The Windows 7 OS is somewhat of a mystery right now, with very few people knowing much about what to expect from it. But with an official blog now set up to track its development, that could all be about to change.

Since copies of Windows XP stopped being produced and distributed, Microsoft has publicly pushed the Windows Vista operating system on to everyone it possibly can. Who cares that very few people are happy with Vista, and who cares that a huge swathe of Windows users fought tooth and nail to keep Windows XP in the company’s product range, Vista is where it’s at. At least for now.

Microsoft has been working on its next OS for quite some time now, but little is known about its feature set or what area it is being focussed on. Microsoft has been very secretive about the development of Windows 7 due to fears that were too much to leak, sales of Vista would suffer as a result.

But the first stirrings of hype are beginning to surface, with a blog called Engineering Windows 7 being set up by Microsoft to discuss the project and enable a two-way conversation to occur between the engineers working on the product and Windows users eager to learn more.

The first post was published yesterday by Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky, the two senior engineering managers for Windows 7. No real details are revealed in the initial blog post but there is the promise of news to come in the future, and a signposting of two upcoming events where “in-depth technical information about Windows 7″ will be unveiled.

The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) a week later are being billed as two significant events where Microsoft will finally dish the dirt on the Windows 7 OS, at least to developers and industry insiders.

The blog post also seems to confirm Microsoft’s desire to be seen as more approachable, friendly, and transparent with its customers.

We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion about how we balance all of these interests and deliver software on the scale of Windows. We promise and will deliver such a dialog with this blog.

Starting from the first days of developing Windows 7, we have committed as a team to “promise and deliver”. That’s our goal—share with you what we’re going to get done, why we’re doing it, and deliver it with high quality and on time.

Delivering a product on time would be a first for Microsoft but it’s actually possible that the planned release date of January 2010 could be moved forward. Channel Register claims that Windows 7 could make its début during the second half of 2009. Seeing as though speculation has varied wildly from the middle of 2009 to the beginning of 2011, I’ll stick with Microsoft’s official line of early 2009.

Windows 7, or whatever kooky name it ends up being called, is on the way, a fact that will please the multitude of consumers who aren’t exactly enamoured with Vista. And the next two months should bring much more detail on the feature included in what we hope is the next great OS from Microsoft.

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Entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 3:00 pm under Blogosphere, Internet, Microsoft, Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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