Windows 7 Gets Named: "Windows 7"

Since the codename for the next release of Windows was announced, many of us have wondered what the actual name would be. Well, it turns out that the codename for the next version of Windows, Windows 7, is going to be the actual name for the product. And in what is somewhat of a passing of the torch, the announcement was made not on the Windows 7 blog, but on the Windows Vista blog.

In a few weeks we are going to be talking about the details of this release at the PDC and at WinHEC. We will be sharing a pre-beta "developer only release" with attendees of both shows and giving them the first broad in-depth look at what we've been up to. I can't wait for them to see it. And, as you probably know, since we began development of the next version of the Windows client operating system we have been referring to it by a codename, "Windows 7." But now is a good time to announce that we've decided to officially call the next version of Windows, "Windows 7."

As Mike Nash, Corporate VP, Windows Product Managemet, said in the post, this is the first time he can recall a codename being used for a Windows release. So, why a number? Well, according to the post, this is the seventh Windows release, and they didn't want to use another "aspirational" name like Windows XP or Windows Vista (or they didn't want to try as hard to come up with one, your choice). So how did they come up with this as the seventh release? Well, if you assume they plug Windows 95 and Windows 98, and things like Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11 into the same "version category," and they exclude server versions, you could come up with:

1. Windows 3.1
2. Windows 9x
3. Windows NT
4. Windows 2000
5. Windows XP
6. Windows Vista
7. Windows 7

Or if you just use members of the NT family, you could come up with:

1. Windows NT 3.1
2. Windows NT 3.5
3. Windows NT 4.0
4. Windows 2000
5. Windows XP
6. Windows Vista
7. Windows 7

Or you could just say, "who cares?" and leave it at that. BTW, there wasn't any additional info in the post besides the name; we'll just have to wait for PDC and WinHEC for more.