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A presentation given at the company's WinHEC conference suggested the company is planning to have the operating system ready by the middle of next year, according to one report.

“Definitely the holiday [2009] focus is going to be on 7,” Microsoft executive, Doug Howe, told the site’s reporter.

Microsoft has

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until now remained non-committal on the Windows 7 launch date, sticking to the company line that the operating system would appear roughly three years after the launch of Vista, which would be January 2010.

At last week's Professional Developers Conference, Windows chief Stephen Sinofsky batted away questions about the launch date.

"We really do mean we'll ship it when it's ready." he said

However, Microsoft drew strong criticism from PC vendors when it launched Vista to the general public in January 2007, just missing out on the vital Christmas sales period. It seems the company is now attempting to avoid past mistakes and will have the operating system ready to roll in plenty of time for the holiday season.

A first public beta has been distributed to developers and journalists and subsequently, inevitably, to all and sundry via p2p networks. The response has been generally positive, with testers noting widespread and significant improvements over Vista.