Windows 7 Milestone 2 is the next stage in the evolution of Windows Vista's successor. Having delivered the first taste of the next iteration of Windows to its closest partners in December 2007, under the Milestone 1, Microsoft's focus has shifted to the subsequent development milestone. According to initial reports, the Redmond company was supposed to deliver Windows 7 M2 before M1 was set to expire in June 2008. However, with Microsoft completely mute on the matter, Windows 7 under a closed lid, and with all leaks apparently taken care of, there has been no word of Milestone 2 at all. This until downloads starting popping up on torrent websites claiming to be the successor of M1.

Earlier this year, the same happened with Windows 7 Milestone 1. M1 Build 6519 was apparently leaked and made available over peer-to-peer networks. However, the initial Windows 7 M1 builds offered for download were nothing more than fake zero-byte ISO images, and failed to contain a single line of code of the actual operating system. And, just as the first Windows 7 M1 variants hitting torrent websites proved to be fake, so are the more recent M2 builds.

In fact, Windows 7 M2 is nothing more than an artificially customized image of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, masquerading as the next version of Windows. Even more, there has been no official confirmation of Windows 7 Milestone 2 from Microsoft or from other sources. In this context, M2 is as good as inexistent.

Still, the real Windows 7 M1 build offered by Microsoft back in December 2007 did manage to find its way to torrent websites. But the bits were offered after the development milestone of the operating system expired and thus required a BIOS tweak, modifying the date, in order for users to be able to play with Windows 7 M1. That was because, otherwise, M1 would have simply entered directly into Reduced Functionality Mode, and have become virtually useless. But, make no mistake about it, Microsoft did move onward with the development of Windows 7, as confirmed by the U.S. antitrust regulators who got to test a more recent release of the operating system.