Microsoft has announced that the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) will automatically shut down on a regular basis months before the final public preview is due to expire next year.
The software giant had previously promised that the Windows 7 RC, which is available now for free, would work until August 1, 2010. However, the company plans to take a heavy-handed approach to encouraging people to upgrade to the full retail version from next March.
"For the RC, bi-hourly shutdowns will begin March 1, 2010," said spokesman Brandon LeBlanc. "You will be alerted to install a released version of Windows and your PC will shut down automatically every 2 hours.
"On June 1, 2010, if you are still on the Windows 7 RC, your licence for the Windows 7 RC will expire and the non-genuine experience is triggered," he added, warning Windows 7 RC users that at that point, the copy will be marked as bogus, with on-screen nags and a black background.
With automatic shutdowns due to start on March 1 2010, those who have downloaded the Windows RC have ten months to play with the OS before it starts to pester them to upgrade.
That puts Windows 7 on a similar pre-release schedule to Windows Vista. In 2007, Vista RC1 and RC2 started rebooting on June 1, nine-and-a-half and nine months, respectively, after they were released.
Comments
David said: Peter my thoughts exactly if you cant decide if you want windows 7 after 9 and half months trial then you might as well stick to your current operating systemAs for me I dont think I need to go to march before deciding to splash out on the retail productFor me after using the beta and now the RC version 64bit I can honestly say I am impressed faster snappier more stable and responsive and with a number of useability features thrown in in the words of Rex Harrison of My Fair Lady fame By George I think Microsoft have got it
Ian, Glasgow said: Biannual which means twice per yearBut biennial means once every 2 years so once every 2 hours would be bi-herlyThere may be no such word as bi-hourly yet but that doesnt mean it couldnt fall into common usage and therefore there would be such a word there used to be no such verb as google - it was a a noun meaning 10100The problem is that the word bi-hourly is useless - as soon as I saw it I wondered i my system will shut down every 30 min or every 2 hours If nobody knows what the word means then it has no purpose
Peter said: I think by March next yr those using the RC should know enough to make a purchase decision Microsoft is not a charity after all and as free trials go this seems pretty generous
How often? said: Of course we should not expect Americans to understand the English Language There is no such word or words as bi-hourly However there is Biannual which means twice per year This would sugest that bi-hourly would mean twice per hour rather than the intended every two hours