Hi shibes!

The Dogecoin developers are proud to announce the final version of Dogecoin Core 1.7!
After lots of coding, testing and swearing this is the next version of our reference client. It brings Dogecoin one big step forward on the technical side of things, with moving to the Bitcoin 0.9 codebase.

The full release notes are available here: https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/releases/tag/v1.7.0

TL;DR of the release notes

• Code is now based on Bitcoin source. But parameters are still the same as before. No fork this time ;)
  
• Downgrading from 1.7 to 1.6 with a fresh wallet is not easy. Be aware of that.
  
• Client is now Dogecoin Core, added dogecoin-cli to talk to dogecoind (Dogecoin Core Daemon).
  
• Fork detection and warning

Is this mandatory?
No, you can stay on 1.6 if you want for now. This update adds quite a few new features you'd miss out on.

How to update?

1. Backup your wallet! This is very important! Go to File -> Backup Wallet, and save this file in at least two safe places for a good backup.
   
2. Exit the client you're running now.
   

3. Install the update

   1. For Windows, use the setup.exe to update. If you are using the new 64bit version you'll need to uninstall 1.6 afterwards.
      
   2. For Mac just overwrite the version you currently have in you Applications folder.
      
   3. For Linux you'd overwrite your current dogecoin-qt binary with the new one.
      

4. Start the client. That's it :)

About going back to 1.6
Once you go to 1.7 there is no easy way back to 1.6. That's why it's important to have a backup of your wallet. Just in case. Be aware that a backup goes out of date after 100 transactions! Several people have been running 1.7 for a while now and see no problem with it, so you probably don't want to go back anyway ;)

Downloads (Listing here this time to make it easier to find)

• Windows 32 Bit
  
  • Installer
    
  • ZIP with Qt client, dogecoind and dogecoin-cli
    

• Windows 64 Bit

  • Installer
    
  • ZIP with Qt client, dogecoind and dogecoin-cli
    

• Mac

  • Qt client
    

• Linux 32 Bit

  • ZIP with Qt client, dogecoind and dogecoin-cli (statically and dynamically linked)
    

• Linux 64 Bit

  • ZIP with Qt client, dogecoind and dogecoin-cli (statically and dynamically linked)
    

Changes from RC1

• Change the amount input field step value to 1 DOGE
• Update the splash screen
• Update Chinese translation
  

Staying up to date
If you want to easily stay up to date with releases, you can subscribe to the mailing list right here: http://sourceforge.net/p/dogecoin/mailman/dogecoin-releases/
That's especially advised if you are a service provider!

General comments
For anyone running an exchange, please also note that in light of the 51% attack against Reddcoin last night, the Dogecoin developers now recommend a minimum of 10 confirmations for payments into an exchange.

Thanks
Thanks to everyone who contributed so far! Especially /u/leofidus-ger, /u/rnicoll and /u/patricklodder, who have done by far the most of the work for this release. But of course thanks to everyone else who contributed, may it be advice or code or whatever. Also thanks to the Bitcoin developers. And of course thanks to the Dogecoin community! You are what makes it fun to work on all this ;)