The development of Windows 7 has been exciting and relatively easy to follow, but a branch in the Windows 7 code base has recently caused a lot of confusion around the build numbers. The common misconception is that a larger build number means that the build is more recent than a build with a smaller number. Due to the recent branch in code base, this is no longer the case. The good guys at Icrontic have put up a very detailed post documenting on how to understand build numbers and the branching of the code base during development.
Branching Windows 7
You have undoubtedly noticed that all the builds up until this point have come from the 70xx.0.winmain line, so you’re wondering where this 7106 build came from, and you’re probably wondering if it’s better than 7077. Here’s the hard fact: It’s not.
When a project enters the code escrow phase, a development team can no longer afford to experiment with code changes when they only have one copy of the code (the winmain trunk). Bug fixes are not guaranteed to fix a bug, and they’re perfectly capable of spawning their own problems. So if Microsoft can’t afford to experiment with bug fixes on the winmain line, what can it do? It branches the code base.
A branch is a body of code created as an offshoot from the trunk of the development tree. This is different from a fork where the new project follows its own development path and may end up entirely different from the results of trunk development.
As a result Microsoft branching the Windows 7 project, it now has two parallel developments:
winmain_win7rc (Windows 7 build 70xx)
winmain (Windows 7 build 71xx)
As of now, this is how the builds are pegged to each other in each of the branches:
Build 7075.winmain (April 1) = 7105.winmain [April 4]
Build 7076.winmain (April 2) = 7106.winmain [April 8]
Build 7077.winmain_win7rc (April 4) = 7107.winmain [April 9]
If you want a more detailed understanding of build strings and how the Windows 7 branch operates, you can go here >
http://icrontic.com/articles/charting-windows-7-development
