This year’s Professional Developers Conference attendees will get a chance to take a look at Windows 7 pre-Beta, Microsoft confirmed. During the 21 different sessions to be held at PDC2008, Microsoft will present more details on the development of Windows 7, which is the next major version of the world’s most popular operating system.

Just one week later, Microsoft will bring Windows 7 pre-Beta to Los Angeles for the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). This will give attendees of both events the opportunity to learn more about Windows 7, including the kernel, networking, hardware, devices and used interface.

Earlier this year, Microsoft decided to shed light on Vista’s successor, and the time to do it was the opening night of the Wall Street Journal’s D6 conference.

The question on everyone’s lips at the time was: is Microsoft trying to make us forget about Vista’s failure? That’s hard to say, and it’s also something I can’t imagine Microsoft would ever admit. But the presentation we saw was more about the touch technology than anything else.

Now, as we expect to see more, people still question, as with every new operating system, the compatibility problems. But Microsoft promised there won’t be any.

According to a Windows Vista Blog posting, Windows Vista already represents a solid foundation in terms of graphics, audio and storage capabilities, and Windows 7 is build on the same foundation, with a little extra in terms of kernel architecture and componentization model.

The announcement that Windows 7 will finally get a proper introduction at PDC2008 came as no surprise, and according to most people, it would have been more surprising if Microsoft had chosen to postpone the moment.