Windows 7 To Be Called ... Windows 7

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Mike Nash came forward today in a blog post on the Windows Vista Blog and revealed the official name for Windows Code Name '7' as simply 'Windows 7.' The reasoning, by Mr. Nash, is that Windows 7 is 'the seventh release of Windows.' As much wonderful sense as this makes on first glance, it seems as if Microsoft's marketing teams pulled this number out of thin air: the Windows 7 kernel is version 6.1, and there's no way Windows 7 adds up as the seventh release of Windows anyway."

Comments

What happened to Windows 6?

[Rogerborg]

Did it elope with DirectX 4?

Question to Mr Nash: exactly what's wrong with the Windows 5.x kernel? (2K / 2K3 / XP / Vista)? Really, I'm still pretty happy with my 2K Pro install. What's wrong with me, Mr Nash?

Re:check the count.

[apathy maybe]

Know what? The fucking number doesn't matter at all.

It isn't just Microsoft that makes up version numbers to fit marketing "needs". But they have certainly done it. Look at the above list.

"4.) July 1993 Windows NT 3.1 NT 3.1" - Actually the first Windows in the NT line. Whoops.

The Netscape browser skipped version 5 to catch up with MSIE.

And I can't think of any others just now, but the point remains, it's just a marketing gimmick and doesn't matter shit.

Anyone (including "geeks") who gets upset by it needs to have a look around. There are far more important things to get upset about (war, hunger starvation, capitalism, the state, the lack of anarchy, etc.). Of course, if you are just laughing, then go ahead. I'll be sitting here wondering why.

Re:Lets count:

[TheRaven64]

XP was NT 5.1, with the 64-bit version being NT 5.2. Windows Vista is NT 6.0. Windows 7 is going to be NT 6.1, hence the confusion.

Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This?

[electrictroy]

Yes but they were not part of the current family. That "line" of programs has come to a halt:

Family 1 (MS-DOS based shells)
Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
DEAD (no longer updated by Microsoft)

Family 2:
IBM/microsoft OS/2 1.0 (joint venture)
IBM/microsoft OS/2 2.0 (joint)
IBM/microsoft OS/2 3.0 (never-released prototype)
Windows NT 3.1 (the program that resulted after microsoft split from IBM)
Windows NT 4.0 (1996)
Windows NT 5.0 (Windows 2000)
Windows NT 5.1 (XP in 2001)
Windows NT 6.0 (Vista in 2006)
Windows NT 7.0 (Windows 7)

I hope that clears things up, and it makes sense when viewed in that manner. Windows 7 is a logical progression of the NT family over the last ~25 years.