Windows 7 - More Rumors Abound

We are now seeing more rumors being posted on the Internet referencing the next version of Microsoft’s operating System which may be called Windows 7. There is even a screen shot of what the new Windows may look like. See link here.  In the article it states:

 There are apparently three “milestone” builds planned for 2008, and the first one – M1 – has already shipped to key partners for code validation. M1 is for the English language build only, but is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will most likely be the last Windows operating system available in 32-bit, and given the rapid advances Windows Vista is making in the 64-bit computing market, this seems a sensible decision.

M2 should ship around April/May, and M3 some time in the third quarter of 2008. There’s no available roadmap information about further milestone, beta or release candidate builds, except the updated RTM release date of H2 2009.

If Windows 7 is released in the second half of 2009, this will be three years after Windows Vista which went RTM in November 2006. A three-year major product cycle would take the Windows operating system out of cycle with Windows Server, which is on an approximate four-year cycle.

Some of the other rumors floating around the Internet indicates that calculator, paint & wordpad are also going to be revamped. Huh? I didn’t even know anyone even uses any of these accessories.

Another rumor that Microsoft may be actually shrinking the OS down in size. Seems that Vista with needs of mountains of RAM hasn’t gone over that well and that a leaner, trimmer OS may be in the offering.

Comments welcome.

[tags]windows 7, release, milestones, time frame, 2009, builds, cycle,  [/tags]