Microsoft Windows XP Release Candidate 1 is now ready for download! If you signed up for the download please read the email sent to you carefully and keep a copy so that you will not lose valuable information you need for participating in the Windows XP Preview Program. As a member of the Windows XP Preview Program, you are entitled to a copy of the Windows XP Professional Release Candidate (RC) 1 and 2. You will be notified by email when RC2 will be available for download.

The following are a range of download times for the 501084 KiloByte Windows XP file.

INSTALLING RC1 AFTER THE DOWNLOAD If you proceed with this Internet download option, please note that you will need to either burn a CD or use third party software to extract the Windows XP setup files. The Internet download is an .ISO file, an "image" of the product CD. It is not a self-installing executable like many internet-downloadable programs. You will need a CD Burner and CD Burn software or a third party utility to extract files from an .ISO image. More details and instructions will be available on the web site prior to your download. If you have a connection to the Internet when installing Windows XP, please use the Dynamic Update option during setup. This will ensure that the very latest fixes are delivered to your machine prior to running setup. If you are upgrading Windows 98 or Windows Me, and do not use Dynamic Update, you may get an error about kernel mode audio drivers on some systems. You will need to uninstall and reinstall using Dynamic Update on these systems. This will enable Microsoft to test the Dynamic Update feature of Windows XP.