Asked at a US analyst meeting whether Windows XP users should upgrade to Windows Vista, or wait for Windows 7, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer replied: "If people want to wait, they certainly can”. Mr Ballmer was speaking at a technology conference in Florida hosted by Gartner, which is now archived as a webcast on the research company’s website.

Despite his surprisingly laissez faire attitude, Mr Ballmer rejected talk that Vista’s successor, Windows 7 (going alpha October 27) would be essentially a minor, incremental upgrade. While it will share Vista’s code base – to head-off the compatibility woes that initially bedevilled Vista – Windows 7 will be a major new release, Mr Ballmer says:

"It [Windows 7] is a real release because it's a lot more work than a minor release. It turns out you can [do] more than just a minor release in what is essentially a two-and-a-half year period of time. We didn't have to go in an incompatible direction to make big strides forward,” says Mr Ballmer. Among Windows 7’s enhancement’s will be support for an iPhone-style multitouch PC display. Beyond that, it will simply be "just a lot better" than Vista" says Mr Ballmer, without elaborating into detail.

He adds that Vista's codebase will be used not just by Windows 7, but many OS upgrades to come.

Yet in the same conversation, Ballmer also appears to lean more toward the minor upgrade thesis:

"Windows Vista is good;  Windows 7 is Windows Vista with clean-up in user interface [and] improvements in performance," Mr Ballmer says.

Mr Ballmer also says he would not skip the current Windows. "Look, I'm not encouraging anybody to wait. I'd go ahead and deploy [Vista] right away.”

It seems the major upgrade/minor upgrade debate won’t be settled until Windows 7, due for final release early 2010, makes its first major public appearance in alpha October 27.

Mr Ballmer also notes during his Gartner appearance that Vista now has 180 million users, despite the continuing availability of its predecessor, Windows XP and some bad press.