While Microsoft is seemingly on a crusade to stamp out talk about the future (even going so far as to hire an acting legend to detect "MS-BS" with a $2 horn), that hasn't waned our enthusiasm for digging up evidence of the future anyways.

Microsoft has pulled some pretty dumb moves lately in the name of secrecy; the lid on SP1 and the press release about "Windows Seven" being the most obvious to come to mind. But mere days after someone spotted a running build of SP1 at WinHEC 07, Long Zheng has discovered the first written by none other than Microsoft itself.

AFAIK, SP1 is still on track to be delivered simultaneously with Windows Server 2008. It's far enough away from Vista's RTM and close enough away to shipping that Microsoft should confirm its existence. In fact, beta testers should be given builds in the next month or so to start testing. And since it's shipping in the next 5 months or so, Microsoft should start giving guidance for all those companies (Intel, I'm looking at you) who are holding off until SP1 to deploy Vista.

Hey Microsoft, we all know it exists. It's time to quit playing dumb before you start looking stupid. You're gonna have to let the cat out of the bag sometime. And June sounds like a good month to do it.