Windows 7 going Gold? Nope

For some time now, people have speculated about when Microsoft will announce the “gold” RTM (release-to-manufacturing) of Windows 7. First, it was July 18, then the July 13 rumors started. Well, there is indeed a build 7600 that appeared today, but Microsoft has broken the silence and denied that this is the coveted final version. Nevertheless, the appearance of this build (on the usual slew of P2P networks) is suspicious – the latest known build was somewhere in the 7260 range, so this jump may mean that Microsoft has made significant progress in finalizing the code. Finally, note that the official build number of the final release has NOT been determined.