Microsoft shows excitement over the release of its pre-beta version of Windows 7 at the end of October during the PDC2008 conference in Los Angeles.

"We'll [...] be giving every attendee a pre-beta copy of Windows 7. Yes, you heard that right. You'll be able to install your own copy of Windows 7 and play with it on your hardware. This is a very limited release, and PDC2008 attendees will be the first to get it." said Mike Swanson, a well known technical evangelist at Microsoft. Mike also announced there will be 17 additional Windows 7 sessions during the PDC, and even more are expected to come. Some of the newly introduced sessions include "Integrate with the Windows 7 Desktop Taskbar," "New APIs to Find, Visualize and Organize," and "Best Practices for Developing for Windows Standard User."

Steven Sinofsky, one of the writers behind the Engineering Windows 7 blog and a senior engineer manager at Microsoft, will be also present at the PDC to hold a keynote on Windows 7 and answer questions. Sinofsky will also be seen at WinHEC where he'll hold the keynote speach on Windows 7 on November 5.

The new operating system will be distributed on an external 160GB USB hard drive by Western Digital.