TechGremlinThere have been rumous mainly started by Paul Thurrott at his Windows SuperSite here that Microsoft are keeping under wraps a new UI.
It doesn’t seem that possible this late in the game, sure if they have all the UI coding already in Windows 7 then there are less chances of bugs, but there are still UI bugs that would need testing, visibility/overlapping problems etc.
My theory is a new theme to distance itself from Vista, there are less chances of bugs and they can keep it secret much easier, however looking at how refined the theme is currently (provided it was carried over from Vista and there wasn’t much work to do anyway) it doesn’t look like they would have done all this refining if they had a new theme ready. For example, Windows XP Watercolor wasn’t that refined before they switched over to the much refined Luna, of course refining the current UI to such an extent creates doubt and that’s necessary for a major announcement to gain full surprise.
On second thoughts: Paul Thurrott supposedly already knows what the big announcement is, or at least some of it, so it’s possible he’s just spreading this to get site hits, I see nothing wrong with that.