Windows 7 to be Previewed in October?

By Greg McNevin

August 19, 2008: With Vista still languishing in the wild, many are looking forward to Microsoft’s next major operating system, Windows 7, in the hope that it will deliver the leap forward Vista was supposed to.

Just what Microsoft has in store is not currently known, but with an estimated eighteen months until release and two major conferences on the horizon Microsoft could have some tasty tidbits ready to roll.

The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) will both see Microsoft show off its new hope in Los Angeles during October, with either a technical build of a beta version of the new OS expected to be shown.

So far support for touchscreen technology has been confirmed, while XML-based ribbon interfaces and virtualisation support are expected.

Of course features such as vitrualisation were touted during Vista’s “longhorn” development stage, but hopefully Microsoft will be able to walk the talk this time around. Either way, late October should see some of the cautious hope around Windows 7 crystallise into something more tangible.

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