Those of you without access to development builds of Windows 7, the official Windows 7 Beta 1 for public beta testers will most likely be released towards the end of this week.
Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet.com has spoken with a source who believes that the public beta of the Windows 7 client will be made available by Microsoft on Friday, January 9. She also mentions that the purchase period when you can upgrade to Windows 7 for free will probably be starting on July 1, 2009.
There’s been no public comment from Microsoft on the exact release date of the public beta or the OEM/Retail releases.
Read: ZDNet.com