Windows 7 RC Leaked: What’s New, What’s Fixed, What’s Broken

[Updated Sun., April 26th; 1:30 PM PST]

The unofficial release candidate edition of Windows 7, available to authorized beta testers, has leaked. The new release, build 7100, includes a number of significant enhancements and resolves some bugs extant in previous releases. It also provides some significant feature enhancements.

What’s new

• Better performance Several users have reported increased speed from Windows 7 build 7100, particularly with regard to startup times and gaming performance.

What’s fixed

• Erroneous “Read-only” message Previous builds of Windows 7 would sometimes state that Office documents were “read-only” when users attempted to save them, when in fact they were not read-only. This bug has been fixed in Windows 7 build 7100.
• Dropped connections Windows 7 build 7100 fixes an issue in which the Internet Connection would persistently drop when using some WiFi cards.
• Spotify, an online music discovery service, now works. It had issues with previous Windows 7 builds.

What’s broken

• ThinApp Users report that VMWare ThinApp (virtualized applications distributed as a single executable) still do not work with this build of Windows 7.
• Windows Media playback On some systems, Windows Media has problems playing back .mov and mkv files after the Windows 7 build 7100 update. In some cases, this issue can be resolved by removing the K Lite codec pack and instead installing CCCP.
• McAfee VirusScan Some users have reported problems with McAfee VirusScan Enterprise and other editions of the antivirus software after updating to Windows 7 build 7100.
• Upgrading If you had a previous, pre-release version of Windows 7 installed, you cannot directly upgrade to Windows 7 build 7100. However, there is a workaround.
• Upgrading If you had a previous, pre-release version of Windows 7 other than build 7077 installed, you cannot directly upgrade to Windows 7 build 7100. However, there is a workaround.
• DAEMON Tools Lite Several users have reported that DAEMON Tools Lite v4.30.4 causes an endless BSOD loop after the update to Windows 7 build 7100.

Noticed any other improvements or changes? Drop us a line at info@windowsfixup.com.