Windows 7 Arriving Early, Microsoft to Show Off New OS on October 28
As the rumors predicted, Microsoft is indeed planning to debut Windows 7 ahead of schedule. The company will take the wraps off Windows 7 on October 28, when Senior Vice President of Windows Steven Sinofsky will show off the next-generation OS during a keynote at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
Developers attending the conference will go home with a pre-beta copy of Windows 7, which means you can expect to find the OS burning up a torrent tracker near you about ten minutes later.
As for what you can expect, look for evolutionary, not revolutionary changes. Leaked screenshots posted earlier this month showed an interface that looks much like Vista, and official previews from the Windows 7 blog confirm those suspicions.
Windows 7 will be based on the same kernel that’s in Vista, though Microsoft has promised the usual “enhancements” as well as possible speed bumps. While the OS may not have too much to offer in the way of exciting new features, there is one upside — Windows 7 probably won’t require you to pony up for new hardware.
The recycled kernel also means your external devices should remain compatible (provided, of course, Vista drivers are already there).
So far we really know more about what won’t be in Vista’s successor than what will. For instance Microsoft has already said that that many of its baked-in software offerings — Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker — won’t be part of Windows 7. Instead, the company plans to push the Windows Live equivalents as downloadable add-ons.
If you’re dying to know what the Windows 7 desktop looks like, Microsoft’s corporate blog has some previews in a post that covers what Starting, Launching and Switching will look like in the new system (hint: a lot like Vista).
While we’ll have to wait until Sinofsky shows it in action next month, at least for now, our suspicion is that Microsoft is following the lead of Apple and many Linux distros, which have also shifted focus lately from new features to making sure that existing features “just work.” While it may not make for tons of excitement, it just might make for a better operating system.
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