On May 5th, the Windows 7 RC was finally officially released for public download. However, it had been available on BT networks for over a week, and developers with access to MSDN and TechNet subscriptions were also allowed to download it earlier. But these groups constituted only a small portion of users who got to see the release of Windows 7 RC first. For those who had previously given up on downloading and waited patiently, this was undoubtedly good news.