Here's Why It's Windows 7

The mystery of Microsoft's Windows version count has been solved. A day after announcing (in the Windows Vista blog) that the next release of Windows will be called Windows 7, Mike Nash (Microsoft Corporate VP, Windows Product Management) added a post laying out Microsoft's Windows version numbers since Windows 3.x.

Basically, they go like this:

Version 4: Windows 95

Version 4 point releases: Windows 98, 98SE, and ME (4.0.1998, 4.10.2222 and 4.90.3000, respectively).

Version 5: Windows 2000

Version 5 point releases: Windows XP (5.1)

Version 6: Windows Vista

I was surprised to realize that Windows XP (in which Microsoft unified the code bases for Windows 9x and NT/2000) was only a point release. But at least we now know how they got to Windows 7.


http://www.pcworld.com/article/152261/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws

So xp was a point version? Seems like a great leap to me...