Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has quietly posted the release candidate for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 earlier this week. The Redmond-based software giant says this will be the last update before its transition from release candidate status to release to manufacture, also known as RTM. 

In a blog post about the release candidate, Brandon LeBlanc, who is the Windows Communications Manager at Microsoft reiterated in a blog post that the only new features would be the inclusion of Windows Server 2008 R2-related virtualization technologies such as Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX.

According to the download page after I checked, the release candidate supports English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. Users can download either the 32-bit or 64-bit installers; testers might be interested to know that the RC SP1 will need to be uninstalled to install the final RTM build. The combined download can be accessed from the TechNet Evaluation Center page here.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld
- check out this article at CNET News

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