During the Microsoft Global Exchange (MGX) conference (which is an internal Microsoft conference for Microsoft’s global sales teams and evangelists), Microsoft made it official that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 have both made it to RTM or “Release to Manufacturing” level.  This means that OEM’s (Dell, HP, IBM to name a few of the) companies will receive their copies in the next couple of days from which they will start getting their hardware ready for sale to the general public in the coming weeks. 

     The Windows Blog has its Windows 7 RTM posting at http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/07/22/windows-7-has-been-released-to-manufacturing.aspx (http://windowsteamblog NULL.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/07/22/windows-7-has-been-released-to-manufacturing NULL.aspx) and the Windows 2008 RTM posting at http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2009/07/22/windows-server-2008-r2-rtm.aspx (http://blogs NULL.technet NULL.com/windowsserver/archive/2009/07/22/windows-server-2008-r2-rtm NULL.aspx) .

From the Windows 7 posting –

“As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM. Then, it goes though all the validation checks required for RTM including having all languages of that build completed. If all the validation checks have passed – sign-off for RTM can occur. Today after all the validation checks were met, we signed off and declared build 7600 as RTM.”