As promised, Microsoft began the wide public test of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 RC today. All official downloads are available on a TechNet page.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd262148.aspx

Service Pack 2 will be a regular cumulative service pack over SP1 released last year, and it is one unified pack for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Also as Commerce Server Product Unit announced, Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 is now available for download to MSDN subscribers.

http://blogs.msdn.com/commerce/archive/2009/03/03/microsoft-commerce-server-2009-is-now-available-on-msdn.aspx

Commerce Server 2009 delivers the ability to increase your business reach by making it possible to sell via multiple channels by using an out-of-the-box shopping site, SharePoint® Commerce Services, and the Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation. The new out-of-the-box shopping site leverages SharePoint Commerce Services, which provides a gallery of ASP.NET 3.5 Web parts and controls, a comprehensive e-commerce shopping feature-set, and technology integration between Commerce Server and SharePoint technologies. The Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation provides a new unified, extensible run-time programming model for Commerce Server, including new run-time e-commerce capabilities. 

This week, close speculators on Windows 7 had already got their hands on the latest leaked version 7048, which had much improvements over 7022, the former latest leak. Rumor has it that RC will be available in April.

So much for the news of software.