Windows 7: the story so far

Microsoft has started to let slip some information about its new operating system, Windows 7, in a blog.

The company has announced that official details will be available in October.

To keep the public informed before then, though, Microsoft has created the Engineering Windows 7 blog – E7 for short.

In the blog, Microsoft makes it clear that it wants constant feedback about the new software, possibly to make sure it doesn't make the mistakes it did with Vista.

"We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion about how we balance all of these interests and deliver software on the scale of Windows. We promise and will deliver such a dialog with this blog," states the Steven Sinofsky and John DeVaan, the senior engineering managers that are maintaining the blog.

Comment is free

Even though the blog only contains one post so far, there are over 100 comments about what the new Windows system will offer and what it's rumoured to contain.

These include:

1. A Windows Live version of Movie Maker (something Bill Gates has already mentioned).
2. A Windows better designed for notebooks with limited resources (to echo changes in the laptop marketplace).
3. More customisation of the user interface (Vista's lack of customisation frustrates users).
4. Less dependence on registering software.
5. Speech recognition (which Vista has) to work with Bluetooth headsets.
6. Have one version of Windows 7, unlike Vista which has loads!
7. Have a search field as part of the taskbar.
8. Integrate Touch API into the user interface.
9. Leave all built-in software out and let us users decide whether they want them to install or not.
10. Speed, speed, speed. Users want a system that is more responsive than Vista and one that never slows down.

These are just 10 of the many things that readers of the blog want from Windows 7. We should find out in October whether the programmers take any of these suggestions on board, when more details are spilt at The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on 27 October and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) a week later.