This book covers the most recent version of the Microsoft Windows client and server operating systems: Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit versions) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit version only). Unless specifically stated, the text applies to all versions. As background information, Table 1-1 lists the Windows product names, their internal version number, and their release date.
Table 1-1. Windows Operating System Releases
Product Name | Internal Version Number | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
Windows NT 3.1 | 3.1 | July 1993 |
Windows NT 3.5 | 3.5 | September 1994 |
Windows NT 3.51 | 3.51 | May 1995 |
Windows NT 4.0 | 4.0 | July 1996 |
Windows 2000 | 5.0 | December 1999 |
Windows XP | 5.1 | August 2001 |
Windows Server 2003 | 5.2 | March 2003 |
Windows Vista | 6.0 (Build 6000) | January 2007 |
Windows Server 2008 | 6.0 (Build 6001) | March 2008 |
Windows 7 | 6.1 (Build 7600) | October 2009 |
Windows Server 2008 R2 | 6.1 (Build 7600) | October 2009 |
The “7” in the “Windows 7” product name does not refer to the internal version number, but is rather a generational index. In fact, to minimize application compatibility issues, the version number for Windows 7 is actually 6.1, as shown in Table 1-1. This allows applications checking for the major version number to continue behaving on Windows 7 as they did on Windows Vista. In fact, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have identical version/build numbers because they were built from the same Windows code base.