Microsoft is up to its marketing tricks again. Vista, whether it deserves it or not, has such a bad reputation that what is in effect Vista Service Pack 2 will be released instead as Windows 7.

Vista was always going to be a tough transition as it incorporated a plethora of changes, many security relate, that entailed  a fairly extensive overhaul of that very important bit if code called the kernel.  These changes Microsoft had to make as the security landscape had change so much since the Windows XP kernel had been released that the security world was positively clamouring for the changes to be made because Windows was becoming more at risk.

The kernel is the holy grail in an Operating System upon which everything else attaches itself so kernel changes are big news. Vista incorporated so many of them that compatibility problems were always going to be on the cards. Currently, now that application developers and hardware manufacturers have reworked their programs and driver software, Vista is very useable but give a dog a bad name.......

Windows 7 does not introduce the kernel changes that Vista did but builds upon the Vista work by refining the user interface and generally tweaking the operating system. Windows 7 is, as one pundit put it, "Vista done right".  The good news is that User Account Control, that mechanism by which Microsoft chose to annoy its entire user base by asking questions like " Are you sure you want to do this?" followed by "are you really, really sure? and then "Did you understand the original question?"  (or at least that's what it seemed like) will now be configurable so that you do not get asked as many questions as before. (To be honest I switched it off in Vista as it was just tooooo annoying!)

It will also be with us quite soon apparently. Microsoft insiders are looking at a release sometime in Q4 2009 though it was originally intended for 2010 , which makes it in time for Christmas next year.
 
Expect the Linux fraternity to release something close by that date to compete.

Interestingly, some of the apps that are shipped with Windows will not be with Windows 7. MS Mail, for instance, is not shipped with the release but available as a download from Microsoft Live. Shades of the "cloud computing" mentality creeping in?

Perhaps, more likely it is a mix of wanting to get the OS shipped on time and anti-competition legislation.