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 Vista SP1 was released in Feb. 2008 and will be generally available by Apr. 2008. Windows Server 2008 (formerly code-named Longhorn) was released and generally available in Feb. 2008. Windows Server 2008 is designated “SP1” because Microsoft synchronized the server code base with code from Vista SP1.

Windows XP SP2 will receive a service pack in the first half of 2008 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.

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.

Windows Client OS

The most recent Windows client release is Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), which was released in Feb. 2008. Microsoft appears on track to release the next version, code-named Windows 7, in 2010. (See the illustration “Windows Client Overview“.)

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