The last stop for Vista is a windowless conference room in Building 26, on Microsoft's sprawling campus in the Seattle suburbs.
Each day, members of the Windows team gather inside this "shiproom" to go over the bugs that remain, and to debate which of these can still be fixed in the days left until the product is declared finished, a milestone that is expected any time now.
The intense "end game," as these final weeks are known, is a well-worn tradition inside the shiproom, which is on the third floor of the Windows development building. The small room, with its dated, dark wood conference table has been the war room for every Windows release since Windows 2000.
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