WinHEC looks back at Vista and forward to Windows Server 2008, Windows Home Server, the 64-bit future and the hardware to support Microsoft products.

Bill Gates tells assembled WinHECians that Vista has sold 40 million copies since its release. Unless otherwise noted, all images are copyright and courtesy Microsoft Corporation.

The Windows Hardware Engineering Conference is a balancing act between what's new and next for Windows that PC and peripheral manufacturers can take advantage of and what's happening in hardware that Windows needs to take into account.

Microsoft has two versions of Windows to think about and Bill Gates and Mike Nash kicked off both days of keynote speeches by looking back at Vista. Gates counted off the 40 million copies already sold; pointing out that Vista sold as many copies as "the entire installed base of any other provider of similar software" in just five weeks. And Mike Nash alternately counted off the 1.9 million supported devices, up from 1.5 million at RTM, and dropped hints about the 4,000 products that account for 80% of the error messages saying there's no Vista driver available.

It's not just that Microsoft is taking every opportunity to push Vista (which it is) or to say how well it's doing (as you'd expect). The company wants hardware manufacturers to pick up on some of the developments that Microsoft thinks are important, from Windows Rally for making it easier to connect peripherals to secondary Sideshow screens that take Sidebar gadgets off the main PC screen to the Windows Hardware Error Architecture for making it easier to spot faults, from TV tuners built into every multimedia PC to error correcting memory in every server.

Gates gives Longhorn a "real" name, Windows 2008 Server

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