Windows says Vista's out next year.

Even though Windows Vista's features will most likely be done in December of this year, Microsoft till plans on releasing the Final Version in the second half of 2006. Microsoft's planning on releasing the next wave of test version before Christmas.

Amitabh Srivastava, Microsoft's corporate VP for operating system development, said, "we're still on track for general availability in the second half of calendar year 2006,". He added "we are accelerating development to get most features done by the end of December and all features integrated early next year."

This is part of Microsoft's new series of "community technology preview" releases that they've been delivering between beta releases to gather more feedback from customers. From their initial beta release in July, they've added two community technology previews with it. Windows XP, Microsoft's current desktop PC operating system, arrived back in 2001.

"Beta 2 is still an important milestone for broad customer testing, but it's less urgent because of the engineering and CTP releases," added Srivastava.

Microsoft's reasoning of releasing a steady stream of Vista test versions between betas is that it will help get a version of the product with full features in the customers' hands sooner. Srivastava said Microsoft has switched its development schedule to one that's based on quality milestones rather than dates, but it won't have an effect on the product's roadmap.

"Our customers will have a feature-complete Windows Vista in their hands sooner than any other Windows release," he added.