Microsoft this Friday will ship the final pre-release version of Windows Vista and, unexpectedly, will name the release as Release Candidate 2 (RC2). Previously, Microsoft had publicly asserted that it would not ship an RC2 milestone release of Windows Vista. But don't let the name fool you: RC2 is really just a standard interim build of Vista and will not be given out to millions of users as was RC1.

The RC2 build is 5743, and Microsoft is currently testing it internally. As with the previous interim build, 5728, RC2 will be given out to beta testers, MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and a random, limited selection of Consumer Preview Program (CPP) members.

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