Before going into the details of how to upgrade your Windows 7 beta into the all new Windows 7 RC, let us go into the new features offered by the Windows Release Candidate. The Windows 7 Release Candidate is available as a free download. Also the Virtual XP installation which was available for Windows 7 is also available for Windows RC.

The Windows Release Candidate also has a much better media streaming. The RC helps you to stream your media on internet, music and movies. It also helps you to verify it by yourself and by tour friends with the new Windows Live ID.

Now with the Release Candidate you can also personalize your PC with a wide variety of wallpapers and screensavers. The Windows Release Candidate is stuffed with more than 70 new wallpapers. All the wallpapers are catchy and mind blowing. You can choose them from a wide variety of categories like nature, cartoon characters, architecture, international, scenes, and landscapes. You can also customize the color, sound etc. according to your taste.

Finally knowing the new features of the Windows RC build 7100 which is both x86 and x64 leaked; you can install it in your PC by following a few instructions.

For installing the Windows 7 RC, you may need a bootable DVD iso on your hard disk drive. Then you have clean install Windows RC because the Microsoft has already given in a press release that the developmental changes that were made after the release of Windows 7 beta were not compatible with the newer releases. The Microsoft has recommended a clean install rather than to upgrade the Beta version.

The Windows 7 Release Candidate will also quit automatically if there is a pre-RC build in the computer. Before installing you should back up your machine before running an Os installation. It is also not advisable to test an OS on any of your only of data. It is also important to take all the necessary precautions before testing a test release on your computer. The Microsoft has published a step by step procedure to install Windows 7100 Release Candidate. They are as follows:

  1. Download the ISO and burn it to a DVD.
  2. Copy the whole image to a storage location where you wish to run the RC form.
  3. Browse to the sources directory.
  4. Open the file c version.ini in a text editor like notepad.
  5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build.
  6. Save the file in place with the same name.
  7. Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the the version check will be bypassed.

Now your Windows Release Candidate is installed in your computer.