There are a few signs here at TechEd that Microsoft wasn’t quite as sure about the runaway success of Windows 7 as its fanboys (me included).

In planning the layout of the show stalls in the exhibition halls, Microsoft has ensured plenty of space to gently introduce skeptics to its new hot product. You can wander up and furtle about with example machines, and if you stand there too long a Nice Person will come up and ask if you’ve seen this or that cool feature. I thought I was being even ruder than usual by brushing them off – then some Russian delegates popped up beside me and showed me how to do that brush-off thing properly.

Delegate goody bags come with the now traditional t-shirt, and hidden in the depths, an unassuming little Windows 7 DVD, marked “not for resale”. There are also several hundred breakout sessions on the many parts of Windows 7. I suppose it shows how long I’ve been using Windows 7 that I look at the Vista books in the MS tech publication bookstore as oddities, already.

The bias here is massively towards the corporate user base. There’s no ghetto of games developers looking for distribution, no home-software giants or industrial application gurus (though there is an MS stand showing Embedded Windows balancing a weighted pole on top of a feedback mount of sensors & motors – still trying to think of an actual use for that) .

The various hardware vendors have stands here – but their sizes in terms of square feet can catch you unawares. Ten people might just fit in the Lenovo stand; 150 on the Dell stand. Intel are here, mostly focussing on persuading developers to write multi-core friendly applications; and right across from it is the AMD stand, dominated by a PC with three monitors running Dirt 2 replays.

I’m still trying to work out what motivates the dozen network and asset management utility providers to establish medium-sized stands here, when they are surrounded by delegates moving between that many seminars on the Microsoft SystemCenter product which, for most corporates, will render their efforts irrelevant.

I am also feeling deeply hurt at the “world fails to catch up” problem over personal identity: only one stand here is offering credit-card style SmartCard makers, readers and writers. I want physical security – a secure key, a SmartCard (but not fingerprints, please)  for my personal login. Where is the MS Mouse with biometric recognition or a smartcard slot built in? It might be a long time coming, judging by this show.