Steve Ballmer says Microsoft would make sure it releases new Windows versions more quickly.
"We will never have a five-year gap between releases of flagship products," he said, referring to the gap between Windows XP's October 2001 release and the debut of Windows Vista, currently slated for January.
Microsoft has not said when Vista's successor, code-named Vienna, might ship or what features it will contain.
Despite the desire to make Windows releases more frequent, Ballmer said there will always be people trying to work on things that take years to make happen. "We just won't promise them to customers and hold up big releases," Ballmer said.
