A Microsoft executive has leaked a general release date for Windows Vista, Exchange 2007 and Office 2007.

Microsoft has revealed a general release date for its upcoming operating system Windows Vista--5 December, 2006.

Speaking to IT professionals, parliamentarians and senior law-enforcement officers at the Parliament and Internet conference in London on Thursday, Microsoft revealed its release plans.

"We will officially launch Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 on 5 December," said David Hipwell, a Windows client sales professional at Microsoft.

Microsoft had originally slated Vista for a 2006 fourth quarter release, then revised Vista's estimated time of arrival to January 2007. Thursday's statement firmly pushed the general release date back into the original pre-Christmas slot. The business version of Vista (Vista Business) is still expected in November.

View: Full Article
News source: Technology News at ZDNet UK

I hope the hardware and software vendors are upto snuff on their drivers and support before then. Vista itself is stable but the 3rd party shit isn't.

December 5? Yeah! I can't wait!

I'm skeptical that the hardware vendors are ready... RTM is in less then two weeks, and drivers still suck.

Well, many drivers are still in beta so that's why they "suck" as you say. I'm 99.999% positive that by RTM all drivers will be up to par for all major devices.

Also many drivers are for beta testers only of the respected product. So many of the "public beta" drivers are old and do not reflect their real value. Such as ATI, Nvidia, and Creative drivers...

dang, december 5? thats not to far away, i was still thinking january

Yay!!

Who cares?

Clicking on the link to the full story, shows it's already been removed. Very suspicious there. The other link says it won't be delayed in Europe. Doesn't mention anywhere else. I guess we can let the Europeans have a non finished Vista. For testing purposes!!

This sucks. I mean I have to find a new reason to keep reformatting every two weeks. Where's are all the Vienna leaks already?

Ummm. It is December 5...
I have 2 tickets to the Vista/Office 2007 Launch in Canada. One in Toronto on December 5th (official launch date)
One in Montreal Decemebr 7.

Microsoft begs to differ from the December 5 launch date.
"Microsoft Corp. today confirmed that it is on track to deliver Windows Vista™ for worldwide availability to its volume license business customers in November..."
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2...aReleasePR.mspx

Last year we had a thread on when Longhorn would launch. I predicted that if longhorns could fly at all they would take off on Halloween night and get up to speed to fly in the first week of November. We're on countdown to see when in November Vista flys.

I think this December 5 is just a date for the Vista PR boys to launch their campaign into orbit. The general availability date for Vista is still January 2007.

Dell will probably be taking orders for Vista PC's on December 5. But when will they be delivered, December 06 or January 07??

@The Urologist: It will probably be a while before Vienna starts leaking, LH didn't start for about a year after XP was released.