This just gets better......
Microsoft is asking Windows 7 beta testers to remove the program and return their computers to Vista, before upgrading to the forthcoming release candidate of the firm’s latest operating system.
The near-ready version of Windows 7 is expected to land next month. However, Microsoft has admitted the path to the RC isn’t going to be easy for anyone who has been testing out the beta of the OS.
In a long-winded blog post, the software giant confessed yesterday that it planned to block upgrades from the beta to the release candidate of Windows 7, although MS has offered a work-around for rebellious types who refuse to go by the rules. “We’ve learned that many of you (millions) are running Windows 7 Beta full time. You’re anxious for a refresh. You’ve installed all your applications. You’ve configured and customised the system. You would love to get the RC and quickly upgrade to it from Beta,” wrote Redmond on the
Engineering Windows 7 blog.
“The RC, however, is about getting breadth coverage to validate the product in real-world scenarios. As a result, we want to encourage you to revert to a Vista image and upgrade or to do a clean install, rather than upgrade the existing Beta. We know that means reinstalling, recustomising, reconfiguring, and so on. That is a real pain."
Meanwhile, those stick-in-the-muds who “really, really need to” bypass Microsoft’s request that they revert to Vista first will need to boot from a flash drive or another partition before modifying the build number in the “cversion.ini” file via text editor.
Microsoft also reiterated yesterday that it had
"no plans to offer an upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7".
