At the Professional Developers Conference in late October, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky announced that Windows 7 Beta 1 would be ready “early next year.” A Microsoft insider has now confirmed the actual date, which is indeed very early next year. In a comment on his blog, Keith Combs has revealed that Windows 7 Beta 1 will be available on or around January 13, 2009.

Keith’s post links to a promotional announcement for the MSDN Developer Conference series, where every registrant “will receive a Windows 7 Beta 1 DVD.” The first event in the MSDN series is next week, on December 9, in Houston. So does that mean the next Windows 7 beta will be ready for public distribution this month? According to Keith, the answer is no:

My understanding is that the DVD will not be ready for the first few show dates but will be mailed to each attendee.

We are targeting to have the DVD’s in the materials from 1/13/2009 on.

So I would imagine the folks attending the Houston, Orlando and Atlanta shows this month will receive their DVD’s around mid January as well. That’s an assumption on my part. Could be earlier or later, but they will get them.

Source: ZDNet

I'd hope that it would be out this year! Do you think that the Beta will be available for download? Or people sign up to be part of the beta...like Windows Vista?

It will probably be the same as Vista. Testers get it first then when RC1 is released they make it available to everyone.

Thats a bummer...usually people in the Beta who reported bugs got a free copy of vista! Not sure about the RC though!

Yep. If you were invited to the Vista test and submitted bug reports you got a free copy of Business or Ultimate.

 

I imagine it'll be the same for the Windows 7 beta.

Can't wait! :D