Windows 7

The biggest news today started with a report from Bloomberg claiming that Microsoft is going to offer “several” versions of Windows 7 for Netbooks.  According to the previous announcements from Microsoft there will be 2 primary versions of Windows 7 but a total of 6 different versions for sale.  And today everyone is freaking out saying that there will be 10 different versions of it when you add the Netbook versions to the count.

I can virtually guarantee that there will not be 10 versions of Windows 7.  Why would Microsoft add different “versions” just to allow it to run on different hardware?  Are there different versions for standard laptops versus desktops?  Whatever happened to just reducing the footprint of an operating system to allow for less space used?

My prediction is that Microsoft will simply enable a low footprint mode that will not copy over the endless amounts of Windows Side by Side files and other miscellaneous files.  By making the footprint smaller it will easily allow for installation on space limited machines.  A simple detection of hardware during setup could install the Netbook drivers and avoid installing excess files.

There is no need to create additional versions of Windows 7 especially if Microsoft wants to keep negative publicity to a minimum.

Check It Out> Bloomberg, Engadget, Gizmodo

UPDATE:: I pinged a few Microsoft employees last night about this and got a response a little bit ago.  According to one of them the most accurate information for the Windows 7 SKU’s is that on the Windows Blog.  Several of the people I asked said that the news from Bloomberg was not what was being internally communicated.  While it is still possible that its being kept very quiet I doubt that Bloomberg has this one right.