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History Behind Windows 7: Microsoft’s New OS

The story behind the development of the upcoming Microsoft Windows 7 is quite fascinating. In 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. 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 Microsoft co-founder 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 its 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. Development of Longhorn was also “reset” in September 2004. Naming 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” was Windows 7, a name that had been reported by some sources months before. On October 13th, 2008, it was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system. Mike Nesh, Microsoft’s vice-president of Windows product management said: “     The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity. Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore Windows 7 just makes sense.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. (Source: Wikipedia)