Gone RTM

That’s right: the last touches have been put on the Windows Phone 7 OS and it’s now in “RTM”, Release to Manufacturing. Here’s what Terry Myerson wrote on the Windows Phone Blog:

Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released.  We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes.  We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready.

Next Up: Developer Tools

We’ve had over 300,000 downloads of the Windows Phone Developer Tools in their CTP (Community Technology Preview) and Beta states, and we’re racing towards RTM. The final version of the tools will be available on Thursday, September 16th, and yes, they’ll be available free of charge.

In the meantime, download the tools and start working on those apps!

And Then: Marketplace (and App Certification)

Windows Phone Marketplace is where users will buy your apps, which means that once you’ve written and tested your apps, it’s time to submit it for certification. The requirements for getting an app certified for Marketplace, including what’s allowed and not allowed in an app, are clearly specified in the Windows Phone 7 Application Certification Requirements [PDF, 513K]. Download it and get familiar with the Marketplace policies.

Your Turn: What Should You Do?

I’ll close with the words of Brandon Watson, Director, Developer Experience and one of the guys on the WP7 team:

1. Register at the marketplace today

2. Finish your application or game using the Beta tools

3. Download the final Windows Phone Developer Tools when they are released on September 16^th

4. Recompile your app or game using the final tools

5. Have your XAP ready for ingestion into the marketplace in early October when it opens

The final tools will likely have some minor breaking changes from the Beta tools, so developers may have to fix some bugs that arise. The final tools will also include several highly requested Silverlight controls which will make it even easier for developers to deliver high quality Windows Phone 7 experiences. Also in the September 16^th final release, the panorama, pivot and Bing maps controls will all be available to drop into applications.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Windows 7 Released to Manufacturing

It’s been announced on the Windows Blog: Windows 7 has been released to manufacturing!

Brandon LeBlanc explained that “RTM” happens only after it’s been signed off. One of the release candidate builds becomes a contender for release to manufacturing after it goes through significant testing and passes all the validation tests for RTM including having all languages for that build completed. Build 7600 crossed all those hurdles and got signed off today.

The beta and release candidate period for “Seven” was quite unusual. Rather than hand it out to a closed group of beta testers, it was made available for download and I was given piles and piles of DVD-ROMs to hand out like candy. And strangely enough, people were asking for it. At the EnergizeIT installfests this spring, we played to packed rooms of people who took time out of their Saturday mornings and schlepped to Mississauga to install the beta. Even people with Macs, who ran it under Boot Camp or Parallels. It’s unusual for an operating system in beta – especially one from The Empire – to be in such demand.

I’ve been using the beta since January and the release candidate for the past few weeks as my primary operating systems with nary a hitch, glitch or blue screen. I’m looking forward to getting the final version of Windows 7, which will be the first of many new goodies coming from The Empire over the coming months,

If you’re a developer with an MSDN subscription or an IT pro with a TechNet subscription, you’ll be able to download the English Windows 7 RTM on August 6th, with other language versions on October 1st. Windows 7 will go on sale to the general public on October 22nd.

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 R2 was also released to manufacturing today. As they state in the Windows Server Division Weblog, the simultaneous release is no coincidence but a design goal. “R2”, as I prefer to call it, boasts a lot of features such as Hyper-V, Live Migration, File Classification Infrastructure, an improved Active Directory, Pervasive PowerShell, IIS 7.5, server scalability, DirectAccess, BranchCache and improved Remote Desktop.