Even with Microsoft increasingly opening up on Windows Vista's successor, the hunger for Windows 7 details is far from being satiated. This because the Redmond giant, through Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, continues to be firmly in control of all the information made public. Sill the Windows 7 feast could not be without its crumbs, and the latest example points to Microsoft gearing up for Windows 7 downloads, namely updates for the next iteration of the Windows client, via WSUS, but not only.

According to the screenshot included toward the bottom of this article (courtesy of Yannis), the Windows 7 Client has been added among the products on the list for the Windows Server Update Services. "You can specify the products for which you want to synchronize updates," reads the message at the top of the dialog box, while a note at the bottom says "all products, including products that are added in the future." In addition to Windows 7 Client WSUS has also been tailored to serve the Windows Internet Explorer 8 Dynamic Installer. However, as you can see, there is no mention of Windows Server 2008 R2, developed under the codename Windows 7 Server.

Microsoft is not serving updates for Windows 7 yet, and in this regard there are no items that can be synchronized. Still, the next version of Windows is featured on the WSUS list all the same. "Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP1 (WSUS 3.0 SP1) enables information technology administrators to deploy the latest Microsoft product updates to computers running Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2, and Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 operating systems. By using WSUS, administrators can fully manage the distribution of updates that are released through Microsoft Update to computers in their network," reads Microsoft's description of WSUS 3.0 SP1 released in March 2008.

The introduction of Windows 7 among the products on the list of operating systems supported by WSUS means nothing for now. Still, it does reveal Microsoft's intentions to start delivering updates for Vista's successor even as the platform will be in development, therefore the use of the Windows 7 codename. But in the end, integrating Windows 7 with WSUS is not the sole update-focused initiative from Microsoft. The Windows Serviceability (WinSE) and Windows Update (WU) teams are hard at work on the next generation of the updating infrastructure servicing the Windows platform.

"The WU Tools team is in the very beginning stages of development on a new End-to-End automation and tools suite that will completely change the way the WU team and its customers publish content," a member of the Windows Update Tools teams revealed.