Windows 7?
Microsoft Posted by Darren April 7th, 2008According to the BBC News site, Bill Gates got up this morning, went to the toilet and had a cup of coffee. He then had several brilliant world-changing ideas for which we should all be grateful and the BBC love him. Just an average day’s publicity for Microsoft from the Beeb. Then he said some words of wisdom about the next version of Windows… Windows 7. Bill said it could be released “sometime in the next year or so” although a spokeswoman (who is presumably more in tune with Microsoft’s success rate on delivery dates) later said the new version was scheduled for 2010.
Hang on a minute… Windows 7? Okay, we had Windows 3.0 and 3.1 - straightforward version numbering. Then we had ‘95, ‘98, 2000, XP and finally (eventually) Vista (or ‘Vaster’ as Pete Hampton calls it). If each of those is a new version, that means that Vista was version 8, and therefore the next version should be 9.
It’s possible that Microsoft regarded ‘98 as a sort-of half-release update to ‘95, but that still means the next version would be 8. How do they explain ‘7′?
April 7th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
NT = Windows 4
W2K = Windows 5
XP = Windows 5.1
Vista = Windows 6
April 7th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
@1 - okay, so two questions. Firstly, what about ‘95 and ‘98? Does this line of version numbers only apply to 32-bit products?
Secondly, XP was a point release of Windows 2000?
April 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
You’re missing Windows ME, ME, ME! too… My goodness, that was hell…
No, I can’t work out where Windows 7 comes from either. BTW, I get your sentiment regarding the BBC/M$ love-in. A disgusting use of our license fees…
April 7th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
@3 - I would be prepared to accept ME as a point release of ‘98.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Get a command prompt on your XP box and issue a ver command.
Mine says:
C:\>ver
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
That is, XP is version 5.1.
As for version 4 - Win95 had two internal version numbers, Windows 4 and DOS 7. Win98 and ME were probably also version 4 major releases with increments in the minor version numbers.
Windows NT itself started at version 3.1 and went to 3.5. NT 4 (with a Win95 like UI) was released somewhat after Win95.
Windows 2000 has an internal version number of 5.0 - see ver output from a W2K server here:
C:\>ver
Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
Server 2003 reports:
C:\>ver
Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
All of this would make Vista version 6 and Windows Next version 7.
Quite why they are reverting to the old numbering who knows, though maybe they won’t. They’ll probably give it another grandiose name and just keep 7 as the internal version number.
April 9th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Thanks for reminding me about this article, it stopped me in my tracks at the time too!
I share a lot of the sentiments regarding the beeb giving Gates and his hot air this airtime.
As to his waffle regarding the Windows “roadmap”, does anyone actually take it with any credibility anymore?