Windows

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

Windows XP SP3 was released in Apr. 2008 and will begin to be generally available offer the next several months. This service pack resets the product’s support baseline and reduce the number of updates that customers need to download or slipstream when deploying computers with these OSs.

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 along the lines of Windows Server 2003 R2 rather than a major release, such as Vista or Windows Server 2008. Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will be released approximately three years after Windows Vista, in Jan. 2010.

Windows Client OS

The most recent Windows client version is Windows Vista SP1, which was released in Feb. 2008. Microsoft announced it is on track to release the next version, code-named Windows 7, in early 2010. (See the illustration “Windows Client Overview“.)

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