Microsoft plans major Windows 7 announcement – urp

Okay, so I’m seeing notices all over the Internet that Microsoft is going to make a “major” Windows 7 announcement shortly. InfoWorld said:

Microsoft will make “major new announcements” relating to its forthcoming Windows 7 operating system when it launches the Release Candidate of the OS, according to a British technology news site.

Well, of course Microsoft will make major new announcements when the RC ships. It’s another non-news event that doesn’t even rise above the background level – one of the reasons why I haven’t posted anything about it.

That was until I read Paul Thurrot’s take on the topic:

I do know what at least one of these big surprises is. And no, I’m not talking. But let’s just say I’ve been hinting at it for a while now.

Gad.

My guess is that Microsoft will announce some sort of Windows XP emulator that runs under Windows 7 Enterprise Edition. (No, they won’t call it an emulator, they’ll call it “Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation” but – with apologies to the developers who hate the term – it’s basically a fancy emulator.) That’ll make a lot of companies happy. But it’s not something I would call major.

Major would be an announcement about Morro. You may recall that Morro is the promised FREE Microsoft antivirus/antimalware program that’s supposed to ship in “the second half of 2009.” Ryan Naraine has a good write-up on his ZDNet blog.

I’d stand up and cheer for Morro – if only because it’d reduce the cries of pain from Norton and McAfee users.