Development of Windows Vista How to Find Build and Revision Number of Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 Installed Development of Windows Vista Development of Windows Vista occurred over the span of five and a half years, starting in earnest in May 2001, prior to the release of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and continuing until November 2006. Microsoft originally expected to ship the new version sometime late in 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler") and Windows 7 (codenamed "Blackcomb" and "Vienna"). Vista's original codename, "Longhorn", was an allusion to this plan: While Whistler and Blackcomb are large ski resorts
Windows NT startup process The installer can also be run from a MS-DOS command prompt so previous versions of Microsoft Windows that are already installed can be upgraded. To run the installer from a MS-DOS based operating system such as Windows 98 or Windows ME, the user must start the system "in DOS mode" and then execute I386/WINNT.EXE on the CD-ROM. A floppy disk containing MS-DOS can be used to start the installer. Versions of the installer in floppies were also available for sale. From Windows Vista onwards, the installer runs from BOOT.WIM which contains a bootable version of Windows PE. Windows PE 2.0