The first release of Windows was Windows 1.0 which was released
in 1985, In 1987 Microsoft released the second operating system which
was Windows 2.0.
The third major release of the Windows platform from Microsoft
was Windows 3.0 in 1990 which offered improved performance, advanced
graphics with 16 colors.
Following Windows 3.0 was Windows NT which was code versioned
as Windows 3.1. Then came Windows 95, which was code versioned as
Windows 4.0. Then, Windows 98, 98 SE and Windows Millennium each
shipped as 4.0.1998, 4.10.2222, and 4.90.3000, respectively. So
all 9x versions were counted as 4.0.
Windows 2000 code was 5.0 and then came Windows XP which was
coded as 5.1. That brings us to Windows Vista, which is 6.0. So Windows 7
is the next logical significant release and 7th in the family of
Windows releases.
