Mum's still the word on Windows 7 Build 6780 Milestone 3 and the first implementations of the Fluent/Ribbon graphical user interface into default components of the operating system, as far as the company's official mouthpieces for communications go. But with Windows 7 M3 out of Redmond details, as scarce as they might be, are becoming increasingly palpable. In this context, Microsoft itself managed to confirm the fact that it is building a new graphical user interface framework for Windows 7 dubbed Windows Scenic. 

Windows Scenic is in fact designed as the UI platform based on the Fluent/Ribbon GUI from the Office 2007 System. Long Zheng pointed out that the UI framework spans not only across Paint and WordPad in Windows 7 Milestone 3 Build 6780, but also on client-side components of the Windows Wave 3 suite of products. In September, Microsoft published two job listings mentioning Windows Scenic.

"Are you excited by modern user interfaces? Do you enjoy working with advanced graphics, animation and rich interactivity? Do you want to leap past MacOS and deliver industry-leading user experiences? Do you like to build platforms that are consumed across Windows and by every Windows application? Windows Scenic is a new, growing team that’s building the user experience development framework for Windows. Our first delivery is very soon, as part of next version of Windows. From there, we’re expanding to deliver core UI components to a wide range of Windows teams and to the whole software development community," the job posting reveals. (emphasis added)

At this point in time Microsoft has issued no official comments related to either Windows 7 Build 6780 Milestone 3 or Windows Scenic. However, the integration of the Fluent/Ribbon UI in Windows 7's Paint and WordPad is already common knowledge, thanks to the screenshots made available by UXEvangelist.