Windows 7 is "version 6.1.7000" but for a reason

When you go to the traditional DOS console, using the command "cmd", and type the command "ver" at the prompt, you find out that Windows 7 is actually "version 6.1.700" and the main reason being compatibility issues. In other words, if you want to run in Windows 7 a program, which is compatible with Vista (i.e. Windows 6.0 version) it may not run. Some applications did not run in Vista simply because they were designed for Windows 5.x and perhaps other reasons. However, as Mike Nash explains in his excellent blog, there's been some fodder about whether using 6.1 in the code is an indicator of the relevance of Windows 7. It is not. Windows 7 is a significant and evolutionary advancement of the client operating system. It is in every way a major effort in design, engineering and innovation.

Windows 7 running in an old computer

For lack of available equipment I installed this Windows 7 Beta in an old Dell PowerEdge 700 server (year 2004), which if not for a lack of good video features has everything it takes to run this new OS. Here are the basic specs:

• Processor: Single Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.80 GHz


• Chipset: Intel E7210. Support for dual channel memory


• Front Side Bus: 800MHz


• Memory (RAM): 1.5 GB


• Video: Embedded ATI Rage XL with 8MB memory [Microsoft recommends a video card that supports DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB memory]
  


• Networking: Single embedded Intel Gigabit NIC, Intel PRO/100S; Intel PRO/1000 MT

The downside of not having the appropriate video card is manifold: you cannot use and appreciate the Windows Aero visual effects including transparency and Windows Flip 3D; in addition, hardware acceleration is not supported and a DirectX device cannot be created to open certain applications, which means basically you can not play games. However, watching (Internet) videos is possible. I will probably install a new video card in this computer, while I get a new laptop...

You are seeing my Windows 7 desktop

Finally I got my hands on the Windows 7 Beta version, Build 7000! This is a partial view of my desktop with some gadgets in full size, which now can be positioned anywhere on the desktop separately. The sidebar, the one you could open with WinKey + Space Key, is not exactly gone. What happens now in Windows 7 is that it has been renamed to "Gadgets" than can be reached by right-clicking on the desktop. Internally, the program continues to be called "sidebar.exe" and you can verify that by opening the Taskbar and looking in the "Processes" tab. The curious thing is that if you end that process, then ALL of the gadgets will close at once. Then, when you call back the gadgets ALL of them will open up at once where they were left off.

Windows 7: ushering in the convergence of new media

From what I've seen of Windows 7 so far I can draw some conclusions (some obvious and some not so obvious): • First of all, for those unsuspecting users, Windows 7 is a revamped, improved, slimmed down, beautified (as if it was necessary) Windows Vista • Windows 7 is the OS that will shut up Linux and Mac zealots, simply because it has the best of those worlds plus the already mature Vista technology; whatever you found 'cool' there, you will find it here, and then some. However, don't get me wrong, I will continue to follow and appreciate all the improvements (and innovations) you may find in Linux and Mac systems. • Windows 7 is the convergence of new media into one operating system, this time consolidated, refined and ready for the masses, namely, Internet TV, Windows Media Center with Touch, and easier Home Networking, among many others. We're living in interesting times, believe or not and, as keynote speaker Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, put it at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), when he introduced Windows 7 Beta, "despite the economy, I hope you all agree with me, that our industry has an incredible, incredible opportunity ahead of us. I'm certainly incredibly excited to be a part of this industry." These trying times are the breeding ground for innovation and new developments. Let's embrace the challenges! See what's new in Windows 7.

Will 2009 be the year of Windows 7?

Making a quit recap, Windows Vista was released back in January 2007 and spent a troublesome year mostly because of hardware and software compatibility issues. Not because of the operating system capabilities. Then, in 2008, Service Pack 1 (SP1) came along and Vista started to show its real strength and beauty, but the damage to the image of the product was already done. However, Vista overcame successfully a nasty and biased smear campaign by the media and the competitors (read, Mac and Linux). Back to the present, 2009, and you have a big and strong multitude of followers everywhere. No doubt this will be the year of Windows Vista. But looming on the horizon is Windows 7, now getting closer and closer to the launch pad and it is just fair to ask if 2009 will be the year of Windows 7, as well. I like what Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, the PC Doctor, says of Windows 7, when he compares it to XP and Vista: if you’re looking for a solid OS then Windows 7 seems ready to deliver just that - a fast, reliable, relatively easy to use platform for your hardware and software.

You are seeing the "new" Windows 7 desktop

However, this is, in essence, an enhanced Windows Vista desktop with some new functionality in the taskbar, Start menu and other elements. Some previous skeptics of Vista even like it (!), the whole OS. Let me say this: Windows 7 may be "the Mojave experiment II" for a discriminating audience, and it seems to be working. Not bad for a pre-Beta release! Watch the session of PDC 2008 where the new desktop was presented.

Vista brand is alive. The New York Times was perhaps wrong

Some time back on late October 2008, the NYT claimed, in an article reviewing the pre-release of Windows 7, that Microsot "unceremoniously [dropped] the brand name Vista for the new product" only to add in the second paragraph that "the new version will instead be branded Windows 7..." All right, let's see. First of all, is debatable to say that Microsoft "ended" the Vista brand, when it is alive and kicking and will continue to be around for some years to come (look, for instance, at Windows XP). Brands are not dropped, they evolve. Vista is just a step in the Windows saga and a new OS architecture on which the future versions of Windows will most likely be based. So I would have to disagree with the NYT. Secondly, the new version will not "instead" be branded Windows 7, rather the new version is the next logical and consecutive version of this OS. Check the chart above. It shows the MAJOR Windows versions, and milestones. Note that XP does not appear, since it is simply an enhancement to 2000 and as such it was marked as version 5.1.2600. Now, whether Windows 7 is just an update of Vista is just another issue.

So Windows 7 is coming in 2009?

It's a fact. It's here. The next incarnation of the Windows Operating Systems saga will come to a PC close to (developers perhaps just like) you reportedly in early 2009, in a pre-release, Beta, version. That is, earlier than expected. The news was officially announced in the mother of all developer's gatherings, the Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles back in November 2008, where eager developers got a copy of a pre-Beta version. But guess what? Windows 7 share the same advanced architecture of Windows Vista. So, if you are flabbergasted by how cool the newer OS is, well, that's why I love Windows Vista...!

How to stay behind in IT: keep using Windows XP

And wait till Windows 7 comes out probably in early 2010 and expect an easy transition from XP and skip Vista altogether as advised by the "experts", and... right? Wrong! If you are to follow the "advise" of some so called experts who claim to have the best answers when it comes to the best choices for your IT environment then you certainly will continue to use Windows XP for a while. Yet, you will be missing the big picture: the three biggest milestones in the history of Windows OS have been Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Windows Vista. So, skipping Vista and waiting for Windows 7 is tantamount to going from Windows 98 to Windows XP. "Completely ignoring Vista is a shortsighted decision that may cause both usability and security troubles not too far down the line", says Sara Peters, senior editor at the Computer Security Institute. Windows 7 is simply an update of Vista, which is the foundation of the future of computing, at least from the Microsoft viewpoint.

While some still wander around the past, Windows 7 is in the making

Yes, it's the successor of Windows Vista, to be released in 2010, based on the Vista and Windows Server 2008 engine. [By the way, I'm also running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition]. If you remember, Windows 3.1 came out in 1992 and then Windows 95 (Windows 4.0) and if I'm not mistaking, 2000 and XP were Windows 5.0. Windows Vista is Version 6.0.6001 (the one running in the PC I use to write this blog), says the DOS console after executing the "ver" command. Looking forward. (This post was just a side note in my personal endeavor of promoting Windows Vista).