In an official announcement today, Microsoft has revealed the final name for the next major version of Windows.

Today, is an exciting day for anyone who has been keeping track of the next version of Windows, Microsoft has finally chosen a final name. In a few weeks, Microsoft will be demonstrating Windows 7 to attendees of it’s Professional Developers Conference. As you may have known, Microsoft has been referring to the next client version of Windows by a codename, “Windows 7”. But now, that has all changed for the first time in the history of Windows  Microsoft has ever used a codename for a version of Windows.

As of today, the next client version of Windows will officially ship as it’s codename Windows 7. While I can only think of a few cases when Microsoft has used the codename of a product for final release, this is a first for Windows. You may be wondering why Microsoft decided to use the codename as the final name.

The decision to use the name Windows 7 was primarily about simplicity. Over the years, Microsoft has taken several different approaches to naming Windows.

“We’ve used version numbers like Windows 3.11, or dates like Windows 98, or "aspirational" monikers like Windows XP or Windows Vista.  And since we do not ship new versions of Windows every year, using a date did not make sense.” Said Mike Nash in a blog post over at the Windows Vista Blog. “Likewise, coming up with an all-new "aspirational" name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows.”

Simply put, this would be the seventh release of Windows, therefore “Windows 7” just makes sense. In addition, Microsoft will be delivering a pre-beta build of Windows 7 to attendees of its Professional Developer Conference (PDC) and at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. The build will be targeted at developers, so it is unlikely that the community will see the build.

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