Earlier this month, Microsoft made the Windows 7 Release Candidate build publically available. The flood of e-mails began: "Emil, what's new in the RC? What changed? What is different?" That question can be answered in many ways. Some of my peers have already reviewed the RC build, and while I commend them on their effort, reviewing beta software is not something I personally like to do. If you want the short answer to the question, I will tell you this: there are thousands of bugs fixed, the build is much faster all around, and most importantly, the biggest feature changes have been completed. If you want the long answer, and I mean the really long answer, read on.

First thing is first though, let's have a look at the compilation times to see how much work we are trying to track. There is more than four months difference between the two builds: the beta (build 7000) was compiled on December 12, 2008, at 2:00pm and the RC (build 7100) was compiled on April 21, 2009, at 5:00pm. As you can see in the screenshot above, build 7000 officially expires on July 1, 2009, while build 7100 expires on March 1, 2010. After that date, the RC will begin to shut down every two hours. Of course, the RTM build of Windows 7 will be available long before then. For now though, if you're still on the beta, I would recommend moving over to the RC (via a clean install if possible) as soon as possible.

This is not an official list of changes; nor do I believe it is a list of every single change. It focuses on visible differences, as opposed to bug fixes or under-the-hood improvements. This post is about tracking every noticeable "tangible" change; although I do mention some fixes here and there. The screenshots in this article are all lined up in the same way (unless otherwise specified): build 7000 on the left and build 7100 on the right, or build 7000 above and build 7100 below. Also, remember that the "Send Feedback" link has been removed in build 7100, so if there is a window title bar visible and you have forgotten this simple rule, you will still be able to instantly recognize which build is which. Finally, for Control Panel applets, the Control Panel has a blueish-green Vista-looking left panel in build 7000, while in build 7100, the left panel is more of a whiteish-grey.

Here's a simple example. As you can see below, Build 7000 takes up more space than build 7100. The difference isn't really a huge one, given the size of the operating system, but it is still worth noting: 0.8GB. This change was measured on the same laptop with two separate partitions, using the 64-bit flavor.

I've split up this article into Windows components that have been tweaked; the areas that aren't mentioned are ones where I did not notice any (or missed) changes. The list below is in alphabetical order, but I do not recommend that you read it in that order. Just click on what you're interested in to get to the right page, and then scroll down till you see it.

Index: