One thousand nine hundred ninety-two – what a year: Bush, Sr. booted in the Japanese Prime Minister’s lap; Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would no longer (publicly) target the United States with nuclear weapons; the Washington Redskins (Go Hogs!) beat the sad Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVI; Microsoft released Windows 3.1, complete with Minesweeper; EuroDisney opened in France; Wayne’s World and Basic Instinct hit the silver screen (among other “classics“); the Mall of America was built; William Jefferson Clinton was elected 42nd POTUS; and, last but not least, Dr. Dre released The Chronic.

The geeks at Redmond might already be rolling out the Release Candidate of Windows 7 to select beta testers. A few of those testers have leaked some info including the releases name: 6.1.7048.winmain_win7rc1.090211-1625. Those two little letters of RC probably indicate that this is the release that many have been waiting for. The last beta, build 7022, is just a minor upgrade over the 7000 public beta, but the RC should offer enough goods to tempt upgrades.

Cuba is trying to eliminate its dependency on Microsoft Windows by launching and promoting a homegrown version of Linux called Nova. Government officials say they want to ween as many of the country’s computers off Windows just in case the operating system has hidden hooks into the CIA, NSA, etc. Can’t have that, now can they? Linux, free and open source, also gels with the country’s ideology. Hooray for Cuba, then.

Microsoft has been putting together the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program and it appears that it’ll likely go into effect starting July 1st of this year. It’s that program that lets you purchase a machine with Microsoft’s current operating system and then upgrade it to the newest one when it launches, similar to what the company did when getting ready for Vista.

It’s true what they say: show regular people a Microsoft operating system that they haven’t seen yet and a Linux desktop environment that they’ve never used and they won’t be able to tell the difference.

Russian programmer Dmitry Zavalishin is working on a revolutionary new concept for an operating system. In Zavalishin’s Phantom OS, snapshots of the entire system will be continually saved to disk, preserving state for running applications and active data. There are no files in the traditional sense, instead a file is merely an object with persistent state. Neat!

Attention morons who didn’t like UAC in Windows Vista, that thing that turns everything off whenever you make a change to Windows and asks for your password, Long Zheng would like to have a word with you. Because of a change in Windows 7, you can basically write a script that turns the function off completely, thereby creating gaping security holes similar to those found in every previous Microsoft product ever made.

You know what Microsoft needs to do? Write off Vista totally and compensate everyone with an upgrade to Windows 7. Forget about the impending SP2 and refocus everyone into Windows 7 development. That being said, the next update for Vista might not drop until May or June and should bring some well needed feature upgrades. It’s still craptacular Vista in the end though.

There’s a Windows worm running wild out there—“skyrocketing,” in BBC parlance—so you’d best have your install all patched up and your anti-virus software up to date. Or, you know, get a Mac, biased Biggs often jokes in the official CrunchGear chat room.

A few weeks ago, we read about how the British Royal Navy would be installing Windows XP on some of its submarines. Oh boy, did we all share some laughs! “Control-Alt-Drown,” said one commenter; “Beware the blue cruise missile of death!” said another. We ROFL’d and LOL’d all the live-long day.

I still haven’t tried the Windows 7 beta, but everywhere I look I see more and more people speaking very positively about it. Truth be told, I’m less and less interested in operating systems: the overwhelming majority of things I use my computers for are done through my web browser, so the OS is becoming less and less relevant to me. I use Ubuntu, but according to some Windows 7 will put the final nail in the coffin of desktop Linux.

So how’s that Windows 7 beta treating you? Even if you’ve had issues—and we know that some of you have—you should know that Microsoft is trying to make this whole experience work as smoothly as possible

Better hurry up if you want to download the Windows 7 beta, since Microsoft is only allowing the first 2.5 million of you to try it out. Those of you with fancy TechNet and MSDN connections can grab it now; everyone else will have to wait till tomorrow, Friday, January 9

Citing affordability and ease-of-maintenance thanks to off-the-shelf parts, he British Royal Navy is rolling out a customized version of Windows XP on its nuclear submarine fleet.

It’s about time Microsoft released an OS worthy of some hype and excitement. Mark my words, friends: Windows 7 will be Microsoft’s watershed OS. If it’s not, then MS in in serious trouble. Like Palm, Windows is beloved, hated, and long overdue for an overhaul. Unlike Palm, Microsoft’s executives have so much money that they line hamster cages with it. That’s why I’m particularly interested in this review of beta 1: it has all the promise of Palm’s Nova with the means to deliver.

Microsoft initially intended for Windows XP to die when the ball dropped on New Years Eve ‘08, but the OS has gotten a reprieve – for now at least. The new cut off date for licenses will be May 20, 2009.