Microsoft is making headway with the building process of Windows 7, the next iteration of the Windows client, and is gearing up to release a development milestone of the operating system at the end of next month. Microsoft's professional Developers Conference in Las Vegas, between October 27-30, 2008 will be synonymous with the broadening of the Windows 7 testing program past the limited testing pool of the company's close partners that was given access to early builds including Milestone 1, Milestone 2 and Milestone 3. The Redmond giant will in fact offer a pre-Beta build of Windows 7 to all PDC2008 participants. 

"We're (...) giving every attendee a pre-beta copy of Windows 7. Yes, you heard that right. You'll be able to install your own copy of Windows 7 and play with it on your hardware. This is a very limited release, and PDC2008 attendees will be the first to get it. Gotta love the PDC," revealed Mike Swanson, Microsoft technical evangelist.

In just one month Microsoft plans to deliver the first consistent taste of Windows 7. The company demonstrated the operating system's touch computing capabilities earlier this year, but otherwise detailed in no way M1, M2 or even M3. Screenshots, videos and a tad of information on the recently dropped Windows 7 Milestone 3 Build 6780 were made available from third party sources, but Microsoft continued to be mute on the matter. At PDC2008 Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, will be the one to introduce Windows 7 to the world.

"In our first keynote at PDC2008 Ray Ozzie will talk about the new world of Software Plus Services, with Bob Muglia joining him, to unveil our new Cloud Computing platform," Microsoft revealed. "In a second keynote, Ray will return to talk about building immersive user experiences and introduce Steven Sinofsky, who will give developers a first look at the next version of Windows, Windows 7. Scott Guthrie and David Treadwell will join Ray and Steven to dive deep on the latest Win32 and .NET platform advances that enable a next generation of user experiences spanning multiple devices, including a look at the latest developments in .NET, Silverlight, "Live Mesh", and the rest of the client platform."