http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/04/windows-7-to-arrive-next-year-says-bill-gates/

You know, we should have paid a little closer attention to Microsoft's decision yesterday to extend Windows XP sales to "June 2010 or one year after the general availability of Windows 7" -- if the company was really planning on shipping Windows 7 in 2010, that first date doesn't make a lot of sense unless the plan is to ship Windows 7 much, much earlier. And hey -- what's Bill Gates doing telling investors this afternoon that Windows 7 will come "in the next year" and that he's "super-enthused" about it? As far as we know, the official Windows 7 timeline hasn't changed, so Bill might just talking about beta versions, but something's clearly up Windows-wise in Redmond -- perhaps Vista's wow is not long for this now.
 

What is Windows 7?

Maybe Windows 7 is a mega update of Vista?

As long as it is better than Vista.

I think that's a good thing, I heard a few things that it was actually being worked on while Vista was being made, so it is a possibility that it might have a beta out with-in a year and I hope it does.

Vista has gotten a bad rap one that isn't as deserved for what it is. It does a lot of things easier than XP ever did and it does look a lot better. It is a hardware hog though and it does have some compatability issues with software and drivers that have been mostly cleared up unless you are using the 64 bit version.
That said this is not the first time this happened. Windows releases 98 and then 98 SE and then ME(which was horrible) and than XP(which was based off the much more stable NT line(3.1 NT 4 and 2000).

That said there sin't even an alpha leak yet for 7(Vista(Longhorn) alphas were out in 2002). XP(Whistler) Alphas were out in 99.

My guess if it is released that early. MS was originally working on two lines for Windows 6 Longhorn and Blackcomb. No one ever got a Blackcomb alpha as far as I know and it was scrubbed. MS wanted to release a new file system WinFS but it was not part of the final release of Vista(Apple wanted to release ZFS and it was not released with leopard either). Though you can find evidence for both filesystams in either leopard(spotlight zfs) and Vista (search for winFS) although being system files it may be a little more difficult to find.

So I guess they are goign to implementing WinFS in a whole New OS which will supposedly allow for some of the snazzier ideas they were working on who knows.

My prediction Windows seven in 2010 some screenshots were leaked from an early version a few months ago. While they look a lot like vista the early versions of whistler looked like 2000 and the early versions of longhorn looked like XP with gadgets(worst idea ever)

WTH is Windows 7?

Windows Vienna (aka blackcombe or 7) is made on a new kernel (MinWin) that run with ~100 files. That's about all I know about it. Don't know if it's true but I heard it might not be backwards compatible with previous Windows.

 i wouldnt be shocked at all

They are not going to rush the next Windows, they are going to try to stick with Vista three more years... and then they will release W7...

(To be honest, should be great if I'm wrong and the next OS is something good and is rushed) :P