Neowin is reporting a date of April 10th for the release of Windows 7 RC, the next important version of the OS. Microsoft confirmed that beta users won't receive the RC before the general public. If true, it stands in stark contradiction to earlier reports that flagged a Windows 7 Release Candidate as likely by the end of February.

Moreover the company plans to launch an upgrade program beginning in June that will allow consumers who purchase a Vista PC to upgrade to Windows 7 for free when the new operating system becomes available, according to company documents obtained by a popular tech blog.

Under the program rules, consumers who purchase Vista-based computers from June 28 onward will be eligible for the upgrade, according to documents posted this week on Tech Arp. Vista Home Professional users will have the option to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Professional, Vista Business users will be able to migrate to Windows 7 Professional, and Vista Ultimate users will be able to move to Windows 7 Ultimate.

However the other way around still proves popular as complainant Emma Alvarado of Los Angeles contends that she was unfairly charged a $59.25 fee to downgrade a new Lenovo laptop from Vista to XP. It appears that a clause in the Windows license allows users in certain cases to replace newer versions of Windows with an older edition without having to buy a second license. The lawsuit charges that Microsoft's policy barring computer makers from offering XP on new PCs after Vista's early-2007 launch violated Washington state consumer-protection laws.

A lawsuit claiming people were fleeced by the way Microsoft Corp. advertised some Windows XP computers as capable of running the new Vista operating system is no longer a class action, a federal judge has ruled. Microsoft offered a similar program in 2006 that allowed consumers to upgrade systems from Windows XP to Vista after Vista became available in early 2007. But the program, under which Microsoft and its hardware partners branded certain systems as "Vista Capable," quickly landed the software maker in hot water.