As of November 5, 2008 Microsoft has given the green light to debut of the development and testing processes of hardware products tailored to Windows 7. The next iteration of the Windows client was showcased as part of the Windows 7 “roadshow” at the Windows hardware engineering Conference in Los Angeles by Microsoft senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan. This comes after the past week, the Redmond giant offered software developers a taste of the operating system. And just as at PDC 2008, WinHEC 2008 participants received Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6801 Milestone 3 in order to start testing their existing hardware products on the client or develop new offerings.

“We’ve done a great deal of work in Windows 7 to enable new scenarios with our hardware partners, and we are excited by the partner innovation we have shown today,” commented DeVaan, senior vice president of the Windows Core Operating System Division at Microsoft. “Windows 7 presents tremendous opportunities for hardware developers. This innovation will enable our hardware partners to provide customers with even greater choice in rich computing experiences.”

As far as Windows 7 is concerned, the promise from Microsoft is that the operating system will continue to play nice with all the hardware products that have been designed for Windows Vista. In fact, the Redmond company repeatedly indicated that one of the goals with Windows 7 is to built on the work done for Vista and, in this context, perpetuate and evolve the current level of compatibility.

In this regard, Windows 7 will come with several enhancements compared to Vista. Device and Printers is just such an improvement. The feature allows Windows 7 users to manage all the devices connected to a Windows 7 machine from a centralized location. Complementing third-party devices is also Device Stage, a Windows 7 item which will allow end users to take advantage of the advanced features that come with their devices.

Microsoft also kicked the mobile broadband capabilities of Windows 7 up a notch, but noted that perhaps the enhancement with the most impact would be building Touch Computing functionality into the operating system.

“We’re helping protect partner investments in Windows Vista as we build Windows 7,” DeVaan added. “Our goal is to maintain very high compatibility with products designed for Windows Vista.”