Don't Hold Your Breath for a New Windows 7 Kernel

Just in case you were holding your breath for a new Windows 7 kernel, you might as well exhale. Microsoft has infirmed speculations that the successor of Windows Vista would deliver a new kernel. Rather than revolutionary, the core of Windows 7 will be evolutionary building on the heart of Vista. One of the biggest arguments against the genuine nature of Windows 7 Milestone 1 leaked details was the fact that the release featured a kernel version similar to that of Vista. Microsoft now only provides a sneak peek at the direction it is heading with the

Windows 7 kernel, as well as pointing out what is the starting point. "Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista. While these changes will increase our engineering agility, they will not impact the user experience or reduce application or hardware compatibility," revealed Christopher Flores, Director Windows Communications. The confusion around a potential new kernel for Windows 7 was started by a presentation delivered by Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Eric Traut in 2007. Traut informed that Microsoft was building the MinWin kernel for Windows 7, looking to cut as much as possible the dependencies between the core and the rest of the operating system and to isolate carve the smallest standalone component of Windows. Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Technical Fellow explained later on that the Redmond company was not diverging from the Windows Vista kernel in a way that would irremediably affect the environment of hardware and software products designed for Windows, but that it was simply taking the core to its next stage in evolution.

Windows 7 Server Dog-Fooded in Redmond

Following the releases of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has moved onward to the next iterations of both its client and server operating systems. And just as Windows 7 is the successor of Vista, so Windows 7 Server is designed to be the next version of Windows Server, and to replace Windows Server 2008. The Redmond company is completely mute on Windows 7 but it did manage to point to 2010 for a potential general availability date, talk about the MinWin core. Not the same is valid about Windows 7 Server. Details on the next generation Windows Server platform are even scarcer than those for Windows 7, but the operating system is already dog-fooded over at Microsoft. On June 4h and 5, 2008, in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft is hosting the Windows Rally Technologies, an event where the company will demonstrate, among others, Windows 7 Server. The Windows Rally Partner Summit held in Building 20, Microsoft Main Campus, according to the official schedule which can be downloaded straight from Microsoft (via UX Evangelist). Microsoft failed to provide a great deal of details, and the participants are unlikely to share anything on the Windows 7 Server demonstration since all the partners are under a strict non-disclosure agreement. However, the main demo will focus on the Business Scanning feature of Windows 7 Server. However, one thing is clear at this point in time, along with Windows 7, Microsoft is also dog-fooding Windows 7 Server, while also serving the operating system to its closest partners. "This session will introduce participants to the Business Scanning feature which is planned for Windows 7 Server. An overview of the technology will be presented, including the required protocols, Active Directory, Security and Windows Server Manager integration. The scanning functional model, theory of operation and the usage scenarios will be discussed. A development requirements overview will be presented to IHVs to show how MFPs can interact with Business Scanning," Microsoft revealed.

The Roots of Windows 7 Are Buried Deep into Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system defining of how Microsoft will shape Windows 7. According to Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, the way to Windows 7 started from Windows Vista and went on to also integrate the evolution delivered with Windows Server 2008. In this context, Microsoft regards Vista as the foundation on which it built not only Windows Server 2008 but that would also be at the basis of Windows 7.

The intimate connection between Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 was made clear when new builds of the client and server platforms were released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, labeled as Service Pack 1. The Redmond company explained at that time that the code base for Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 SP1 is virtually the same. This synchronization strategy between server and client operating systems will continue as Microsoft moves forward with the releases of Windows 7 Server and Windows 7.But for the time being, Microsoft indicated that the architectural investments it introduced with Vista RTM, taking one step further with SP1 and Windows Server 2008, will again reach a new level of evolution with Windows 7. In terms of subsystems of the operating system including graphics, audio and storage, expect Microsoft to rather refine the Windows Vista experience than introduce something completely new. "Windows Vista established a very solid foundation, particularly on subsystems such as graphics, audio, and storage. Windows Server 2008 was built on that foundation and Windows 7 will be as well," explained Christopher Flores, Director Windows Communications. In this respect, consumers that failed to bite the bullet with Windows Vista, even after the RTM and upgrade from a previous version of the platform, are guaranteed a taste of the product with Windows 7.

Microsoft to Give a Taste of Windows 7 this Week

Despite speculation and forecasts that Microsoft was going to adopt a new strategy for Windows development as far as future releases go, with a strong focus placed on modularization, the company promised that Windows Vista would not be the last of its kind. Windows 7, the next monolithic iteration of the Windows client, is already available to Microsoft's closest partners for testing as a Milestone 1 release, with M2 up next. But, at the sam...

Microsoft Confirms Windows 7 for 2010 – No Word on Windows 7 M2

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 is right on track for release in 2010. Concomitantly with the leaked details associated with Windows 7 Milestone 1 dropped by the Redmond company to select partners in January 2008, a potential timetable for the availability of the successor of Windows Vista was also made public. According to the leaked information on the next iteration of the Windows platform, having just reached M1, the final version of Windows 7 was to be wrapped up the end of 2009.

Officially, the Redmond company has only been saying that Windows 7 development would take an estimated three-year timeframe. However, Microsoft always failed to specify the moment when the three-year timeframe started. The debut of Windows 7 development was indeed connected with the release of Windows Vista, but this aspect only contributed to the confusion because the latest Windows client was launched to businesses in November 2006 and to the general public in January 2007. So in this context, the finalization of Windows 7 could just as easily be aimed for the end of 2009, as well as 2010. Well, this is no longer the case. Microsoft explained that it would deliver Windows 7 three years after the consumers launch of Vista. "We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA. The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release," a Microsoft spokesperson revealed to Softpedia via email. Windows Vista Consumer GA means nothing more than the general availability of the operating system. In this regard, Microsoft has merely reconfirmed what it has in fact said since mid 2007, that Windows 7 is planned for 2010. Recently, the Redmond company has delivered a build of Windows 7 for review to the U.S. antitrust regulators. This was made public via the "Joint status report on Microsoft's compliance with the final judgments."I contacted Microsoft and asked whether the new version of Windows 7 was still M1 or if the company has reached Milestone 2 (M2). The leaked timetable for Windows 7 had M1 set to expire in May, and M2 to be delivered in April/May. Outside of the confirmation quoted above, Microsoft did not comment on Windows 7 M1, M2 or the potential antitrust issues that would be generated by the connecting of Windows 7 with Windows Live Wave 3. Update: correction - Windows 7 M1 is said to expire in May 2008, not March, with M2 expected in April/May.

Features

Windows 7 has reached the Milestone 1 (M1) stage and has been made available to key partners. According to reports sent to TG Daily, the build adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards and a new version of Windows Media Center. New features in Milestone 1 also reportedly include Gadgets being integrated into Windows Explorer, a Gadget for Windows Media Center, the ability to visually pin and unpin items from the Start Menu and Recycle Bin, improved media features, a new XPS Viewer, and the CalculatorProgrammer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion. accessory is multi-line featuring.

Reports indicate that a feedback tool included in Milestone 1 lists some coming features: the ability to store Internet Explorer settings on a Windows LivePaint and WordPad, and a 10 minute install process.^[21] In addition, improved network connection tools might be included.

A new feature in build 6574, Windows Health Center, allows the user to monitor all of their PC's health problems, and concerns in one place. It allows turning User Account Control on and off, and monitoring 3rd party anti-virus programs, firewalls, etc

Focus

Microsoft's Ben Fathi claimed on February 9, 2007 that the focus on the operating system was still being worked out, and could merely hint at some possibilities:

“

We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe it's hypervisors. I don't know what it is" [...] "Maybe it's a new user interface paradigm for consumers.

”

Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that the next version of Windows would "be more user-centric." When asked to clarify what he meant, Gates said:

“

That means that right now when you move from one PC to another, you've got to install apps on each one, do upgrades on each one. Moving information between them is very painful. We can use Live Services to know what you're interested in. So even if you drop by a [public] kiosk or somebody else's PC, we can bring down your home page, your files, your fonts, your favorites and those things. So that's kind of the user-centric thing that Live Services can enable. [Also,] in Vista, things got a lot better with [digital] ink and speech, but by the next release there will be a much bigger bet. Students won't need textbooks; they can just use these tablet devices. Parallel computing is pretty important for the next release. We'll make it so that a lot of the high-level graphics will be just built into the operating system. So we've got a pretty good outline.

”

Later Gates also said that Windows 7 will also focus on performance improvements:

“

We're hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I'm very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don't have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.

”

History

In about 2000 Microsoft started the planning to follow up Windows XP and its server counterpart Windows Server 2003 (both codenamed Whistler) with a major new release of Windows that was codenamed Blackcomb (both codenames refer to the Whistler-Blackcomb resort). This new version was at that time scheduled for a 2005 release.^{[citation needed]}

Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. In this context, a feature mentioned by Bill Gates for Blackcomb was "a pervasive typing line that will recognize the sentence that [the user is] typing in."

Later Blackcomb was delayed and an interim minor release, codenamed "Longhorn", was announced for a 2003 release. By the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb, including WinFS, the Desktop Window Manager, and new versions of system components built on the .NET Framework. After the 2003 "Summer of Worms", where three major viruses -- Blaster, Sobig, and Welchia -- exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period, Microsoft changed their development priorities, putting some of Longhorn's major development work on hold in order to develop new service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that included a number of new security and safety features. Development of Windows Vista was also "reset" in September 2004 as a result of concerns about the quality of code that was being introduced to the operating system. The eventual result of this was that WinFS, the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, and other features seen in Longhorn builds were deemed "not ready" for wide release, and as such did not appear in Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.

As major feature work on Windows Vista wound down in early 2006, Blackcomb was renamed Vienna. However, following the release of Windows Vista, it was confirmed by Microsoft on July 20, 2007 that "the internal name for the next version of the Windows Client OS" is Windows 7, a name that had been reported by some sources months before.

Windows 7

Windows 7 formerly known as Blackcomb and Vienna) is the working name for the next major version of Microsoft Windows as the successor of Windows Vista. Microsoft has announced that it is "scoping Windows 7 development to a three-year timeframe", and that "the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar." Windows 7 is expected to be released sometime in 2010. The client versions of Windows 7 will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. A server variant, codenamed Windows Server 7, is also under development.

Microsoft is maintaining a policy of silence concerning discussion of plans and aspirations for Windows 7 as they focus on the release and marketing of Windows Vista, stating that Microsoft does not want to promise features and then fail to deliver, as happened with Windows Vista Ultimate, though some early details of various core operating system features have emerged. As a result, little is known about the feature set, though public presentations from company officials have disseminated information about some features. Leaked information from people to whom Milestone 1 (M1) of Windows 7 was shipped also provides some insight into the feature set.