Windows 7 dated for mid 2009 - 'Milestone 1' leaked

Bill Gates has dropped the biggest hint yet that Microsoft’ssuccessor to its unloved operating system Windows Vista could arrivearound the middle of 2009 – ahead of the firm’s original roadmap.
According to reports, the Microsoft head honcho said at a meeting ofthe Inter-American Development Bank on Friday that Windows 7 could bereleased “sometime in the next year or so”.

You know, we should have paid a little closer attention to Microsoft's decision yesterday to extend Windows XP sales to "June 2010 or one year after the general availability of Windows 7" -- if the company was really planning on shipping Windows 7 in 2010,that first date doesn't make a lot of sense unless the plan is to shipWindows 7 much, much earlier. And hey -- what's Bill Gates doingtelling investors this afternoon that Windows 7 will come "in the nextyear" and that he's "super-enthused" about it? As far as we know, theofficial Windows 7 timeline hasn't changed, so Bill might just talkingabout beta versions, but something's clearly up Windows-wise in Redmond-- perhaps Vista's wow is not long for this now.

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There’s already been plenty of rumours suggesting that Microsoft, inthe face of harsh criticism and sluggish take-up of Vista, coulddeliver its spanky new OS as early as the second half of 2009.
Indeed, the firm refused to spike speculation back in January thatthe race was on to parachute in Windows 7 ahead of the earmarked 2010release date.
And the partyline remains the same - the new version is scheduled toarrive three years after Vista’s mass release to customers in January2007. Business customers got the OS, and Office 2007, in November 2006.
Of course, given Microsoft’s track record on setting release dates,it’s fair to say that no one is truly any the wiser on when Windows 7will finally arrive to drown out its unruly older brother, Vista.
Perhaps the best hint so far came early last month when a UScourt-mandated technical committee said that Microsoft had sent anearly test copy of its next OS to the group.
It said it was scrutinising Windows 7 code to see if it violates a2002 federal anti-trust settlement, which required Microsoft to makeits products interoperable with those created by its competitors.

A CHINESE WINDOWS ENTHUSIAST claims to have got her mittson a copy of the latest milestone release of Windows 7, and is posting the gorydetails on her bog.
The official release title is Windows 7 Milestone 1 Version 6.1 (build6574.1). Snappy codenames aside, so far Windows 7 - due to succeed Vista in 2009or 2010 - still has the version soup of its predecessor, incorporating Business,Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, Home Basic N, Business N and Starterversions.
Driver support appears slightly better in this latest release, althoughobviously still way behind that of Vista (which some would argue is way behindXP anyway).
The Vista eye candy is slightly tweaked, and My Computer gets a face lift.Security Centre becomes Health Centre, and the much-maligned User AccountControl now gets a 'forget me for a few minutes' feature for when you're doinglow-level tasks, which seems like a darned good idea given the annoyance it hasalready inflicted on unsuspecting citizens.
Windows geeks can find some screencaps of the tweaked UI and a short videoover atThinkNext.