Windows 7

by on October 14, 2008 · 6 comments

Slashdot linked to this post purporting to demonstrate that it’s ridiculous to consider the next version of Windows Windows 7. They offer several lists of past releases, all of which have at least 7 elements.

Obviously, the evolution of Windows has been sufficiently tortured that reasonable people can disagree about exactly how many generations there have been. In particular, the parallel development of the 3.1/95/98/ME and NT/2000 lines makes things unusually messy. But I think it’s entirely plausible to say that there have been the following 6 generations of Windows operating systems:

  1. Windows
  2. Windows 2
  3. Windows 3/3.1 (NT 3)
  4. Windows 95/98/ME (NT4)
  5. Windows XP (Windows 2000)
  6. Windows Vista

Windows 98/ME were clearly incremental upgrades of Windows 95. NT3, NT4, and Win2k were business/server operating systems that were released in parallel with the consumer products. It seems pretty reasonable to say that there have been 6 major releases of Windows, and that the one they’re working on now will be the seventh.

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About Tim Lee

Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

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  • MikeRT

    How much do you want to bet it will say “Windows NT 6.0 or 6.1″ when you run cmd.exe? ;)

  • http://www.cignusweb.com Jemima Holbert

    Very good post! I hope, windows will release its seventh OS very soon in future. Though the present operating systems working efficiently but the new generation want something new. No doubt, your blog throws light on the existing different and very useful Operating System. Really its a pretty blog.
    Cignus Web
    – a Data Entry India Company

  • ramster

    you forgot Microsoft Bob…that has to count as generation all on its own.

  • DOStradamus

    Here's the real geneology… I was there for it all.

    There are two different “code trunks”, a fact that might confuse some.
    “Windows 1″:
    Windows 1.0x
    Windows 2.0
    Windows 2.1
    Windows/386 2.1 (first true multitasking)
    Windows 2.11
    Windows/286 2.11
    Windows/386 2.11
    Windows 3.0
    Windows 3.1
    Windows for Workgroups 3.1
    Windows 3.11
    Windows for Workgroups 3.11
    Windows 95 (all Win 95 are Windows 4.00)
    Windows 95 OSR 1
    Windows 95 OSR 2 (FAT32 support)
    Windows 95 OSR 2.1 (USB support)
    Windows 95 OSR 2.5
    Windows 98 (all Win 95 are Windows 4.10)
    Windows 98 Second Edition
    Windows ME (Win ME is Windows 4.90)
    (end of “Windows 1″:-based versions)

    “Windows NT”
    NT 3.1
    NT 3.1 Advanced Server
    NT 3.5 (Workstation and Server)
    NT 3.51 (Workstation and Server)
    NT 4 (Workstation and Server)
    Windows 2000 (Workstation and Server) (NT 5.0)
    Windows XP (NT 5.1)
    Windows 2003 Server (NT 5.2)
    Windows 2003 Server R2
    Windows Vista (NT 6.0)
    Windows 2008 Server (NT 6.0a)

    According to Microsoft, “Windows 7″ will be released in 2010, along with Server 2008 R2. They say a few contradictory things about those two: 1. Windows 7 will be a major uprade of Vista, (2) 2008 Server R2 will be a minor upgrade to 2008, and, (3) What will run on one, will run on the other (like 2008 server and Vista do)

    6.1? 7.0? I'd rather ponder politics. It makes more sense!

    -NK

  • http://hobbywedkarstwo.blogspot.com/ Tom

    Windows it is probably the most popular operating system. In my opinion he is best Windows Vista since alone I am using it

  • http://starttags.com/tags/windows-nt-6.0 windows nt 6.0 – StartTags.com

    [...] CS 2000 6.0; … 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2 …Windows 7 Technology Liberation FrontObviously, the evolution of Windows has been sufficiently tortured that reasonable people … [...]

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