Windows 7 is the name for the upcoming version of the Microsoft Windows Operating system. The operating system has gone under a number of different codenames including Blackcomb and Vienna but is now called Windows 7 - this was possibly to make it sound less enticing upon the release of Windows Vista in order to encourage people to buy Windows Vista rather than waiting. That said, in October 2008 Microsoft said that Windows 7 would be the name of the software on its release.

The software will follow Windows Vista (which is version 6) which, in turn, followed on from Windows XP (Version 5.1) and Windows 2000 (Version 5)

Microsoft is working on a 3-year timeframe for this project. Windows Vista notably suffered a number of setbacks in its development which meant that there was a big gap between the release of Windowx XP (October 2001) and Vista (31 November 2006).

By virtue of its size and the legacy software it supports, Windows has a lengthy gestation period which is why there were problems with the release of Vista.

According to an article written by Microsoft's Doug How, Windows 7 will be released in mid-2009. This is subject to how rocky the road is on which Microsoft lays its roadmap.

Windows 7 is intended to be an incremental update rather than a full-blown re-write. This means that the aim is to make it fully compatible with existing device drivers, applications and hardware.

Current areas of focus are:

Improving performance Windows Vista, although it had more funcitonality, was noticably more resource-hungry and therefore slower than Windows XP

Multi-touch support Microsoft have been working on the Surface PC which enables people to touch, move & resize images using more than one finger. This will pave the way for elaborate computing as seen in the film Minority Report

A new taskbar Quick Launch and the toolbar have been merged to create a "Superbar"

A redesigned Windows Shell

A home networking system called HomeGroup a simplified version of the Active Directory for home networks

Handwriting recognition Automatic learning is a handwriting recognition feature that is available on Tablet PCs and external tablets. This feature collects data about the words that you use and how you write them. Automatic learning is enabled by default, and the handwriting recognition software will attempt to recognize and improve its interpretation of your handwriting style and vocabulary.

Support for virtual hard disks

Improved performance on multi-core processors

Improved boot performance

Colour bit depths of 30 & 48 bits

Internet Explorer 8 a new Internet browser focusing on security, ease of use, improvements in RSS, CSS and Ajax and including automatic crash recovery & web slices

Windows Media Player 12 Windows 7 will include a new version of Windows Media Player

Windows Media Center  Windows Media Player finally comes with a wider range of codecs (DivX, XviD, H.264, AAC, ABC HD and the Flip format), and Media Center supports IPTV and DVB-T. Put a DVD in your PC and it will play automatically. And you can play shared music from a HomeGroup on any PC, or even stream it to a DLNA device like a Sonos ZonePlayer

Microsoft Paint Windows 7 will include a dramatically improved version of Microsoft Paint, the most dramatic upgrade to this software since the first versions of Windows

Windows 7 will take a more desin-led approach, making it easier to use as a result. Mant of the Windows applications, like Paint & Wordpad will use the Ribbon that Office 2007 uses with the aim of putting things where people expect to find them in a way they can understand.

The changes will aim to remove the perception that PCs are difficult to use. For example, there are six different methods that you can use to open up your email client in Vista (including icons on the desktop,  taskbar, system tray & Start menu): Windows 7 replaces these with an icon on the taskbar that launches Outlook and gets you back to it once it's open.