Just in case some of you missed this at the beginning of the week (and yes, I know I’m a little late with this news report), Microsoft officially announced that the next version of Windows would in fact be called “Windows 7”. Yes, this means Windows 7 is named after the codename of the project and yes, this is the first time it’s ever happened for Windows.  According to Mike Nash of the Windows Vista Team Blog, the decision to call it Windows 7 boiled down to this:

The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity. Over the years, we have taken different approaches to naming Windows.  We’ve used version numbers like Windows 3.11, or dates like Windows 98, or “aspirational” monikers like Windows XP or Windows Vista.  And since we do not ship new versions of Windows every year, using a date did not make sense.  Likewise, coming up with an all-new “aspirational” name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows.

Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore “Windows 7″ just makes sense.

Now after the announcement was made, the web was abuzz as to whether this really was the seventh version of Windows. People began counting the different version of Windows that’s appeared over the years and the seven just didn’t add up. Of course it’s rather amusing that NO ONE thought about this earlier when everyone in the world knew the next version was codenamed “Windows 7’ – but whatever. I suppose news has been slow recently eh? (BTW.. has reporting on CNET’s News.com gotten worse or is it just me?)

So people asked.. and good ol Mike decided to write another posting yesterday to answer this very topic. Here’s some snippets from the posting:

“I’ll say up front, that there are many ways to count the releases of Windows and it’s been both a trip down memory lane and quite amusing to read all the different theories about how we got to the number “7.”

Anyway, the numbering we used is quite simple.  The very first release of Windows was Windows 1.0, the second was Windows 2.0, the third Windows 3.0.

Here’s where things get a little more complicated.  Following Windows 3.0 was Windows NT which was code versioned as Windows 3.1. Then came Windows 95, which was code versioned as Windows 4.0.  Then, Windows 98, 98 SE and Windows Millennium each shipped as 4.0.1998, 4.10.2222, and 4.90.3000, respectively. So we’re counting all 9x versions as being 4.0.

Windows 2000 code was 5.0 and then we shipped Windows XP as 5.1, even though it was a major release we didn’t’ want to change code version numbers to maximize application compatibility.

That brings us to Windows Vista, which is 6.0.  So we see Windows 7 as our next logical significant release and 7^th in the family of Windows releases.””

So there you have it folks.. Windows 7 is the next version and folks attending the PDC and WinHEC will get a chance to see a version of it. Hope to attend PDC.. we’ll see (since I do have jury duty).

Technorati Tags: Windows 7, Mike Nash,

Wondering what’s happening in the Windows 7 world? Well the net is buzzing that Windows 7 has supposedly hit an internal milestone known as M3 or Milestone 3. What does this mean for you and I? Not a whole lot of course but some folks are theorizing that a public preview version of Windows 7 won’t be too far off the horizon. There’s even leaked pics of the new Paint application within Windows 7 (which promptly made me scream “folks.. this is PAINT we’re talking about here!”).

Of course this also reminded me of the original advertisement for Windows 1.0 where Paint was one of the heralded features of the new platform (which of course wasn’t an operating system as of yet since it ran on top of DOS).

Now the real question to answer will be - what exactly is in Windows 7 and when is it slated to come out?

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Windows 7, Milestone 3, Microsoft Paint

Those of interested in knowing more about the next version of Windows (known so far as Windows 7) will be happy to hear that the Windows 7 Engineering Team now has a blog up on MSDN called “Engineering Windows 7″ or E7 for short. The blog will be hosted by two of Windows 7’s senior engineering managers - Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky.

While you won’t find any information about what new features will be found in Windows 7 as of yet, the first posting on the blog does mention two important upcoming dates - the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27th and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the following week. You can expect more detailed in-depth technical information regarding Windows 7 to be revealed at these events.

Finally, Steven and Jon had this to say:

“Starting from the first days of developing Windows 7, we have committed as a team to “promise and deliver”. That’s our goal—share with you what we’re going to get done, why we’re doing it, and deliver it with high quality and on time”

[Check it out via News.com]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows 7, Engineering Blog, MSDN

This is absolutely classic. Right when the torch lighting was taking place Friday night, a BSOD projection could be seen near the top of the roof. I totally missed this but then again, I think I fell asleep by the time the torch lighting was taking place (that was one long but beautiful ceremony!). In any event, I’m going to have to go back and sift through my HD recording to see if I could see it more clearly. Hilarious.. and classic. Now I wonder.. was this brought to you by Lenovo like everything else? HA! Thanks to Andrew for this one!

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: BSOD, Olympics

The wait is finally over for Windows XP Service Pack 3. SP3 is finally available either via Windows Update or via the Microsoft Download Center here. SP3 was originally delayed by Microsoft due to an incompatibility between the release and Microsoft Dynamic Retail Management software. However, Microsoft got around this by filtering out machines who utilizes the Dynamic Retail Management software.

[Check it out via PC World]

Technorati Tags: Windows XP Service Pack 3

Microsoft announced today that they have released a new test version of their upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 release. Called Windows Vista SP1 RC Refresh 2, the update was made available to approximately 15,000 beta testers. According to Microsoft, SP1 is still on track to be finalized this quarter although the company would not commit to releasing the update this quarter as it depends on whether the quality of the release is up to snuff. For those of you who could care less about Windows Vista, Microsoft is also actively testing Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. The company released Refresh 3 to their SP3 release candidate on Wednesday and expects to have that released sometime during the first half of this year - yet with the same caveats of Vista SP1. It’ll be ready when it’s ready…

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Vista, Service Pack 1 RC Refresh 2

As if you needed more reasons to continue running Windows XP over Windows Vista, the folks at Devil Mountain Software are reporting that the upcoming Windows XP Service Pack 3 is up to 10 percent faster than XP Service Pack 2 when executing the Microsoft Office Suite. XP Service Pack 3 is currently in release candidate testing and is scheduled for release next year.

According to this article over at PC World, Devil Mountain Software ran their OfficeBench suite of performance benchmarks on a laptop running Office 2007 on top of Windows XP SP3 and found up to a 10 percent speed increase when compared to the previous service pack release. These benchmarks also reveal that Windows XP SP3 is considerably faster than the upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 release. So far - no comment from Microsoft on the performance of XP SP3.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows XP, Service Pack 3, Devil Mountain Software

Apple is admitting that the inclusion of Boot Camp on Intel-based Mac systems may cause some developers to not develop applications for the Mac OS. Apple released this warning in a report to investors last week stating Boot Camp “may deter developers from creating software applications for Mac OS X if such applications are already available for the Windows platform.” Well.. my only thought to that was the same as the folks at CrunchGear - “NO DUH!!”.

In actuality, while this is certainly a threat, the real problem isn’t so much Boot Camp but applications like Parallels which allows Windows applications to run simultaneously under OS X. Boot Camp only allows you to choose one OS over the other while a program like Parallels will allow you to run Windows within a VM under OS X. Plus - thanks to Intel Virtualization technologies, you will get pretty darn good Windows application speeds out of Parallels. So .. why purchase say Office for Mac when you can run Office for Windows on a Mac OS X platform?

At the end of the day, I believe giving consumers the opportunity to run Windows applications actually will help spur the sales of Mac systems - primarily because consumers can opt to have the best of both worlds - something not quite possibly with a Windows only solution.

[Check it out via CrunchGear]

Technorati Tags: Apple, Boot Camp, Windows, Parallels

I’m sorry but this is absolutely scary if you ask me. I believe the picture is self explanatory here. No words can describe the horror…

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Windows Logo, Home