While I agree in principle about line 1 I still hold to line 2.

How we get there is not really the point (although that is what got me on this thread). The truth is Vista is ver 6.0 and “7″ is Ver 6.1. When ver 7.0 does come out what will they call it? Or will they have to skip ver 7.0 all together? That seems very unlikely. Whaterver they do, even the eternal opimist in me sees trouble.

If you are concerned about the timeline, there are many good posts in this thread, but Windows 7 is down the NT line of OSes. Remember back in 90’s there were two groups of developers developing the 95 branch and NT branches seperately, the 95 branch died with ME and has no connection to current version numbering. Up till that point all NT versions used the version name as the moniker. Windows 2000 (ver 5.0) was the first NT version to break that tradition as it attempted to tie off the loose end of the windows 95 branch. If you dont remember well, before 2000 it was anyones guess which line would win. NT4 was more secure, but Windows 98SE was far better to work with. (However the windows 95 branch tried to live on and put out one final version ME which doomed the branch to history).

The comment that Windows 7 is the seventh iteration of Windows is the cause of much of the misunderstanding of this thread, Mike Nash should ask that that comment be stricken from the record as it is in no way true any way you fudge the numbering so to speak. Case in point, many people are putting windows 95, windows 98, and windows ME in the same group. While they may be on the same version number, I would hazzard that anyone who used them would say that from beggining to end they are less different than windows 2000 was to NT4. even the differences between Windows 95 and Windows 98SE were astounding (I wouldn’t be surprised if Vista and Windows 7 aren’t any more different). Anyone clumping them in as a single iteration really wasnt there or is lucky enough to forget the good old days As much as Apple might like us to remember those blue screens which I almost never see anymore.

I am saying NT is not a microkernel because it runs a lot of things in the kernel space. The GUI and all device drivers all run in the kernel space (the GUI has been there since Windows NT 4.0 though).

I would call it a “centikernel” or a “decikernel” so to speak. But definitely not a microkernel or even a “millikernel”

I mean if that was the case, Windows PE 2.0 wouldn’t need 256MB of RAM (The soft RAM drive used to hold the Windows files while the system is running only takes up 40MB!)

That is why you get a BSOD every time a driver does something peculiar.

Bravo Microsoft! Take a concept from the 1980’s and try and apply it to today’s world. Isn’t going to work. Hint to them: make the OS smaller (should take up no more than 100MB) and fix all the known bugs and security vulnerabilities and see what happens. This is why people switch to Linux.

Oh and get rid of that rotten Internet Exploder from the OS as well. Windows doesn’t need it.

QNX Neutrino RTOS is quite immune to crashes from exploding device drivers and other programs because of its pure microkernel design. And performance isn’t an issue with a microkernel either. After all, it is a RTOS.

Then it would make more sense. “Windows Vista” doesn’t sound like it is a major upgrade compared to “Windows XP” (and believe me, it is)

Rather one can say “I will upgrade my old Windows NT 5.1 to Windows NT 6.1 and see what happens”

Oh and could it also be that 7 is a “heavenly number”? I don’t know where I got that idea from but it is stuck in my head.

Microsoft had three OS lines. MS-DOS (MS-DOS - Windows 98 SE), Windows NT (NT3.0 - NT6) and Windows CE (CE - Mobile)

Windows 7 will not be a MS-DOS OS line. It is the NT OS line. So dont count the MS-DOS (Windows 9x series) with it.

MS-DOS had 1.0 - 8.0 versions. Last 8.0 version became on 2000 when MS stopped it’s development. The 6.0 and 6.22 are the last MS-DOS OS’s what are standalone and supported from Microsoft.

Windows NT 3.0 was the first NT OS.
And you should understand that the NT is the OS, not the kernel. Windows NT OS use Microkernel, but the NT is so called “Hybrid kernel” what is just a marketing for OS. Monolith kernel is OS where the microkernel is not because the OS is braked to parts for kernel space and user space. Windows NT is OS what is on both address-space like OS what use Microkernel, while the Monolith kernel includes all the OS servers alone in single address-space. http://www.usenix.org/publications/login/2006-04/openpdfs/herder.pdf

Windows 7 should be the first software system what use Windows NT 7, but the Windows 7 does not proof that! The question is not about does the Windows 7 name come from NT7 or NT6.1. The Windows 7 name is just like Vista and XP, even that XP was NT5.1 and Vista 6.0.

The Microsoft decided to use Windows 7 code name as the final product name, because there has already be a lots of good PR for it. People is skipping the Vista and waiting the “mysterious Windows 7″. Even that would be the same. But Windows 7 will use the OS what is redesigned, a MinWin. Windows 7 is the software system what use MinWin OS, what is the NT6.1 or NT7, what ever they want it to be as final.

Windows Vista IS the NT6.0 and it is still called as Windows Vista, not Windows 6. The Windows 7 name does not say anything about the version of the OS under the graphical desktop. It is just a simple marketing. Not somekind “magic tip”.