I've never understood the tech world's love affair with "code names." Consider Windows Vista: For years it was known widely by its code name, "Longhorn." And just when everyone got used to calling it Longhorn, Microsoft up and sprang a new name on us, and the education process had to start again from scratch. Reporters and consumers continued to use the code name for months before finally switching over.

Intel is even worse: It has dozens of code names for its various chip projects, some of which are nearly unpronounceable. Intel's code names are so ingrained in its products that they persist even after the product is launched, much to the confusion of the general public, which couldn't begin to tell you the difference between your Meroms and your Montevinas.

Well Microsoft has finally taken a step in the right direction on the code name front: The Windows 7 project (which has additional code names but which has primarily been referred to as just "Windows 7") is going to be released with its current moniker intact. Windows 7, when it's released circa January 2010, will be known as just that: Windows 7.

In a blog post explaining the naming decision, Microsoft says that the decision to go back to a version-number naming system (which hasn't been used since the Windows 3.x series in the early 1990s) is all about "simplicity." After playing with dates (95, 98, 2000), largely meaningless characters (XP), and "aspirational monikers" (Vista), we've come full ciricle, and I'm thankful for it. (One has to imagine the company would also like to distance itself from the Vista brand name as much as it can, too.)

Hopefully Microsoft will stick with version numbers going forward. As the company says, it really does simplify things for everyone and makes it easy to comprehend the relative distance between different versions, plus it means a lot less typing for me.