Microsoft has already kick started the development process which will ultimately end up producing the successor of Windows 7, claims a third-party source. Russian website Wzor notes that the Redmond company has apparently set on a course to building Windows 8, and even provided the Build strings for a few assembles of the next iteration of Windows available exclusively in Redmond. Wzor is a source with a proven track record of delivering accurate information of the software giantâ??s moves, that otherwise would be kept under the tightly sealed translucent lid of Steven Sinofsky, president, Windows and Windows Live Division.

Source -
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windo...d-134604.shtml

I bet the architecture and design people started a long time ago. Else they would have been without a job at least a year before Win7 was released.

"tightly sealed translucent lid "

My favorite quote there.

O'boy rumors, just got to love them.

I would think that there's been a team working on the next OS before even Windows 7 was released, I'm sure I read an article a while ago about them wanting to get back on track with the timeframe for releasing new OS's.

In program development, you usually have 3 parallel groups.

1. The maintenance group on the oldest system or version (sometimes even a couple - e.g. XP and Vista)
2. The development group for the current system (e.g. Win7) that does functional upgrades and maintenance
3. The group for the new system (e.g. 8) that does architecture, design or implementation depending on how advanced they are.

At least that's the way it used to be in my 35 years of operating system development.

Guess that's why this new 8 forums openned so earlier!

I'm quit impress a lot to discover how fast evolution goes by MS.