May 2001 - Longhorm development started. Expected release date: 2003
October 2001 - Windows XP released
June 2002 - Milestone 1 released, based on Windows XP codebase
July 2002 - Milestone 2, first leaked build with the temporary "Plex" visual theme
September 2002 - Build 4029 leaked. The build was oddly named, "onghornLay rofessionalPay". Microsoft claimed this was to test new code that minimised the number of instances of the product name variable
October 2003 - Microsoft releases a build that dumps the "My" prefix before the Documents, Music, Computer folders, etc..
February 2004 - Virtually all Vista programmers diverted to fix XP security with SP2
May 2004 - First build with Aero 3D effects included
August 2004 - XP SP2 released
- Microsoft announces major overhaul of Longhorn. Starts again with Windows Server 2003 codebase.
July 2005 - Microsoft announces "Vista" name, "a clearer view of your files".
- Vista Beta 1 released. Virtual folders make their appearance but feedback tells Microsoft that users don’t understand what they do.
September 2005 - Windows chief Jim Allchin tells the Wall Street Journal the Vista project was "crashing to the ground" due to haphazard development methods
May 2006 - Vista Beta 2 released. Allchin damns it from the outset by demonstrating to a room full of journalists how many authentication prompts in a row show up when deleting an icon from the desktop
September 2006 - Vista RC1 released. The first build of Vista that most people felt was basically useable day-to-day on a work PC
October 2006 - Vista RC2 released
November 2006 - Vista final build pirated before released to anyone outside Microsoft (and activation workaround released).
- Final Vista code released to manufacturing, developers and PC manufacturers.
December 2006 - Vista released to business volume license customers
30 January 2007 - Release of Vista to end users.
