Windows 7 XP Mode to Be Publicly Available May 5

Microsoft has announced that it will post a downloadable beta of the Windows XP Mode tool for Windows 7 alongside the public release candidate on May 5th. The releases will be available from the Microsoft download center.

Windows 7 RC: System Requirements, New Features

Microsoft has issued a press release to accompany the posting of the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) earlier today. The statement divulges two important areas of information for the new release: system requirements and official new features.
System requirements are as follows:

1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of RAM (32-bit)/2 GB [...]

Windows Vista SP2 RTM Leaks

The RTM (release to manufacturing, or final) edition of Windows Vista SP2 has leaked to file-sharing networks, signaling that the update will soon be available for public consumption. Among the notable enhancements in SP2:

Windows Search 4.0: “improved indexing and search relevance; helps find and preview documents, e-mail (including signed e-mail messages), music files, photos, and [...]

Office 2007 SP2 Released: What’s New

Microsoft today released Office 2007 SP2, the latest edition of the company’s productivitiy suite. The new release is cumulative, meaning that it includes fixes included in Office 2007 SP1 and other public updates, security updates and hotfixes that were issued through February 2009.
The new release can be downloaded here.
What’s New Among the major enhancements in [...]

Mozilla Firefox 3.0.10 Released: Fixes “Major Stability Issue”

Mozilla.org has released Firefox 3.0.10 for Windows, the latest release of the open-source Web browser. The release notes state only that this update:

“Fixed a major stability issue.”

However, some users are reporting dramatically enhanced performance, particularly with regard to JavaScript.
If you are having issues after this update or have other feedback, please let us know.

Windows 7 RC (Build 7100) Bugs: Blue Screens and More

Users are noting a variety of issues after updating to the Windows 7 Release Candidate, build 7100:
Bugs

Blue screens (BSODs) Some users have reported an increased incidence of BSODs after the update to Windows 7 build 7100. Some of these cases may be related to a conflict between the Kasperskey antivirus software and new security updates [...]

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 [...]

Latest Windows 7 Updates Cause BSOD: Fix

Beta testers of Windows 7 report that recently released security updates pushed through the Windows Update mechanism cause blue screens of death (BSOD) at startup, with a failure on kl1.sys.
Fix
It appears that, in some cases, this problem may be caused by a conflict with the Kaspersky Antivirus package. Follow these steps to disable the software:

Startup [...]

Windows 7 Build 7077 Leaks, Gets Significant Speed Boost

The latest pre-release edition of Windows 7, build 7077, has been distributed to testers and subsequently leaked to various file-sharing services. Users of the new build report as dramatic speed boost relative to the prior build, particularly when launching applications and transferring files.
If you are having problems installing Windows 7, see our previous coverage [...]

iTunes 8.1.1 Released; Fails to Install: Fix

A number of users have experienced problems updating to the newly released iTunes 8.1.1. Generally, when this issue occurs, installation appears to proceed normally but then delivers the error message “The installer encounted errors before iTunes could be configured. Your system has not been modified. To retry these operations at a later time please return [...]