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Word went out that Microsoft had delivered an early testing milestone of Windows 7 to key company partners. Otherwise, the Redmond company has failed to officially confirm the existence of Windows 7 M1 outside of Redmond, but all the details, screenshots and videos of the operating system offer an early sneak peek into what Microsoft is cooking with the next iteration of Windows.

As of yet, Windows 7 M1 is not even a standalone product, it has to be installed on top of Windows Vista SP1. And in this context, the installation experience is very similar to what Vista has to offer with one exception. What's Next? revealed that users have the option to create a HomeGroup in order to share photos, videos, music, and printers with additional machines on a household network. Windows 7 Milestone 1 comes with kernel version 6.1, as Microsoft has yet to integrate the MinWin core into the platform. The full version is Build 6519.1.x86.fre.winmain.071220-1525.

And reminiscences of Windows Vista are embedded deep into Windows 7 M1 Ultimate version. Illustrative examples in this respect are the Aurora design and the Windows Aero graphical user interface. Windows 7 users will be able to enjoy an updated system tray display hidden icons box complete with transparency effects. However, the most relevant tweak of Windows 7 is the fact that even in full screen windows retain their transparent borders unlike in Vista.

And even in this early stage of development, Microsoft has revamped the Control panel, as well as the desktop contextual right-click menu, and introduced a new Backup and Recovery Center. The changes of course do not stop here. The Start menu was also overhauled and now features pins, while performing a search uses the entire space of the box. There's also a new built in XPS Viewer, a tweaked Windows Media Center, an updated Calculator, and fresh versions of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Mail.