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Ok, Vista topics are already getting a little bit stale. It is time to start blogging about Windows 7. Rumors about Windows 7 have already been spreading for some time, but so far I haven’t found anything really worth mentioning. However, today, I read an interesting post about Windows 7 at TG Daily. Wolfgang Gruener claims that they have information that Windows 7 might be released in the second half of 2009.

Considering that so far most of the 4sysops readers who took part in my poll about their Vista deployment plans have decided to wait for Windows 7, this might be interesting information. The second biggest group wants to deploy Vista in 2009. If Microsoft really keeps this schedule and releases Windows 7 in 2009, this doesn’t make much sense.

The other question is, would you really believe that Microsoft is capable of releasing a new operating system just three years after Vista? Usually, they need five years to develop a new OS. However, I think that MS meanwhile realized that the major reason why people don’t like to move to Vista is because they are just quite used to XP. Hence, shorter release cycles really make sense.

Gruener writes that Microsoft “key partners” already got their hands on Milestone 1 (M1) of Windows 7. M2 is slated for April/May 2008 and M3 is scheduled for Q3. The first beta probably won’t be available in 2008.

These are the new features of Windows 7 he mentioned:

Heterogeneous graphics system: You can operate multiple graphics cards from different vendors. Isn’t that already possible now with XP and Vista? I suppose, I didn’t get the point about this new feature.

New touch screen features: He didn’t give more details here. But, I suppose, it has something to do with Windows Mobile 7. That is, it is about dragging objects by touching them on the screen. Yeah, I already hear the Apple fans. You already have this on your iPhone.

MinWin: This feature has been discussed before on numerous sites. It is a new kernel that only needs 25MB on the hard disk and has a working set of 40MB. This might just be a step further in componentizing Windows. However, it seems to me that this has something to do with the growing popularity of mobile devices. Who knows, maybe Windows Mobile 7 is just a special edition of Windows 7, that is, they might have the same kernel. Okay, that is just mere speculation. But if you look at the size of Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC) today, you can easily predict that it won’t take too long until a full-blown Windows will run on your cell.