Windows 7 RC available on MSDN April 30th / broader public May 5th
I am happy user of Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 and I was very much excited when I received announcement that Windows 7 Release Candidate will be available on above dates!
Windows 7 truly is one of the best OS in the history of Microsoft OS's and I am really enjoying it's "lean and mean" technology that are delivering performance and usability to the user's built on Windows Vista foundation!
Read more here: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/04/24/windows-7-release-candidate-update.aspx
To be clear, it is not just that product is near finish line, but Microsoft is saying that they built a lot of the improvements from beta, complete list of which you can find here: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/26/some-changes-since-beta.aspx and here http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/03/13/a-few-more-changes-from-beta-to-rc.aspx
My favorite improvements/features are:
1. Blazing fast boot/shutdown
2. Battery life has been prolonged a LOT!
3. Support for VHD (mount/boot)!
4. SPEED is adequate!