With All the Focus on Windows 7, Vista SP1 and XP SP3, Whatever Happened to Windows Fiji?

It's fair to say that the Windows client projects are getting not only a great deal of play lately, but are also managing to capture quite an audience. First off, Microsoft is hard at work wrapping up with the first service pack for Windows Vista, as well as the third and final service pack for Windows XP. According to the company, users will have to wait until the first quarter of this year for Vista SP1, and until mid 2008 for XP SP3. However, at the same time, because of the intimate synchronization of the development milestones of Windows Server 2008 and the two service packs, it appears that a more realistic release date would be the month of February 2008.

At the same time, Microsoft has been building the early stages of Windows 7, the next iteration of the Windows operating system. Designed to succeed Windows Vista, Windows 7 is planned for the end of 2009, but no later than early 2010. Windows 7 Milestone 1 has already been released outside of Redmond and to a select group of the company's key partners. But at the same time, 2008 is the year Windows Fiji will drop.

Fiji was announced back in 2007, and was initially interpreted erroneously as the next version of Windows, when the codename actually referred to the upcoming iteration of Windows Media Center. After it had included Windows Media Center in the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Widows Vista, Microsoft was looking to produce a standalone version of WMC, this was Windows Fiji.

Starting in December 2007, the Redmond company began sending out invites via email for the Media Center beta program featuring a new survey. Microsoft has failed to indicate if the new Windows Media Center product beta project is connected to Windows Fiji, or if it refers to a different WMC product.

Through the emails generated by the Windows Media Center team, testers were redirected to Microsoft Connect and asked to participate in the "Windows Media Center Tester Application" survey. Approached on the subject, the Redmond company did not discuss the new Windows Media Center project, or the survey, and only indicated that it was constantly looking for customer feedback to integrate in the process of product development.

Whether Microsoft is actually looking for a fresh pool of testers of Windows Fiji (or MCE+1), or for a new client-based solution, the application process will come to a halt on February 1st, 2008. There is also the possibility that the Redmond company is looking for testers for the new version of Windows Media Center that will ship with selected editions of Windows 7.