Starting on April 30, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will be able to download the Windows 7 Release Candidate, Microsoft said in a . Release candidates are typically feature-complete and stable, and suggest that the final version of a product will be available very soon.

The company recently posted information accidentally on its Partner Program Web site saying that the Release Candidate was already available to developers and would be released to the general public on May 5. That page was quickly pulled because the software had not yet been ready.

In its blog post Friday, Microsoft confirmed that the general public will be able to download the release candidate on May 5.

Analysts have been predicting lately that the final release of Windows 7 will appear sooner than expected. Officially, Microsoft says that it is on track to deliver Windows 7 three years after the release of Vista, which was in January 2007. But some analysts now say it could be available in September or October this year.