Windows Successor Requires Additional Research

Groups within Microsoft are researching new OS technology, such as Singularity and Midori, designed to overcome the limitations of the current generation of software and to exploit changes in hardware, networking, and how people use computers. Although some of this OS research will find its way into future versions of Windows, a completely new Microsoft OS to replace Windows is likely a long way off. Meantime, Microsoft will continue to make incremental improvements to Windows by exploring smaller builds such as MinWin and Server Core.

New OS Research

While the Windows team works to release service packs, critical security updates, out-of-band features, and new versions of the Windows client and server OSs, other groups in Microsoft continue to explore the longer-term future of the OS. Microsoft Research is working on Singularity, a new OS concept emphasizing high reliability, and another group is attempting to use the Singularity base to build a fully functional OS, code-named Midori.