There are but scarce details pointing the direction in which Microsoft is taking the development of Windows 7, and the operating system, for that matter. Nevertheless, if Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is to be believed, Windows 7 is going to be less of a resource hog than its predecessor, although such a comparison can only be speculated upon and was not actually stated. On May 7, 2008, one day after the Redmond company dropped Windows XP SP3 via Windows Update and the Download Center, Gates was in Tokyo, Japan, at the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium and he mentioned the fact that there was a focus in making Windows 7 play well with less physical system memory.

"I'm very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don't have a lot of work to move that data back and forth," he commented.

At CES 2008, Gates refused to answer a question inquiring as to which software product he wished Microsoft had perfected more before releasing it on the market. At that time, the Microsoft co-founder only said that he would provide an answer after the next version of the Windows client becomes available. According to the latest details Gates unveiled, Microsoft will take Windows 7 where Windows Vista never managed to go, making it even greener, offering increased performance and even swallow less RAM. Of course, at the same time, the Windows 7 PC to Windows 7 PC bridging capabilities come courtesy of Live Mesh, Microsoft's recently released cloud synchronization platform.

"Obviously we'd all love it if people had more PCs per average, and so making that simple is important. Also the effort to upgrade, I think that's an area we got a lot of feedback in Vista, that we need to invest in that, and we're going to make that very, very simple for people. So Vista is doing well, and we're hard at work putting even more investment now in the version that comes after that," Gates added.