Though there's been plenty of news and innuendo filtering out about Windows 7, we haven't heard much about the next version of Windows Server. Well, it seems Microsoft's begun testing it.According to a blog by Brian Puhl, technology architect in the identity and access management team of Microsoft IT, the company has put its first Windows 7 domain controller into production, just a few weeks after the last Windows Server 2003 instance powering Microsoft.com was upgraded to Windows Server 2008. The build number, in case anyone cares, is 6608.winmain_win7m2.080511-1400.

Microsoft has a tradition of dogfooding -- or testing internally -- the stuff it develops before anyone else gets their hands on it. For example, Puhl also notes that Microsoft is testing its forthcoming master data management product, despite the fact that it won't be released until the next version of Office gets shipped.

The few things that we know for sure about Windows 7 are that it will have multitouch support and there will be some changes to the taskbar. We don't even know that much about Windows 7 Server. With Windows Server 2008 generally getting positive reviews, what should Microsoft add or tweak in the next generation? Who knows, maybe we'll hear more in the fall.