For those of you that have eagerly waited and anticipated the latest release of Windows Vista Beta 2, get prepared for some bad news. It might actually cancel the release. Instead, it might just use the CPT (Community Technical Preview) until the Release Candidate 0 (RC0) is ready, in the second quarter of 2006.

This news comes from a November 29 conference call that was made by Amitabh Srivastava, the corporate vice president of Windows Core Operating System Development at Microsoft. In it, he said that the beta testing itself was "less urgent" because of the CTP feedback and Microsoft's new engineering process.

Srivastava said, "at this point we are not making any announcements on what the date for Beta 2 will be... Beginning early next year we will be making more announcements and telling you more about when to expect the beta to be out."

The conference call also promised users that they'd see a feature-complete build of Windows Vista by the end of 2005, but when it comes to trusting what Microsoft tells the public, be prepared to go down a slippery slope.

We do know that timetables have been in a constant flux and will probably stay in flux for a little while. One should learn to expect the unexpected when it comes to Microsoft's release dates.