Windows 7 Forked, Builds 7200 and 7225 with Service Pack 1
Microsoft is yet to confirm any details officially
Microsoft has reportedly passed the 7200 build string milestone in the development of Windows 7. At the same time, reports indicate that the Redmond-based company is also building and testing the first Service Pack for the next iteration of the Windows client and server operating systems, even though both Windows 7 client and Windows Server 2008 R2 are yet to hit the RTM mark, let alone general availability. Wzor has leaked screenshots of Windows 7 Build 7138 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Build 7138 with Service Pack 1 already installed, and now the peek behind the Win7 scene coming from the Russian website is Windows 7 Build 7200.
According to Wzor, Windows 7 builds in the main branch, winmain, have jumped from 6.1.7141.0.winmain.090528, compiled on May 28, all the way to 6.1.7225.0.winmain.090529, wrapped up on May 29, in just a single day. Microsoft apparently passed a very important milestone in the development process of Windows 7 on May 29, but there are no details available as to what exactly happened. Still, the Redmond-based company is set to unveil all changes by the end of June 2009.
Nonetheless, it appears that the Windows 7 development process now has two directions, and two main branches. Such a move implies that Windows 7 has gone through a forking, a strategy designed to split the build tree in order to accommodate builds from two branches. Microsoft did that in the past with Windows 7 RC and RTM, and it is now doing it again with RTM and SP1.
In this context, the main branches of Windows 7, after the fork, are winmain and winmain_sp. In order to support half of the forked tree, Microsoft is also producing builds in the winmain_win7ids branch. The latest builds of Windows 7, from all branches, are 6.1.7200.0.winmain_win7ids_sp.090529; 6.1.7225.0.winmain_sp.090529 and 6.1.7225.0.winmain.090529. No official comment from Microsoft as of yet.