Windows Embedded Standard 7 New Moniker Explained

Customers and developers following the evolution of Microsoft’s next iteration of Windows Embedded OS are undoubtedly already well aware that the Redmond company modified the official moniker ahead of the launch of the latest development milestone. Windows Embedded Standard 2011, previously codenamed Quebec, has now become Windows Embedded Standard 7, a label under which the operating system will be made available on the market in the second half of 2010. Shayna Begun, a program manager in the Vertical Industry and Embedded Windows (VIEW) team at Microsoft, explained that the relabeling of codename Quebec was catalyzed by customer input.

“Based on feedback from many of our partners and customers, the alignment between our embedded product and Windows 7 was not clear. It makes sense for our business to take advantage of the great reception Windows 7 has received and, therefore, we will be changing our versioning system from release year-based versions to numeric versions based on the underlying OS for that embedded release,” Begun explained.

Microsoft is close to wrapping up Windows Embedded Standard 7, although the software giant failed to disclose just how close exactly. Begun reveals that testers of the Community Technology Previews of codename Quebec number in the thousands, and that the feedback they provided helped better the product. The Release Candidate of Windows Embedded Standards 7 was made available for download at the start of this week.

“RC is the abbreviation we in the engineering group use to talk about our Release Candidate build. This is our last pre-release build before we package up the product and make it final! We’ve been working hard on this and are excited to give you access to what we think will be close to our final version of Standard 7. You can download it from Microsoft Connect,” begun added.