It’s finally, officially here – Windows 7 RTM can now be downloaded by MSDN and TechNet members, but the public must still wait until October 22 for general availability.

Checking on ‘August 6th’ between 2am and 4am on the West Coast of the US, downloads of the RTM version still weren’t active, and an MSDN “chat concierge” couldn’t give specific details of when downloads could commence, only able to suggest that downloads would likely be available in a few hours time.

Several hours later the RTM version was finally posted, allowing MSDN/TechNet subscribers to download Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise, in x86 (32bit) and x64 (64bit) versions, among other tools including “debugging symbols” and the Windows 7 SDK (software development kit).

So, I’ve started downloading Windows 7 Ultimate, the 32bit version, and it’s coming down at around “100 KB/sec”, although this is fluctuating between 50-100 KB/sec. So far 37% of the file has been downloaded, with anywhere from 5 to 7 hours to go as reported by the Microsoft File Transfer Manager tool.

I also received an “internal error” message, which was a bit of a surprise, telling me that the Microsoft File Transfer Manager tool “cannot open file on server”, but resuming the file transfer resumed the download, seemingly without issue.

There was concern that downloads of the RTM version could be delayed due to the discovery of the CHKDSK /R bug that is supposed to chew through all your memory until a user sees the dreaded Blue Screen of Death, but Microsoft said it was unable to duplicate the bug, while promising to fix any issues when found in the future.

It looks like it was a last minute Windows 7 bug beat-up designed to generate some web traffic rather than any real issue, but naturally if serious bugs are found we’d all expect Microsoft to squish them as quickly as possible, something Microsoft hasn’t always done in the past.

No operating system is bug-free, and all receive regular security updates, so no doubt there’ll be more reports of Windows 7 bugs to come, as well as plenty of comparisons with Mac OS X Snow Leopard and various Linux distros.

Until then, the official Windows 7 RTM download frenzy has finally begun, as has the latest chapter in the battle of Microsoft Windows vs. everyone else. Take cover!