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More Indications Windows 7 Is Coming In 2009
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Feb 01, 2009 08:28 AM
from the can't-hardly-wait dept.
from the can't-hardly-wait dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following on the news that Microsoft was going straight to a RC for Windows 7, the One Microsoft Way blog has put together some dates on the upcoming roadmap for Vista's successor. Microsoft has always said 'three years after the general availability of Windows Vista,' which was released on January 30, 2007, and that the release date was also dependent on quality. Internally though, Microsoft is saying other things. It looks like we'll see the RC coming in April, and a final RTM version before October 3. Yes, that means Redmond is currently hoping to get Windows 7 out the door in 2009."
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Windows 7 To Skip Straight To a Release Candidate 856 comments
b8fait writes "The head of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows development confirmed that Windows 7 will take the unusual path of moving straight from a single beta, which was launched earlier this month, to a release candidate. Sinofsky fleshed out the plan today and hinted that just as there would be no Beta 2, the company would also not provide a RC2 build. In other words, there may be only one released build of Windows 7 before it ships, possibly much sooner than even some of the most aggressive rumors about Windows 7. How much different can Windows 7 really be with such a shortened beta cycle?"
Submission: More proof Windows 7 is coming in 2009 by Anonymous Coward
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Drivers (Score:4, Informative)
If I recall correctly (rhetorical, I *do* recall correctly) the problem with Vista was *not* the OS itself, but driver support from Vendors.
Even Nvidia were ironing out Video card bugs months past the release date. It took Creative almost 14 months to release a Vista Audigy driver. That's not even touching on people who had to purchase new Wifi cards because the likes of Netgear refused to even release *any* drivers for supporting 'old' hardware (801.22g is super old?).
Unless Redmond is putting pressure back to hardware Vendors, regardless of the much impressed SDLC Microsoft are displaying, the OS will only an *end user* disappointment.
Re:Drivers (Score:5, Interesting)
No it wasn't, it was the fact the release was barely beta quality (corrupting files during copy, UAC going nutso and not letting you do simple things, etc.), it hit the hard drive almost constantly, took 3 times as long as XP to start apps even when fed 4GB of RAM.
Drivers just wasn't the issue.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Changing OS verions is almost as in depth and challenging for a business as completely changing OSs. And costly. There is no "low cost" upgrade path.
Drivers for us were THE issue. Big business class printers cost real money and not one driver was released for Vista. And that was spread amount several manufacturers, so it wasn't isolated. No drivers for our scanning solution either, which handles many thousands of invoices per month.
UI bugs you mentioned are quite legitimate problems preventing adoption. How
Re:Drivers (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Did you use the Vista driver or the native drive of the beta? The Vista driver should be more stable, but will reduce the functionality (not as drastic as using an XP video driver on Vista, which disables Aero, but GDI operations will be on par with Vista, while they will be faster in Windows 7 with a WDDM 1.1 driver).
It was always possible to run a stable video driver at Vista release, and that was the XP drivers. The reduced functionality made it a sour option.
And as the fanbois over the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
are celebrating their Vista SP 2-3, er, Mohave, um, I mean Windows 7 as the greatest thing since sliced bread, and lining up to pay for it; I will still be getting my Ubuntu for free and with an (often) significant upgrade every 6 months.
Don't focus on money! (OT) (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead, one should focus on the legal restrictions on that software. MSDNAA lets me get gratis copies of Windows, sure, but reviewing the license reveals some interesting terms; for example, upon graduation, I am supposed to remove the software from my computer. With Fedora (likewise Ubuntu), there is no such restriction: I am free to use the software for any length of time, regardless of my status as a student or my employment. MSDNAA also forbids the use of the software for any use that is not personal or academic; once more, Fedora (etc.) comes with no such restriction.
Purchasing a copy of Windows in order to gain the right to use the software indefinitely only partially addresses that issue. I cannot modify Windows in such a way that allows me to access it remotely while someone else is accessing it (multi-user access). Again, in Fedora, there is no such restriction.
I do not agree with everything RMS/FSF has to say, but in terms of proprietary versus free-libre licensing, they are spot on.
Parent
Re:Don't focus on money! (OT) (Score:4, Interesting)
Your university is a for profit organization. Guess from where they are getting the money to pay Microsoft for the university wide license.
That's right, your tuition. I hope you are using Windows, as you are paying for it in any case.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't focus on money! (OT) (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope - as a former prof myself, I can tell you that the little college campus I worked at paid Microsoft $1500 per year for the privilege of MSDNAA covering approximately 150-200 students. They kept perfect accounting for it as well, and if the numbers went up, your yearly fees went up.
Meanwhile I was handing out copies of RedHat, Mandrake, Gentoo, and SuSE as fast as my CD burner could spit them out. RedHat themselves sent me a stack of pre-burned CDs when the Linux classes first began in early 2000, and they practically evaporated. The cool part was, I didn't have to give a damn if you were using them for academics or not, and I usually (and gently) extracted a promise that you would share it with someone else if you had a burner at home.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It may go to sporting infrastructure (you're a slashdot poster, so I assume you don't use it
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I do not agree with everything RMS/FSF has to say, but in terms of proprietary versus free-libre licensing, they are spot on.
Your complaints above are not about the licensing, but the cost (albeit in an indirect fashion). If you are prepared to pay for an appropriate Windows license, all of your complaints are addressed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Which is a licensing issue. You need to pay Microsoft to get a license to use the same software in a different way. In the case of free software, that is not true -- you get a license, and from there, you can do what you wish with the software.
Also, the OP was trying to make the point that Ubuntu costs n
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For all the Linux and open source community says about embracing freedom there are always a few "evangelists" who completely miss the point. While people such as yourself continue to "promote" Linux by rubbishing the opposition (both product and people) millions of Windows users will continue to think of Linux as a geek toy used by nerds and children.
Anyone and everyone should be free to use whichever OS they fancy. If someone asks why Linux is great then explain, but please don't refer to Windows users as
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For Linux users, it comes purely from the fact that we aren't using Windows.
It also comes from the fact that we didn't pay a premium for a stylish and well done product ;)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So, you're saying you got a product for free that wasn't well designed and not particularly well done? ;-)
Problems in Vista still unresolved in Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
The Protected Video Path has introduced several problems with pre-existing software that deals with video and works perfectly with XP but fails in Vista. I operate in the healthcare segment, and GE's medical records software still does not possess Vista support. PACS viewers from major companies like VEPRO and E-Film still do not support Vista.
Given that three are no architectural changes in Windows 7; these problems will remain with Windows 7 and corporates looking to use pre-existing application software will stick with XP as long as they can.
http://www.merge.com/na/efilmlanding.htm [merge.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Here is a more relevant link... this page has remained so for the past 1 year and more...
https://www.merge.com/NA/estore/content.aspx?pname=eFilm%20Workstation%E2%84%A2&returnUrl=&productID=215&contentTypeID=4 [merge.com]
MS Vista Users:
eFilm Workstation 3.0 is currently undergoing testing for operation within the MS Vista operating system environment, and will be validated for use in Vista systems soon.
Supported Operating Systems:
Windows 2000 Professional (SP4 or higher)
Windows XP Professional (SP2)
Re:Problems in Vista still unresolved in Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
" Yes, the PVP was introduced with Vista, but it's up to your app provider to update their app to work with newer versions of the OS. Same as it ever was."
What gives Microsoft the right to change the way the Windows platform handles media content? Healthcare providers have no necessity to watch Hollywood movies on their screens... just patient's medical records. Why should software providers keep rewriting their code just because of Microsoft's whims and fancies? The cost of software deployment keeps going up without any increase in value... the value proposition for Windows gets diminished as a result.
I am now trying to get a Linux version of the viewer to replace all Windows PCs and get rid of the problem forever.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The userland API is pretty stable -- and changes are pretty trivial to work around. It's the in-kernel linux API that is constantly getting slammed for not being set in stone.
Btw, the linux analog to graphics is X11. X11R7 is from 2005, and is backwards-compatible with X11R6, from 1994.
RTFM? (Score:2, Funny)
So finally Windows will start telling the users to RTFM, well, without the F word?
But, DirectX 11 in Vista too (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3507 [anandtech.com]
"To be fair, the OS upgrade requirement also threw a wrench in the gears. That won't be a problem this time, as Vista still sucks but will be getting DX11 support and Windows 7 looks like a better upgrade option for XP users than Vista. Developers who haven't already moved from DX9 may well skip DX10 altogether in favor of DX11 depending on the predicted ship dates of their titles, all signs point to DX11
Windows 7 = Vista Service's version of XP SP2 (Score:4, Insightful)
For those who loved Windows 2000, Windows XP SP2 was the version of Windows XP that finally got holdouts to switch.
Windows 7 is built on Vista. Like XPSP2, Windows 7 fixes almost all the bad aspects of Vista and adds new features and tweaks. With such a promising, upcoming OS, it's no wonder why MS is having a hard time finishing Vista SP2. It must be like coding for a dead fork.
Windows 7 (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to admit, Windows 7 actually looks really good. I may even get a home PC loaded up with it again, just to have it on hand.
Still will be mainly a Mac user. But I will be finally comfortable recommending Windows 7 to those who need to run Windows.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I had the opposite reaction. I put Windows 7 Beta on a VirtualBox partition on my Mac and tried using it for awhile, and I find using it awful. Compared to XP it feels like a mish-mash of web interfaces and compared to MacOS X it feels like a toy. I would still recommend XP over Windows 7 any day of the week, and recommend neither to any non-geek or non-business user.
!notnews (Score:2, Insightful)
Who cares when it will be released. Windows Se7en will still require the outlandish hardware that Vista does. Most Enterprises will not be migrating to it anytime soon due to cost and time of upgrading desktops and application incompatibility for their outdated software that they rely on to keep the business running. Trust me, I see this first hand at my job.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Who cares when it will be released. Windows Se7en will still require the outlandish hardware that Vista does.
And by "outlandish" you mean "sub-$500 PC", right ?
Heck, even when Vista was released, a PC that could run it well was only about $800.
Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious why all these people who hated Vista are showering love on Windows 7. Is it some sort of mass psychology type thing?
I'm a UNIX guy, and I don't consider myself a Microsoft hater per se, the visual changes in Windows 7 just look hideous. I try and keep my screen as clean as possible to cut down on the distractions (meaning my windows machine looks about the same now as it did in 1995), and by this benchmark, Windows 7 is even worse than Vista with all its worthless gizmos and gadgets and stuff like that.
Is it really so hard to understand that I don't want shit moving around on my screen when I'm trying to think? Or that I don't want to see icons for anything except stuff I'm actually working on? The new Windows 7 taskbar looks -- crap, I already used "hideous" -- uh, distracting.
Combine with all sorts of stupid decisions in Vista like to replace the up-arrow button with a refresh button that does nothing in all common cases, and, yeah... I'm mystified why people are so positive about Win7,
Re:Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
It's natural that people would lower their expectations after the dissatisfaction of Vista. Once the expectations are lowered, they are in turn easier to satisfy. Especially when most of the customers have few other choices.
Yes I know they do have choices. But MS now is still a monopoly.
Parent
Re:Curious (Score:5, Informative)
My major gripe with Vista was games performing poorly, having a few heavy processes caused the system to perform poorly, pretty much poor performance all around.
On the same machine, where I had recently installed Vista. With the same drivers from Vista I install Windows 7, poof, problems gone away - I am certain it wasn't a driver issue.
The taskbar? I just unpinned everything, set it to small and stuck what I regulary use in the bit that often shows recently, frequently used programs menu. Taskbar has more space now than ever before. More space than Win95 ever had.
No idea what you're talking about? If you're talking about graphics, like any modern *nix system's default setup (excluding OS X), you can disable effects if you don't like them.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are not the target audience. You'd prefer to remain in a stoneage of GUI (no offence, but it's true), and people have gotten use to a pretty interface for their operating systems.
Plus, those gadgets aren't worthless. I have gadgets to show me the weather, CPU and network activity, etc. They appear when I want them to appear, and they aren't distracting because you get used to them. Why can't you evolve like everyone else has? That's my question.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
but it also introduces some really nice usability changes. The Win-arrow key shortcuts, for example, are great (win-up to maximize, win-down to minimize, win-left to dock to left half of screen, win-right to dock to right half of screen).
*boggles*
These have been *configurable* shortcuts in KDE for a coon's age.
Windows $NEXT_VERSION will floor all comers (Score:5, Funny)
Guest post [today.com] by Mary-Jo Enderle
I have seen the future: Windows $NEXT_VERSION build $MOCKUP.
I tried it on a low-end netbook with four Core 2 Duo chips and only 8 gig of memory, and trust me: $NEXT_VERSION is shaping up to be one heck of a product.
WordPad and Paint have seen major overhauls to their user interfaces. Forget the freetards and their "distros" full of all sorts of useless shovelware like "FireFox" and "OpenOffice" and, haha, "GIMP"! - the bundled software with Windows $NEXT_VERSION is clear, simple, sparse and to-the-point. The much-loved $HATED user interface from Office $HATED_VERSION is now part of WordPad and Paint!
The controversial Digital Rights Management system in Vista has been worked over, with user-downloadable "tilt bits," which you can configure to your own liking. It'll require every user to supply a blood sample for DNA analysis, and the beta nearly took my finger off, but of course that's only if you want to play premium content. The Blu-Ray(tm) of Battlefield Earth was unbelievable on this operating system.
A release candidate should be available by the end of this year. There's just no way that Steve "Trains Run On Time" Ballmer will miss the Christmas deadline. The final release should leave the midnight queues on Vista release day - the street riots, the water cannons, the rubber bullets - in the shade.
I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, those are all fixed in $NEXT_VERSION. And they're finally ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF.
Also, there'll be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It'll be awesome!
I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION.
This is all a sham (Score:5, Interesting)
Phase 1:
People have high expectations of your new product. They're fed up by the repetitive software releases you've done over the years and the lack of innovation from your part. Then you release a software that draws all the attention (or aggro, for WoW players). Once everybody has jumped either on the hater bandwagon or put up with the new, yet old, system you go to the next step. You use popular figures (like comedians) and one of your famous company people (maybe a nerd) to make advertisements that make people go "Really? What is this shit? I won't buy, but I know it's Delicious" to sidetrack even more of the critics.
Phase 2:
You announce your "true" new product (which was in development all along and was intended to be the successor to your old product line in any case) as the next big thing "coming soon". Since that newly developed system doesn't have enough new ideas to convince people to switch, and people are already confused by your current shitfest of a project you need to give them an incentive, that's what they needed Vista for. MS released Vista saying it will be their new OS and after the confusion had manifested and the expectations had been severely disappointed they start the next phase.
Phase 3:
You release an older polished release candidate of a less important branch of your true product as "the real deal". Then when people start questioning your abilities you go ahead and re-release your original new product line under a fancy new name. This way the expectations have already been lowered from the outset and the "new alternative" looks like a worthwhile contestant all of a sudden. Without Vista, the very same criticism that hit it, would have hit Windows 7 instead. Win7 looks like a slightly improved Vista, whereas Vista looked like a slightly improved XP. So, instead of making real big jumps and actually innovating you do two little intermediary steps and consumers will praise you for two entirely different new version of the operating system.
Phase 4:
Profit?
Seriously this, to me, sounds like an elaborate plan to con consumers into buying into the age old "fuck up and re-release" cycle that we have come to expect from Microsoft. A clever usage of market economics of perception rationale. If you serve people average products you will eventually go broke. But if you sell them really terrible products for a short period of time, rule out all options for downgrading and then start selling average products again you will be better off than by simply selling average crap to begin with.
They've employed a 300 Million Dollar ad strategy and let me tell you
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Debug faster or you'll be gettin' the chair, m'boy!
Re: (Score:2)
A 2009 release or 'RTM' date shouldn't be a surprise at all.
The beta expires in July, so the 'Release Candidate' build should be out before then, and the final version soon after.
Re:Surprise to Anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Clearest indication Windows 7 will be released soon?
Astroturf levels go well past "histrionic".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I am enjoying the Windows 7 beta on my gaming desktop and netbook and look forward to *gasp* purchasing a copy to replace Windows XP.
Clearest indication Windows 7 will be released soon?
Astroturf levels go well past "histrionic".
I'm also using the beta and will buy W7 to replace XP on my laptop. Why - it seems to run faster, especially when accessing shared drives.
Of course, I run it on Fusion on my Mac (I need to run the Win versions of Office for work, and W7 so far appears to do that better than XP.
Just because some has a reason to upgrade doesn't mean they're part of a astroturf campaign.
Now, if Snow Leopard allows seamless connectivity with exchange and i can replicate Outlook's functionality on my MAC then I may just pop for
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting comment.
All the benchmarks I've seen so far show Vista/Win7 being close to 30% slower than XP running office apps on the same hardware.
Care to explain what makes it "better" enough to spend a couple of hundred dollars getting Win 7?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
All the benchmarks I've seen so far show Vista/Win7 being close to 30% slower than XP running office apps on the same hardware.
[Citation needed]. Seriously, 30% is a lot, and how do you measure office application performance anyway? Post-SP1 game benchmarks have shown that the performance difference is less than 5% and in many cases identical, largely due to the fact that drivers for Vista no longer suck, so I don't see how office apps, which are much less demanding, could run that much slower.
For one thing, window management in Windows 7 is a lot nicer than any other Windows to date, and I would say miles better than OS X (althoug
Re:Surprise to Anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
There have been large amounts of astroturf around this latest release, Slashdot has certainly played its part in posting many articles fawning over the new operating system.
Personally, I installed the beta on a VM, it's certainly slower than XP (in terms of time to start up and resources used when booted). Once the feeling of wow, this really does look like KDE4! was gone, I was left feeling rather deflated and eventually just went back to my Ubuntu desktop. It looks, feels, and even the feature list [wikipedia.org] reveals, that this is just another minor release of Vista. A Vista SE, if you will. :)
Having said this, it's is just my opinion and I'm not representative of the great computer-using public. Here are my predictions for the release of Windows 7:
One more thing: incremental releases, like Windows 7 are a good idea. Ubuntu, Apple, etc. do this themseleves. However, if Microsoft charge the same amount for seven as they did for Vista, they deserve to be mocked.
Parent
Re:Surprise to Anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
Really? I just pulled it off my son's machine because it refused to install America's Army, except for an old version. Nor would it take the patches.
On the plus side:
It boots noticeably faster than XP on the same machine.
It shuts down noticeably faster than XP on the same machine.
The from-scratch install was as easier than any previous Windows install, and damn close to as easy as Kubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10.
Aero *is* spiffy.
It recognized all my RAM using the 64-bit version.
The 32-bit compatibility on the 64-bit version was transparent.
It picked up my WiFi-N/WPA-2 network early on in the install and used NTP to set the clock.
On the down side, how hard is it for Microsoft to add some code to accommodate people who have their hardware clock set to UTC? I mean just put a damn check box there!
Parent
Re:Surprise to Anyone? (Score:4, Funny)
"What features are there that are "must have" apart from the "ooh shiny" aspect"
Never underestimate the power of the "ooh shiny" marketing. The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why?
What can justify the cost and performance hit of Windows 7? Yes, it is faster than Vista but it isn't faster than XP.
Last time I checked, all games support Windows XP. Also, why on earth would someone want to BUY an OS without it being bought/bundled with a new PC?
What features are there that are "must have" apart from the "ooh shiny" aspect?
That's not to mention the inevitable problems of early adoption...
How about being able to use all of the ram instead of being limited to only 3gb and also being able to use the 64 bit processor instead of being stuck with only a 32 bit OS on a 64 bit pc. Both of these situations mean that Windows 7 is actually faster than XP in some situations as being able to use all the memory and processor power not just part of it
Just 2 thoughts that come to mind straight away.
Shame XP64 never got fully completed. Still if it had then I guess Vista would have had even more problem
Re:Surprise to Anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
but browsing the net and sending emails just isn't that demanding.
not a firefox user eh?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, you really, really should upgrade your version of Windows at home. Windows 98SE is much more stable.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're in a "fortune 10 company", then you probably are aware that the ones that bitched the most at Vista being so late was the fortune tops. Usually, with volume licensing and license insurance and all that junk, you break "even" if a new OS comes out every 3 years, so anything beyond that and you're getting rimmed.
That said, if your Vista equipped 4 gigs lap-top is even significantly slower than XP, your department needs to do their job better. Making sure the software installed on it (anti-virus come
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to ask though, what do you do with Vista that needs so much RAM, seriously? I'm a windows developer, with tons of high volume services installed on my box (from SQL Server to Oracle, from Visual Studio in multiple flavors to Eclipse, etc), and I often have most of that running all at once, and while I have 4 gigs of RAM (well, 2.75...I need to move to 64 bit, ugh...), It has been MONTHS, according to my system's stats, since I went over 2 gigs, and from memory, when I did, it was because I let Firefo
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
VMs, Games, and Photoshop.
Heck, *searching* brought explorer.exe up to 970MB.
Re:Cue the "W7 == Vista SP3" posts (Score:4, Informative)
Take a Windows XP machine & tell me what SP it's running without going to System Properties....just using it like grandma would. You probably won't be able to.
I can tell you if it has SP2 on it just by watching it start up (SP2 dropped the "Professional" and "Home" branding on the boot screen).
Parent