Oct 31, 2008
confirmed the new OS would be "Windows 7". People were asking "Why 7?"
If you are good at mathmatics you MAY follow this:
Windows 1 & 2
were (in effect) early betas of Windows 3 and got very little use.
Version 3.1 was the first popular OS and was the start of the Bill
Gates monopoly on the computer world.
Version 4 (also referred
to as "9x") was Windows 95. Then came the "minor upgrades" - v4.1 was
Windows 98 and v4.9 was Windows Millenium Edition (ME).
Version 5 was Windows 2000
OK so far? That was the easy bit!
Next
came Microsoft's biggest step forward in usability: Win XP - and still
the most-used version of Windows by a wide margin. But according to M$,
that was just "a minor upgrade". XP was designated version 5.1
Version 6 was Vista, making the next release Version 7 - "or Windows 7"
So
where is the confusion? Nash noted that although the next Windows will
be called "7" and is considered by M$ to be the seventh version of the
operating system, its code will actually be marked as Windows 6.1 -
which is what you will see in the actual version of the product when
you run cmd.exe.
M$ have put themselves in a corner: while Nash
is calling Windows 7 both a "significant" and "evolutionary"
advancement, M$ CEO Steve Ballmer declared that Windows 7 is "Windows
Vista with cleanup in user interface and improvements in performance."
So
now we know: the Windows 7 name is mostly about marketing - and the
release is simply a minor upgrade on Vista - disguised as a major
release.
But why the deception? Easy! M$ find it necessary to
create distance from the sour taste Vista has left in the mouths of
consumers and enterprises - but the small print (v6.1) allows M$ to
quietly reassure developers nervous from the earlier Vista application
and device-driver compatibility headaches which are now mostly
resolved.
Conclusion? I cannot see any reason to get excited
about the Windows 7 release - which would be far more accurately called
"Vista SP3" (Note: SP2 in now in private Beta)