Windows 7 to make appearance at D6 Conference

A very tired little birdie who flew all the way from Seattle to Australia has chirped to me Windows 7 will be publically disclosed for the first time at the D6: All Things Digital Conference hosted by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher next week on May 27. The same conference where last year Bill Gates and Steve Jobs made a historical appearance together on-stage interviewed by Walt and Kara.

Whilst my chirp-to-English translation is a little flaky, it makes sense because the D Conference has been used in the past for Microsoft to make rather grand announcements such as the introduction of the Surface computer. This time round, both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer will appear together at the keynote so it’s a perfect opportunity to talk about the future of the company.

In addition to just discussing their ideas and vision, it’s rumored the event will actually involve a demonstration of Windows 7 in some fashion. Whether or not we’ll actually see a live build of Windows 7 or purely a technology demo of a specific feature remains a mystery, but it’s sure exciting.

In the past the conference organizers did not put up a live stream of the keynote so I doubt they will this year, however the event is thoroughly covered by bloggers and mainstream press so just keep an eye out on the morning of May 27.

Update: Videos from the event will be featured on the conference website here.

Update 2: The event organizers have just confirmed this rumor. “During tonight’s interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates, Microsoft (MSFT) will demonstrate Windows 7’s all-new user interface.”

67 insightful thoughts

  1. Super! Unfortunately Steve Jobs not being there would mean iTunes will not have a download-able version of the same and Microsoft has this bad habit of not giving these keynotes for downloading in high quality.

  2. Oh that is going to be worth it. after last year gates-jobs. you need something nice to follow. this would do it.

    and where did you got that logo?. and where i can get a high res of it? 😉

  3. I’m looking forward to see the looks of Windows Se7en! All rumors say it’s going to be a big thing. Looking at Live Mesh I really believe that Windows Se7en can make it possible!

  4. weird, i found that image some minutes ago in windows 7 build 6519, but its black&white
    @longzheng: where youd get the coloured image?

  5. @tino: thanks, but well, hxxp://saved.im/mjc2mtn2ywm0/1001.bmp, thats the official of my build 6519, also, if youre intrested: hxxp://saved.im/mjc2ntrqcgm2/windowsserver2008experimental4-2008-05-24 -16-03-42.png (and please, i dont wanna hear its fake because blablabla, its not faked)

    in the name of eabg&windowswiki.info

    so its faster (without moderation :-p)

  6. This is great! At last something about Windows 7 directly from Microsoft! I hope they dont ‘hype’ much and do things silently unlike Vista

  7. They can only demo what progress they’ve made so far internally and rt now internally too it’s not even at Alpha 1 stage? Perhaps they’ll announce a partial list of features? Btw, I like this logo best (http://media.arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.media/windows_7.jpg) till it’s in testing….certainly not for an RTM product….I would be happy if they at least answer if Windows 7 is going to be NT 7.0? I feel they’re taking the extreme opposite step of not saying even the stuff that’s ready or is gonna be there for sure since their teams are ready (not in an emergency situation like Blaster/XPSP2).

  8. Given the fact that Windows Codenamed “7” will be a minor release, it’s easy to say that it will not be NT 7.0.

  9. I personally believe you won’t see a thing at D6 about Windows 7. Walt Mossberg is good at persuading Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs, but certainly not Steven Sinofsky. We must remember the ultimate (no pun intended) aim of the Windows 7 project so far is, under promise and over deliver. I continue to believe we will not see Windows 7 until PDC 2008/WinHEC 2008. Somehow Steve wants to keep this one close to the vest.

    Other reasons to consider, show it now what does this say about Vista, that Microsoft has lost faith in the product and admitted defeat? Also, Windows Vista was just released world wide a year and a half, Windows 7 won’t be here until at least early 2010. Why would they want to jump the gun so early and start shooting themselves in the foot like they did with transparency of the Longhorn project?

    The most likely Windows related revealing at D6 is Windows Live wave 3.

  10. @Andre Da Costa: In counter argument, they could just demo “exciting new technology” without specifically referring to Windows 7. No one would know any better except those who really want to know 🙂

  11. @ Long Zheng: Well, it goes back to the Windows Live wave 3 thought. The rumors have said that WL3 will have close ties to the next release of Windows and with more of the built in Vista apps like Photo Gallery, Mail taking on the Live moniker, we will most likely see something related to this. But don’t expect to see anything UI specific if they do indeed run something on a Win7 build at D6.

  12. @anonymous — you have no idea what you’re talking about. If you want to claim to work there, that’s fine. First of all, there are no Alphas any more, buddy. Second of all, they sort of have things compared th Alphas, and I happen to be running something post “alpha 1”. So please get your facts straight, if you’d like to argue saying you work there and have info on Windows, let’s get at it. Otherwise, sit down, and don’t post your misinformation here.

  13. Thanks for posting this, Long. It looks like Microsoft is doing quite a bit of Windows 7 chat these days! I just posted a short bit on a NDA’d discussion happening soon (June 5th) on the Redmond campus for Windows 7 Server. Check it, out if you get a chance! =)

  14. @Brandon – “they sort of have things compared th Alphas.”

    Previously there were things like “Alpha 1.” They don’t exist anymore. “Anonymous” claimed they are working by the Alpha schedule.

  15. It`s so sad
    another WINDOWS CAIRO?
    why they can`t just make ONE right OS once and then stick with it, like apple did, or like linux does…
    Microsoft doesn`t seems to be releasing any system, just betatesting in the open.

    cheers.
    Marcos Caballero

  16. “why they can`t just make ONE right OS once and then stick with it, like apple did, or like linux does…”

    This is the funniest thing I’ve read all week. Yes, of course Apple are still using the same operating system they released in 1984. No sir, there haven’t been any new versions of MacOS ever.

    As for Linux, it is the prime example of “making one OS and sticking to it”. Imagine what life would be like if there were dozens of different Linux distros out there. It’d be a nightmare!

  17. I know that Given Windows Vienna (I’ll just stick to that out-of-date codename) will look so much like Vista (NT 6.0), I believe it COULD BE NT 7.0!

  18. @ marcos: I don’t think you even know what you are talking about. Cairo is a set of technologies that revolved around object oriented computing. Technology that eventually was released as a part of Windows 95, 2000, XP and even Vista. People said the same thing about WinFS and the Project Manager has admitted it was ambitious, but it was not all in vain, many of the core technologies of WinFS are now available in Visual Studio 2008 SP1, ADO Net and SQL Server.

    Here is a quote from wikipedia:
    “The Windows 95 user interface was based on the initial design work that was done on the Cairo user interface.[5] DCE/RPC shipped in Windows NT 3.1. X.500 shipped as part of Active Directory in Windows 2000. X.400 messaging shipped as part of Microsoft Exchange Server. Content Indexing is now a part of Internet Information Server and Windows Desktop Search.”

    As for the one right OS, they have been doing just that for many years now. Yes, Windows went through certain phases such as Windows 1.0 to 3.1 (8/16 bit), Windows 95 to ME (32-Bit – 9x kernel) and Windws NT 3.1 to Vista (true 32 bit operating system which now is 64 bit with the release of XP Professional x64 and Vista). It has been one true OS because they all use the same API calls, interface methodologies, same level of compatibility in some instances which has been great for both developers and end users.

    Try getting that seamless experience on Linux, you have to recompile your code just work on another distribution, they use different types of packages and so on and the fact that they have two different competing GUI environments KDE and GNOME that use different libraries and hog resources requiring different programming skills. Please do the research before you judge.

  19. I think what Marcos wants, is to just pay $129 every 18 months for a feature set. Err, “upgrade” of OS X. Honestly, all that the different upgrades to OS X are, are new apps….

    Windows 7 is being built off of Vista. All that is happening at the core level, is the code base is being cleaned up. Essentially, the code base of Windows looks something like this:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/173032304/in/photostream/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmnyc/96327089/

    By the time they are done with Windows 7, it will look like this:
    http://flickr.com/photos/tim_d/184018928/
    http://flickr.com/photos/chrisdag/865724585/

    So, new features, new in-box apps, some new services, and componentization, which leads to INCREDIBLE speed and perf increases, as well as making it easier to write apps for.

    Andre already explained Cairo. As for Linux, hey buddy, pssst, there isn’t just one version of Linux. (http://distrowatch.com/)

  20. Some great coverage of Windows 7 in your last few posts, Long. Keep it up. (Easier said than done with the Microsoft media blackout, I know, but hopefully MS is at the beginning of the end of that.)

  21. I don’t think ill be too excited about this little demo, i know they havent made any UI changes, thats what usually excites me, it will probably windows vista looking with a few new bits and bobs.

    however if they have exciting features, like last time round with WinFS, wpdf, then i may get excited. as yet. things are too early for any major things in windows 7.

  22. I thought someone said that Vista SP1 or something of the like was the “minor release” and that 7 was a major release?

  23. Not impressed. I guess the excitement and nostalgia for Touch technology has been taken away by Surface. But, I just don’t see how this will replace my proven experience with the mouse, keyboard and or laptop touch pad. How will this increase a users productivity, ad value and agility to my work flow. All I’m seeing here is a frenzied response to the iPhone and possible me first before Apple comes to market with something more revolutionary and in fact Apple will always come with something better. If this is the direction Microsoft is taking I see it as another small niche like the Tablet is right now.

  24. Agreed. The biggest problem for a full multi touch OS are our hands. And the shown multi touch WPF apps will also run on XP. So I’m also not impressed.

  25. My oh my, was that boring or what.

    I don’t really get those multitouch demos (they are basically all the same): to tell you the truth, I CANNOT possibly imagine myself in the situation where I would open up a folder with my pictures nicely organized and aligned and start making a mess – because that’s what those demos are about, randomly moving and zooming the pictures so that they cover the rest (plus, the zoom is limited to the actual window, not the entire desktop). I can have that kind of mess on my desk and I hate it. Why would I want to port it to the PC as well?

    I just fail to understand why anyone would find that particularily useful. I know it’s just a demo of the technology, but quite a bad use case in my opinion.

  26. hy, I’m waiting for the new version of windows, because windows vista has created sevral problems to me, I could not install my driver of scanner and printer, in addition vista is relatively slower in responce than XP.
    I would like to see windows strong and has a simple appearance.

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