Windows

Windows Vista, a major upgrade of the Windows client OS, has been generally available for businesses since its release in Dec. 2006. The next release of the Windows Server OS, Windows Server 2008 (formerly code-named Longhorn) is due to be generally available in late 2007 or early 2008.

In general, Microsoft hopes to release Windows versions more regularly than in the past by reducing the kinds of dependencies among major projects that delayed Windows Vista and SQL Server 2005. For this reason, it appears that the next version of the Windows client, Windows 7 (product name to be announced later), will be a minor release like Windows Server 2003 R2 rather than a major release like Vista or Windows Server 2008.

Both Windows clients, Vista and XP SP2, will receive a service pack that will reset the product’s support baseline and reduce the number of updates that customers need to download or slipstream when deploying computers with these OSs.

Windows Client OS

The most recent Windows client release is Windows Vista, which will get its first service pack in early 2008, followed by the release of the next version, Windows 7 in 2010. (See the illustration “Windows Client Overview“.)