How Microsoft Windows 7 Got Its Name
Written by Keith Johnson - Posted on November 11th, 2008
According to a few different bloggers as well as a few of the Microsoft blogs, the name of Microsoft’s next major release of its Operating System for personal computers is not just any arbitrary name. Quite the contrary. The name “Windows 7″ is perfectly in line with releases of MS-Windows over the years.
Here is how it pans out, with broad strokes:
One. The very first release of Microsoft Windows: Windows 1.0
Two. The second release of Microsoft Windows: Windows 2.0
Three. The third release of Microsoft Windows (3.0, 3.1): Windows 3.0
Four. The fourth release of Microsoft Windows (95), code named Windows 4.0
Five. Then, Windows 2000 was Windows 5.0; Windows XP was Windows 5.1
Six. The release of Windows Vista was code-identified as Windows 6.0
Seven. So, the next release of Windows will be called “Windows 7“.
All The Best,
Keith
12 Comments
November 15th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
new information
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
nice
December 28th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
What was Windows 98 called?
January 8th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I assume that Windows for Workgroups falls into release 3
Windows 98 falls into release 4
Windows NT is also in release 4 (hence Win NT 4.0) even though it was fundamentally much different than Windows 95/98?
Windows Me is probably part of release 4 also, being a minor update to Win98.
And Windows Bob? Hmm…
As for Windows 7, I’ve heard that is really based on much the same kernel as Vista — just tweaked to be smaller and more efficient. So, not sure if it is justified in its jump to the “7″ moniker, but I’m sure it sounds better in the Marketing Dept. that way.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Major Minor
Version Version RTM Name
1 .01 Windows 1.01
2 .03 Windows 2.03
.1 Windows 2.1
.11 Windows 2.11
3 .0 Windows 3.0
.1 Windows 3.1
.1 528 Windows NT 3.1
.11 Windows for Workgroups
.5 807 Windows NT 3.5
.51 1057 Windows NT 3.51
4 .0 950 Windows 95
.0 Windows 95 OSR2
.0 1381 Windows NT 4.0
.10 1998 Windows 98
.10 2222 Windows 98 SE
.90 3000 Win ME
5 .0 2195 Windows 2000
.1 2600 Windows XP
.2 3790 Win Server 2003
6 .0 6000 Windows Vista
.0 6001 Win Server 2008
.1 6001 Windows Vista SP1
.1 6002 Windows Vista SP2
.1 7000 Windows 7 Beta
7 .0 Windows Azure (Cloud OS)
June 12th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Ugh, sorry about the spacing.
http://archdave.wordpress.com/.....clarified/
June 14th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
@Everybody, especially David…mucho thanks for the great feedback. Cheers, Keith
July 27th, 2009 at 12:50 am
haha, now I can understand the name.
July 30th, 2009 at 4:00 am
the interface of Windows 7 is great but in my opinion Windows XP is still a very solid and stable operating system. Right now, I would never give up XP for Windows 7.
July 30th, 2009 at 7:14 am
@bodydetox – many people share your perspective. In fact, on my work laptop, I have Windows XP. You are right about the fact that XP is stable. In fact, I have Windows Vista on my personal laptop, and sometimes the Windows Explorer program has to restart when I do a simple copy and paste. But, I believe Microsoft is aware of all this an is engineering Windows 7 in a much improved manner. Thanks for your thoughtful comment, and hope to see you here again soon! Regards, Keith
August 26th, 2009 at 4:24 am
There was a time that I jumped on every new release of Windows as it came out. ME cured me of that. I still like to have the most recent version, but now I wait until at least the first service pack, and I pay a lot of attention to what people are saying about the release. I have Vista at the moment, even though I was just fine with XP, but I only got it recently, and have found it to be far less troublesome than the negative hype led me to expect.
So, I’ll get 7, but not until it’s been on the streets long enough to hear what the general experience people are having with it is.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Well, if you were to open up CMD and just look at it, it lists windows 7 as Microsoft Windows 6.1, off of the NT Kernel I believe. Maybe the 7th edition of windows, but the kernel is still the same.
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