 RC is very close to final release.