14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 7 is continuing to cook over in Redmond with Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, keeping a tight lid on all the details, especially the estimated baking time left. However, signs of Windows Vista's successor are starting to pop on Microsoft.com. In this context, the Redmond giant went live with the official page for the Windows 7 End User License Agreement, affectionately dubbed EULA.
"The Windows 7 operating system is currently in development. Please see below for information about key provisions referenced in the license terms, which may be subject to change with each upcoming release. Windows 7 Privacy Statement (coming soon). Windows Media Player (coming soon). Activation (coming soon). Validation (coming soon)," reads the entire text published on the Windows 7 EULA page (via Odd-Magne Kristoffersen).
Validation, activation and privacy are also aspects of the information offered by Microsoft adjacent to Windows Vista. And since Windows 7 is designed as the evolution of its predecessor, it is likely that the EULA, along with additional data related to the anti-piracy measures and the privacy of the product's users will also be a mere evolution from what is available today with Vista.
The "coming soon" mention on the Windows 7 EULA webpage explains why no real content has been posted yet. Still, Microsoft seems keen on not waiting until the final version of Windows 7, currently planned for the end of 2009/the start of 2010, and will jump the gun with the publishing of the operating system's end user license agreement.
The incongruence here is between what is still, and will continue to be for quite some time, a missing product, and a EULA that is already live. However, the availability of the end user license agreement means that Microsoft is gearing up to take the wraps off the first development milestones of Windows 7 aimed at a testing pool beyond its closest partners. With the PDC2008 Professional Developers Conference just three months away, scheduled for October 27-30, 2008, the Windows 7 EULA could signal the preparation of the first Beta of the operating system.
