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Windows 7 To Be Called ... Windows 7
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Oct 14, 2008 08:31 AM
from the but-most-folks-call-me-jim dept.
from the but-most-folks-call-me-jim dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Mike Nash came forward today in a blog post on the Windows Vista Blog and revealed the official name for Windows Code Name '7' as simply 'Windows 7.' The reasoning, by Mr. Nash, is that Windows 7 is 'the seventh release of Windows.' As much wonderful sense as this makes on first glance, it seems as if Microsoft's marketing teams pulled this number out of thin air: the Windows 7 kernel is version 6.1, and there's no way Windows 7 adds up as the seventh release of Windows anyway."
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Submission: Windows 7 to be called Windows 7... for no reason. by Anonymous Coward
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Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
the Windows 7 kernel is version 6.1
Perhaps they simply wanted to avoid the inevitable Windows 6, SP 6, Revision 6 ... of the beast?
Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno, it works out if you do consumer OSs:
Win 3
Win 95
Win 98
Win ME
Win XP
Vista
Win 7
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Informative)
Per the wiki, Win 95, 98, and ME are all revisions of version 4, which makes xp 5, vista 6, and 7 7.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
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Isn't There a biblical passage For This? (Score:5, Funny)
"...and on the seventh day he rested".
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually it made me more think of Windows Seven [imdb.com], but that's just me. A few parts bloat, some OS X envy and some lust for world dominance and you're pretty much there.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah - so you were imagining a Borg cluster of those.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
actually, her full designation is "Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One."
but i don't really watch Star Trek...
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait for the commercials of Windows Se7en being released. Morgan Freeman, fresh off a Mac commercial, signing for the package and having Brad Pitt pace around screaming, "What's in the box?!"
Come to think of it...
http://therawfeed.com/pix/steve_ballmer-2.jpg [therawfeed.com]
http://www.theambler.com/images/KevinSpaceySe7en.jpg [theambler.com]
Oh shit, I think we're on to something.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, that's good...
Freeman: Hi, I'm a Mac
Pitt: And I'm a PC.
Freeman: So, PC, what's in the box?
Pitt: I dunno, something Linux gave me.
Spacey: Hey guys. Go ahead and open it. Hope you like surprises.
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Isn't Seven lucky in China: No (Score:5, Informative)
No, in China 8 is the luckiest number. Partly because the word (ba) sounds like that for "prosperity".
It's actually in western countries that 7 is lucky.
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Re:Isn't Seven lucky in China (Score:5, Insightful)
um, that's not how software sales work. it costs a lot of money to develop new software, but not to make copies of it. as sales volume increases, unit costs shrink to zero. and someone downloading a copy of Windows off of the internet (or buying a pirated disk) doesn't cost Microsoft anything. it's not like each time a pirate duplicates the 1's and 0's that Windows consists of, Microsoft suddenly loses money or has their operational costs increased.
and selling the OS for $66 in a different market doesn't affect the U.S. market in any way. they're not selling the product at a loss; they're still making money on each sale. so who are you subsidizing? if you feel the need to give Microsoft your money, that's your choice. that doesn't mean other people have to do the same. Chinese consumers refused to buy the OS at Microsoft's initial price point. so Microsoft was forced to lower the price to get people to buy their product. this happens with every market and has nothing to do with piracy.
if you think Microsoft is charging you too much for their OS, then maybe you shouldn't have bought it. don't bitch about Chinese consumers holding out for a better deal just because you're stupid with your own money.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Informative)
No, no, no. You see the "consumer" 16/32-bit version of Windows is dead. It was never updated after Win98/ME. The current versions we use are actually part of the "professional" 32/64-bit NT line, and the major releases include:
Windows NT 3.1 (which was actually 1.0, but Microsoft called it 3.1 for marketing reasons)*
Windows NT 4.0 (1996)
Windows NT 5.0 (Windows 2000)
Windows NT 5.1 (XP in 2001)
Windows NT 6.0 (Vista in 2006)
Windows NT 7.0 (Windows 7)
* Another reason it may have been called 3.1, was because it was originally supposed to be a joint IBM-Microsoft release of OS/2 3.0 but which later fell apart.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Informative)
Going back in history, here were the versions and reasons for numbering (I was in the channel back in those days so I still remember a lot of this):
Windows 1.0 - program launcher that competed with things like Desqview.
Windows 2.x - A full "environment" that also shipped as a runtime for programs that required a GUI on DOS. PageMaker was a good example, it came with the Windows runtime. Also available as a version with rudimentary 386 support
Windows 3.0 - This was the first version of Windows most users saw back then. It supported 386 mode fully, and was really the first version to be used as a full-time GUI by most folks. They made a huge retail push back then to get it out there. Windows 3 was the first version to be produced post-IBM split and pretty much killed the OS/2 market in infancy.
Windows 3.1 was an improvement to 3.0. It also was released around the same time as the first NT version, so for marketing reasons NT 1.0 was labeled as NT 3.1, so as to help them differentiate between the "pro" and "consumer" Windows versions.
3.11, Windows for Workgroups, etc. were all branches off this tree.
Windows NT continued to evolve to the 3.5 and 3.51 branches. Meanwhile, Microsoft kept working on a DOS-based version of Windows that was initially called "Chicago" in-house and was versioned as Windows 4.0. That became Windows 95 when it shipped. Windows 95 was the basis for Windows 95 OSR2 (added initial USB support and some other stuff), Windows 98, and finally Windows ME. Thus endeth the DOS-based line of Windows.
Meanwhile, Windows NT was revved up to 4.0, gaining the Windows 95 GUI and moving video and printing into the kernel. This bought big performance improvements but at the cost of introducing us to the modern BSOD (most fatal errors back then seemed to trace down to the video drivers). NT 4 became the basis for NT 5.0, which became known to us as Windows 2000.
Windows 200 introduced USB support to Windows, along with some of the usability improvements that were in consumer Windows at the time and also brought us Active Directory - their attempt to dethrone Novell as directory services king.
It worked.
Windows 2000 still really wasn't a "consumer-worthy" OS, so for NT 5.1 they focused on the user experience. They prettied up the UI, added features like System Restore, and split the desktop OS into Home and Professional versions. It became Windows XP.
Meanwhile on the server side, Microsoft was taking that same kernel and rebuilding it into a successor to Windows 2000 Server. It, in turn, became Windows 2003 Server (version 5.2).
The next project was to produce a successor OS. The codebase got revved up to what became Windows 6.0, and it wound up coming out as Windows Vista and, after a year's more development the server version became Windows Server 2008. Both are based on the 6.0 codebase.
So now comes Windows 7.0 - the server version will be AKA Windows Server 2008 R2 and will break into a 64-bit version only.
So the numbering overlapped for a while, but if you look at the original Windows history and then pick up NT from there it mostly makes sense. There have been some branches and dead ends (All the 16-bit Windows versions after 95, CE, XP Embedded), but the main line goes 16-bit to 95, then picks up 32-bit with NT and goes 32-bit and up only with 2000 (5.0) and beyond.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows is actually TWO families of programs, and each family follows a divergent path:
Family 1 (MS-DOS based shells)
Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
DEAD (no longer updated by Microsoft)
Family 2:
IBM/microsoft OS/2 1.0 (joint venture)
IBM/microsoft OS/2 2.0 (joint)
IBM/microsoft OS/2 3.0 (never-released prototype)
Windows NT 3.1 (the program that resulted after microsoft split from IBM)
Windows NT 4.0 (1996)
Windows NT 5.0 (Windows 2000)
Windows NT 5.1 (XP in 2001)
Windows NT 6.0 (Vista in 2006)
Windows NT 7.0 (Windows 7)
I hope that clears things up, and it makes sense when viewed in that manner. Windows 7 is a logical progression of programs over the last ~25 years.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
You made me look up the video [youtube.com]. I want the last 6 minutes and 41 seconds of my life back.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Informative)
3.1 had support for 386 protected mode. And one of the two included games were different.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, some of us live in a Country that just celebrated "Columbus Day" when Christopher Columbus "discovered" America.
Never mind that there were people living here already.
If we can have the cognitive dissonance to celebrate this day, then we can certainly ignore Windows versions prior to 3.11. :)
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Western Civ 100 (Score:5, Insightful)
> Well, some of us live in a Country that just celebrated "Columbus Day" when Christopher Columbus "discovered" America.
Well allow me to help fill in the gaps your education apparently left. You see, once upon a time we were all part of something called Western Civilization.
History, as it was taught and once generally thought of in the lands of the West, was the story of a great Civilization coming up from the muck to finally stand upon the threshold of space. It is a great story, full of mighty deeds, terrible mistakes, great men and the most horrible villians. It is the story of the rise of science and reason and of the religious and philosophical ideas that made science and learning seem worthy things. It is the story of the rise of capitalism and the madness of the failed experiment of fascism and communism since both spring from the Western tradition. It is the story of the birth of ideas such as individual liberty whose logical consequences lead to the West ending slavery, the rule of law instead of the whim of kings which has allowed us to govern ourselves in peace and prosperity.
Now we face our greatest challenge. Will we throw off the rot within which seeks to destroy our civilization; and thus regaining the confidence of old prove worthy to take our place in space or will our civilization fade away in a fog of post modern doubt. We get to live in most interesting times. We get to see one of the greatest struggles of all time play out. Real history is more exciting than even JRR Tolkien's fiction if ya know how to approach it.
From the perspective of Western Civ, Columbus indeed 'discovered' America in that he introduced the 'New World' into the story. That there were primitives already here didn't really matter in the bigger story. And they didn't, they are little more than local color in any serious history. Their culture was so far below the Europeans they simply ddin't stand a chance. Not passing judgement here, not saying whether it was 'right' or 'wrong', just that it is what happened. Now by modern (and especially post modern...) notions of morality what happened was wrong. But remember that ideas of right and wrong have been evolving almost as fast as science and tech and it is just as important to view the past through the lens of the morals of the day as it is to take into account their lack of modern tech.
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Re:Western Civ 100 (Score:5, Interesting)
That there were primitives already here didn't really matter in the bigger story. And they didn't, they are little more than local color in any serious history. Their culture was so far below the Europeans they simply ddin't stand a chance. Not passing judgement here, not saying whether it was 'right' or 'wrong', just that it is what happened.
I'm gonna have to go ahead here, and disagree with you on this one. See, the first years of colonization were fraught with native/colonist battles, skirmishes, and bitterness. From the beginning onwards, it really gave colonists this sense that they were truly "better" than these barbaric and uncouth natives. As time progressed, and colonies began to turn into nations (I'm going to stick with America here mostly), this notion of superiority transformed into one of the biggest driving factors in recent history; the idea of American Exceptionalism.
Americans, from the beginning, felt they were exceptional for many reasons; overthrowing the king, bringing democracy to the land, being enlightened, what have you. However, I would contend that one of the biggest factors contributing to this mindset came during the period of American westward expansion. As America pushed into the frontier, they felt they were spreading civilization across the land - land that was formerly native. They felt they had a duty to the world, to spread this civilization.
So they did. This is where Manifest Destiny came from - Americans are the biggest, baddest, and most enlightened people in town, and we're enlightening you too (whether you like it or not). Would America have grown to the size it is today without this ideal? Probably not. The Mexican-American war was started largely because of manifest destiny (James Polk ran on a platform of American expansion), and that's where nearly 1/4 our (continental) geographical size came from. However, geography isn't the big deal with American Exceptionalism; it's all about foreign policy.
From the 1890s onward, America was openly expansionist; the Philippines were more or less ours, Hawaii was up for grabs, etc. However, American Exceptionalism was about spreading culture, not land. So damn near every chance America got, we exerted our influence (Roosevelt w/ "speak softly and carry a big stick", Wilson/WW1/League of Nations, Truman/UN). Even today, I would argue that our entire foreign policy is driven, at some points openly, and other points subtly, by the ideal of American Exceptionalism.
A perfect example, I feel, is Iraq. We weren't invading Iraq for oil; we were invading for two reasons (according to our President, mind you). First and foremost, to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, and his very terrible weapons of mass destruction. Second, to bring democracy to the Iraqis. Now, doesn't that sound an awful lot like the great, civilized, exceptional Americans making the "barbaric" parts of the world just like us?
So to just brush aside the natives as a non-event is silly. They were the evidence that American Exceptionalism was "right"; if they could be civilized, so could the rest of the world. They were not the origin of American Exceptionalism, but they did a hell of a lot to justify that ideal, and the effects of that justification can be felt very clearly today.
Note: I'm trying my best to be objective. Whether I feel America is exceptional or not, the fact of the matter, is that America felt it was exceptional, and has for 200 years.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Informative)
There were two versions of Windows before Windows 3, that's why they called it Windows 3. And Windows 3 wasn't an OS, it was a shell that ran on top of DOS. Some people say that Windows 3 was an OS because it had drivers for certain pieces of hardware. I disagree, unless you are willing to call all the contemporary games with Soundblaster drivers "operating systems" too. The first consumer OS Microsoft produced was Windows 95. It still used DOS as a makeshift bootloader, but that's about it.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite. You could still 'Exit from Windows' to DOS in early versions of 95. The only reason DOS 7 and Windows 4 got melded together as Win95 was to cut DR-DOS out of the market. It wasn't until Windows ME that the underlying MS-DOS was really hidden.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Informative)
The first consumer OS Microsoft produced was Windows 95. It still used DOS as a makeshift bootloader, but that's about it.
Okay, this is probably being a bit picky, but since we're on Slashdot I'll burn some karma. DOS was used for a whole lot more than a boot loader on Windows95. MS wanted the world to think that Win95 was fully 32bit by hiding it's 3.1/DOS design but it certainly was the underlying technology. If you ran a win16 application then the entire system dropped down to cooperative multitasking and your 32bit apps were just along for the klunky ride. Tons of system calls were thunked down to 16bit. Win95 was a commercial success but it was a shameful, ugly hack that still was still DOS at its core and had most of the design "issues" that it's predecessor had. MS set the entire computer industry back by at least half a decade by pawning that trash off on the consumer market.
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
since we're on Slashdot I'll burn some karma
Where else would you burn karma? Hindu.org?
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Re:You need a lesson in OS (Score:5, Funny)
The Disk Operating System is not an operating system?
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know they sucked and hardly anyone used them, but that kind of overlooks Windows v1 & v2. I think it makes more sense if you go with the major steps of the UI:
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
There's something (XP), missing (XP) from your list (XP).
I wonder (XP) what it could be (XP)?
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Re:Isn't There an Iron Maiden Song For This? (Score:5, Funny)
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Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
I will wait for Windows 7.11 for Workgroups
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
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version? (Score:5, Funny)
(blinks) (Score:5, Insightful)
Does...anyone really care? It's just a name.
Frigging *pick* one and get back to work.
Re:(blinks) (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, "Windows 7" may have a small impact on geeks but let's not forget MS's target is Average Joe to whom it may sound nicer than "Longhorn" or "Fiesty" which also don't mean much to me. What the hell are Fiesty and Gusty and which one is better? What's the difference between them? Now look at it like this: We have Windows 7, there were 6 other versions before it and that alone makes it "better", which means it's cool! I know this isn't true but it's the way Joe thinks and it's what MS is trying to sell.
MS is choosing a name for their product and people complain that there are more important things? It depends what your job is, but software developers should actually take a few moments and think about this and try to avoid naming their applications like cat, fsck, vi, nice, apt, sudo, etc. You have to admit, "type" is more intuitive than "cat."
In other words: Application names are a lot more important than you might think.
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not counting vista (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe Microsoft isn't counting Vista. And Windows 7 sounds way better than Windows Vista Do-Over Edition.
Lets count: (Score:4, Funny)
Windows 1.x = 1
Windows 2.x = 2
Windows 3.x = 3
Windows NT 3.5 = um... 3.5?
Windows NT 4 = 4
Windows 2000 = 5
Windows XP = 6
Windows Vista = null
Windows 7 = 7
Ta-da!
Re:Lets count: (Score:5, Informative)
*sigh*
No, Windows 1.x, 2.x and 3.x aren't part of the NT line. TFA and everyone are conflating two completely different operating systems just because they all happen to be named Windows:
1 = Windows NT 3.1
2 = Windows NT 3.5
3 = Windows NT 4.0
4 = Windows 2000
5 = Windows XP
6 = Windows Vista
7 = Windows 7
So, you see it makes perfect sense.
Now someone tell me why I'm defending Microsoft because I have no idea.
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check the count. (Score:5, Informative)
1.) November 1985 Windows 1.01
2.) November 1987 Windows 2.03
2.) March 1989 Windows 2.11
3.) May 1990 Windows 3.0
3.) March 1992 Windows 3.1x
3.) October 1992 Windows For Workgroups 3.1
4.) July 1993 Windows NT 3.1 NT 3.1
3.) December 1993 Windows For Workgroups 3.11
3.) January 1994 Windows 3.2 (released in Simplified Chinese only)
4.) September 1994 Windows NT 3.5
4.) May 1995 Windows NT 3.51
5.) August 1995 Windows 95
6.) July 1996 Windows NT 4.0
7.) June 1998 Windows 98
8.) May 1999 Windows 98 SE
9.) February 2000 Windows 2000
10.) September 2000 Windows Me
11.) October 2001 Windows XP
11.) March 2003 Windows XP 64-bit Edition
12.) April 2003 Windows Server 2003
11.) April 2005 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
13.) July 2006 Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
14.) January 2007 (retail) Windows Vista
15.) July 2007 Windows Home Server
16.) February 2008 Windows Server 2008
17.) 2010 (planned) Windows 7
It's just release date phobia (Score:5, Insightful)
If they tacked on a year to the product name, they'd be bound to that date and would never hear the end of it when it's late.
Windows Spinal Tap (Score:5, Funny)
Mike Nash : The OSes all go to seven. Look, right across the board, seven, seven, seven and...
PHB : Oh, I see. And most OSes top off at Vista?
Mike Nash : Exactly.
PHB : Does that mean it's better? Is it any better?
Mike Nash : Well, it's one better, isn't it? It's not Vista. You see, most blokes, you know, will be using Vista. You're on Vista here, all the way up, all your CPUs burning, all the way up, you're on Vista on your PC. Where can you go from there? Where?
PHB : I don't know.
Mike Nash : Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
PHB : Put it up to seven.
Mike Nash : Seven. Exactly. One better.
PHB : Why don't you just make Vista better and make Vista be the top number and make that a little better?
Mike Nash : [pause] These go to seven.
They need to be cool like Apple. (Score:5, Funny)
Apple names their versions after cats and what chases cats?
So Windows CE/Mobile will be called Windows Poodle.
Windows 7 will be Windows Jackal.
Too obsessive (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that slashdotters don't like Microsoft, but isn't it a little too obsessive to be criticising them for their version numbering scheme? Isn't that like hating someone because their hair is just the wrong shade of brown or the daiameter of the buttons on their shirt are a millimetre too small?
It should actually be called Windows 21 (Score:5, Interesting)
Found this amusing critique buried in the comments of TFMSB (the fine MS blogpost):
Win 3.1 (Normal)
Win 3.11WG (Good)
WinNT (bad)
WinNT3.5 (normal)
Win95 (bad)
Win95+Patch (normal)
Win98 (bad)
Win98SE (good)
WinME (pathetic)
Win2000 (bad)
Win2000 SP1 (less bad)
Win2000 SP2 (normal)
Win2000 SP3 (good)
Win2000 SP4 (excellent)
WinXP (bad)
WinXP SP1 (less bad)
WinXP SP2 (normal)
WinXP SP3 (good)
WinVista (bad)
WinVista SP1 (less bad)
Re:What happened to Windows 6? (Score:5, Funny)
You are _happy_ with Windows and you ask what's wrong with you? On Slashdot? You must be new here.
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Re:Kinda makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah but it'd be a disappointing experience.
Unzipping would take ages, Then it'll be
"Do you want me baby? [Yes][No][Cancel]"
Windows is opening it's mouth [Allow][Deny]
Windows is attempting to access penis [Allow][Deny]
Detecting New Hardware [2 hour wait]
Disappointing blowjob with crap animation.
Windows has detected you're attempting to ejaculate - You do not have sufficient permissions - Fatal Error
BSOD! No steak for you!
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Re:Kinda makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
Then you get it home and it actually turns out to be the "tofu and long meaningful discussion about where our relationship is going" edition.
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