Today the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) has been made available on MSDN and Technet subscriber downloads. General release for everyone else is slated for May 5th. MSDN was having some issues this morning due to the onslaught of download attempts… after giving it some time I was able to login and get the download started. (At the current rate it should be done downloading shortly after the Blazers beat the Rockets at home tonight.)

This RC is the last planned release of Windows 7 before it ships, and should be stable enough for general use. If you’re currently running the beta you should definitely move to the RC soon as the beta expires on July 1st. (The RC doesn’t expire until June of 2010.)

While you’re monkeying around with the new OS, something else worth checking out is the Windows API Code Pack. It’s a .NET library that provides access to Windows 7 (and Vista) features previously unavailable from managed code. This is your ticket for using Windows 7 features in your own apps like Taskbar Jumplists, icon overlays, task dialogs, libraries, you name it. If that weren’t good enough, the full source code is included… no mystery meat here.

Hope you enjoy Windows 7 as much as I have!