Windows 8 Evolves to Milestone 3, Beta Is Next

Although there’s no official confirmation from Microsoft, Windows 8 has reportedly evolved to the next stage in its development process, and the last one ahead of Beta.

Leaked information available since last month had previously revealed that the software giant was planning to start the coding process for Windows 8 Milestone 3 on February 28th, 2011.

Additional leaked details indicate that the Windows team has moved ahead with the development of Windows 8 right on schedule.

One report reveals that the Redmond company has already produced Windows 8 Build 6.2.7956.0.winmain_win8m3.110228-1701. (via Canouna)

Per the info contained in the build string, this is a Windows 8 M3 release compiled on February 28th, 2011.

More than anything else, the details related to Windows 8 M3 Build 6.2.7956.0.winmain_win8m3.110228-1701 seem to confirm previously leaked information on the timetable for the next major iteration of the Windows client.

But Coding is just the first phase of Milestone 3. Provided that M3 follows the same development steps as M2, Microsoft still has to get through Integration, Bug Fixing and Lockdown to wrap up the last Build ahead of Beta.

It took Microsoft some five months from when it started the coding work on M2 to take Windows 8 to M3, and this could mean that sometime in mid-2011, around July, the software giant will start work on the Beta Build.

Additional reports have pointed out that the Redmond company is planning to demonstrate Windows 8 running on a Tablet PC in June 2011.

This would in fact be possible. Early adopters that have played around with Windows 7 M3 can certainly attest to the fact that the operating system was almost complete at that point in time, at least as far as its evolution under-the-hood was concerned.

Microsoft waited until Beta to also enable the rest of the changes with a high impact on the surface of the OS, such as the new UI.

There won’t be a Milestone 4, instead, M3 will be followed by Beta, with reports revealing that this particular Build will be delivered to the public sometime in the second half of 2011.