14 DAY TRIAL // While Microsoft is reportedly gearing up to offer the first taste of Windows 7’s successor in early January 2011, information on the next major iteration of Windows has already leaked in the wild.
UPDATE: It appears that the screenshots are fake, not from Win8 at all but from Small Business Server 2011 RTM. Sorry about that!
Included in this article you will be able to find what third-party sources claim to be the first screenshots of Windows 8, or Windows vNext as the software giant likes to call it.
The Redmond company has been dogfooding (testing internally) Windows 8 for quite some time, while also sharing plans for the next version of the platform with close partners and testers (think CPU and GPU manufacturers ).
However, Microsoft has been all but mute on its plans for Windows 8 as far as the public is concerned, with only the past and vague confirmation that the operating system will be released within a three year timeframe following the general availability of Windows 7 (October 22nd, 2009).
Reports from trusted sources indicate that Windows 8 has now passed the Milestone 1 stage of the development process, and that the OS will graduate from M2 to M3 sometime in the first half of 2011.
As you can see from the screenshots included with this article, Windows 8 had already reached Build 6.1.7900.0 in early November 2010. Please bear in mind that as this is leaked information and it should be taken with a grain of salt, at least until further confirmation is available. (via here)
The screenshots reveal information from the Properties dialog box associated with the setup file for deploying Windows 8.
More importantly, they show that Windows 8 is now out of Redmond, and as such early adopters used to jump the gun more often than not should brace themselves as the first actual Windows 8 leak is bound not to be that far in the distance.
The screenshots do offer a peek into the software giant’s plans for Windows 8, and the evolution of the operating system post-Windows 7, albeit it’s all up for speculation at this point in time.
What can be said for sure is that Windows 8 continues to leverage the Windows 7 kernel, hence the major version 6.1 ahead of the 7900 build number. It’s common development practice for Microsoft to base a new Windows on its predecessor, to a very high degree in the first stages of development at least.
Microsoft did hint in the past that it would no longer introduce large version jumps from one major iteration of Windows to another since they’re by far the number 1 factor responsible for breaking application compatibility.
Speculation has indicated that the company will opt for a v6.x, most probably 6.2 for the major version number of Windows 8, but Microsoft has yet to confirm its versioning strategy for the successor of Windows 7.
The company is expected to deliver a Beta of Windows 8 sometime between mid-2011 and the end of the coming year, but this detail is also not confirmed officially.
