Preventing Another Vista-like Release With Windows 7

CRE writes "An article at the OS News site details how Microsoft could best avoid Windows 7 becoming another Vista-esque release. The author advises Microsoft to basically split Windows in two. Windows 7 would be a new operating system based on the proven Windows NT kernel, but with a completely new user interface, with backwards compatibility provided by VMs. In addition, to please business customers and other people concerned with backwards compatibility, Microsoft should create 'Windows Legacy', basically the current Windows, which will receive only security and bug fixes. Relatedly, APCMag is reporting that Microsoft has moved Julie Larson-Green (the driving force behind Office 2007's Ribbon UI) over to work on Windows 7's interface."

Not reverting to 9x vs NT days

[MSTCrow5429]

Horrible idea, would never be put into practice. MS already spent years merging the 9x consumer brand into the NT-based line. There's no reason they would then spit it again and have to deal with two not fully compatible platforms, requiring a separate support base for each one.

kiss

[jellomizer]

Keep It Simple Stupid the problem with Vista was that Microsoft wanted to make the Ultimate Operating System, that would put all other Operating Systems to shame (And give to us all the features they promiced us in Windows 95)... But with all the problems with such a large project then ended up with an OS that is arguable slightly better then their old one. I have tried myself to do ambisious projects and they always go over budget and over time, and end up having to do a lot of cuts. I learned not to go crazy and make the ultimate just get it to work correctly and impove on the other one, That way everyone is happy.

"Windows Legacy"

[PhrostyMcByte]

It's called a service pack. And you can slipstream them right into the install (new XP discs sold today include SP2). There is no need to split it into a different product.

This convinces me that linux is going to make it.

[Maxo-Texas]

As long as Microsoft can maintain a quick pace of innovation, Linux will always be chasing behind it.

Once the problem becomes well defined and stable, Linux will catch up and O/S will commoditize.

The longer the release cycles- and the more windows UI changes with those releases, the more likely people will change to linux. I'm ready except for Everquest. Everything else is open source on my boxes now.

Split = nuts

[dazedNconfuzed]

How about releasing a single OS that scales suitably and automatically to the users' dynamic needs, rather than piling options on the user who neither knows nor cares what the options do.

"Make it go."

YAWV

[nachoman]

I don't think the answer is to provide yet another windows version. Having a "new" and "legacy" version is only going to make the problem worse. Imagine if Microsoft came out now and said they were going to support XP for 5 more years with fixes as the "legacy" version. Now no one will be forced to upgrade. Many people like XP better but accept the fact that eventually they will need to go to Vista. For Microsoft, they want to keep people at their latest version because it is easier to support the newer and hopefully "better" code than the old.

I think a a better way is to do smaller incremental releases. Sure MS may only want to make people drop the 200$ every 4-5 years, but they could make make their service packs yearly and include more new features (similar to XP SP 2). Then when it comes to the next Windows release it hopefully will not be such a drastic change for users.

Re:How about pulling a Mac?

[jellomizer]

Mac users are a loyal fan base making huge OS Changes that breaks all sorts of compatability less damaging. People don't use windows because they are loyal to microsoft, or even like windows, they do so because all their software runs on it. Braking all that compatability would cause many users to rethink what OS they would rather use, free OS like Linux, OS with a good HUI like OS X, or perhaps try some other OS's if all their software goes down the drain then they will most likely feel a grudge toward Microsoft for obsoleting their software investment, and look somewhere else. By doing so I would figure that Linux could rise to about 30% market share, Macintosh would be about 20% and 45% towards windows and 5% going to other OS's from 95% market share to 45% would kill Microsoft or at leat cause a ton of problems for them... Or carry on as they did before and allow a slow leak in market share over decades which would lead to the normalize rate much further in the future vs. Jumping to it right away.

Another Windows?

[thatskinnyguy]

Now if it actually incorporates VMs for backward compatibility built on the proven NT kernel, I think they may be onto something. What I see as the problem here is that Microsoft is going it alone like it has so many more times in the past. If this were a joint-venture between M$ and VMWare or some other company of that ilk, I could forsee this being a successful product.

Unfortunately, M$ won't do that and this product will be hyped to the max and actually provide a lackluster experience for users.

First thing they shouldn't do

[vivaoporto]

Windows 7 would be a new operating system based on the proven Windows NT kernel, but with

First thing they shouldn't do, if they don't want end up with another Vista, is to promise features before they are implemented, tested and integrated. It is a lose lose situation, just like it was when they were marketing Longhorn.

Re:Proven?

[jellomizer]

Take the Linux Kernel, Run every program as root, install a bunch of 3rd party drivers for cheap hardware that may or may not function properly. Have this in a distribution that is widly spread so about 90% of all people are using... See how good Linux holds up.

The Windows NT Kernel is actually a very good kernel. It is the fact that the rest of the OS is designed in a way that cause problems to occure.

Well, I doubt that's the reason for the bomb

[Opportunist]

Vista wasn't ill received because of the incompatibility. Plain and simple, it was not a step forwards. It wasn't something that improved your working, playing or surfing experience in any way. If anything, it was a step backwards.

Add various real and perceived problems with privacy, the data hunger of MS, the dread of DRM/TCP and other rather negative reviews, and you see the reason why Vista wasn't the next Win95 hype.

The problem is that XP already has everything the user wants. It can play games, it's compatible with almost any current hardware right out of the box, there is no USB (WinNT) or WiFi (2k) that would require him to update, whatever hardware he wants to plug in, XP can take care of it. Whatever software he wants to run, XP can do it. DirectX10-only games are still far from reaching the shelves, and no business software that I'm aware of requires Vista. The user interface of XP has all the main features that make working, surfing and playing in Windows enjoyable, and all the kinks and wrinkles were also taken care of by third party software vendors (where "vendors" does not necessarily mean you had to pay anything for the soft).

Basically, the reason why Vista didn't sell like hot cakes was simple: It was not needed.

Proprietary lock-in

[leandrod]

The issue here is proprietary lock-in. If MS would fix all the architectural problems of MS Windows, it would basically be a new OS. It could keep parts of the kernel, but the userland interfaces would change so much that only VMs could keep compatibility -- and with them comes a huge resources consumption boost on an already heavy architecture. But resources are not the main issue: it is that the new applications would be so different from old ones that vendors would most likely do something cross platform and MS would loose proprietary lock-in.

Also, it would take so long that GNU/Linux would have a huge window of opportunity, with the added benefit of low resources usage and true backwards compatibility.

Finally, it would be so different from MS Windows and so much like GNU/Linux or the Hurd that people would see the king is naked.

Re:How about pulling a Mac?

[erroneus]

I have been saying essentially the same thing for years and years since the discussions about Win32 weaknesses that cannot be fixed without a restructuring of the API.

The Win32 API is a complete mess. Backward compatibility is important to be sure. But the future of stable operating systems is also an issue. Apple couldn't have been bolder in their move to create OSX. They created an entirely new OS and provided some really buggy means to run OS9 software... believe me, it certainly sucked but it generally "worked." It was more than enough motivation for people to migrate to the OSX versions of the same packages they've been using, but for those not willing to make the move for whatever reason, they were able to limp by.

Applying the same idea to a new Microsoft OS would probably work better. Virtualization environments on the PC have come a long way in a relatively short time. One might even suggest that it's fairly mature technology. (I'm not quite ready to say that myself though.) But to provide backward compatibility through virtualization while at the same time creating something like "Win64" and making it completely new, more modern and at the same time tossing backward compatibility out the window (figuratively speaking) would probably bring new life into the "struggling under its own weight" OS and the company who makes it.

Re:This convinces me that linux is going to make i

[lordtoran]

As long as Microsoft can maintain a quick pace of innovation, Linux will always be chasing behind it.

It has been a long time since Microsoft and innovation used to be mentioned within the same sentence. This is not how they maintain their position in the marketplace.

Re:How about pulling a Mac?

[jedidiah]

You are confused.

The platform that made them #1 was MS-DOS.

The rest was just inertia and network effects.

Re:How about pulling a Mac?

[jedidiah]

Shiny happy Windows style installers have been available for Linux since when the consumer version of Windows was still just a glorified MS-DOS shell.

The notion that there is some lack of "InstallShield for Linux" is one of the more absurd bits of FUD that's cropped over the years (now decades).

Vista is not a failure

[ThinkFr33ly]

While the FUD machine has done an admiral job at making Vista seem like a steaming pile, that's all it has been: FUD.

I've been using Vista since November of 2006, essentially days after it was released to MSDN, and it is without a doubt better than XP. The improvements are both obvious and subtle. I'm not going to list them all here, because others have done a good job [wikipedia.org] already.

So if Vista is superior to XP technically, which was deemed by most as a great success, then Vista being a failure must be attributed to sales data. Many early reports showed Vista having poor sales, but those reports were flawed due to the fact that they compared the launch of Vista to the launch of XP. Vista launched Jan. 29th, long after the holiday season was over, where as XP enjoyed the entire holiday season to boosts its sales.

Once this was corrected, reports showed that Vista was selling on pace with XP. Indeed, as of March 2007, Vista's sales were double [zdnet.com] that of XPs.

In addition, despite being released to consumers and businesses separately, Vista's sales were only 4% behind XP, which was released to both simultaneously. In other words, Vista beat expectations [seekingalpha.com] by a long shot.

So it must be that sales of Vista have stagnated since March... opps, that's not true either. Apparently, Vista sold so well [cnn.com] that it offset the massive hit Microsoft took as part of extending the Xbox 360 warranty to 3 years.

And then there is the wonderful story that Vista has somehow boosted XP sales [computerworld.com], which is completely silly. It didn't boost XP sales. There was a larger proportion of XP sales than were expected, but the breakdown is about 80% Vista, 20% XP. Part of this is thanks to the FUD machine (good job guys) prompting some large OEMs, like Dell, to offer XP on lower end machines. Microsoft underestimated the FUD machine's ability to influence the market. (By the way, there were 7% more XP sales than were expected. Hardly a tidal wave of XP purchases.)

Sorry guys. I know you desperately want to believe that Vista is a failure, both technically and in terms of sales. But you're wrong on both accounts. 2 years from now, when 90% of PCs are running Vista, you'll probably still claim it's a failure, although you'll fall back to the technical side of things.

I'll be sure to bookmark my post and repeatedly link to it in all those flame wars.

The thing is...

[Bullfish]

As XP is the dominant OS out there, I point out that Vista so far is selling better than XP at the same point into XP's life. XP also had most of the same complaints now leveled at vista. I suspect by the time windows 7 (with the inevitiable delays) comes out, most will have an attitude of I'll buy 7 when you pry vista out of my cold dead hands.

First things first.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

First you have show that whatever you are proposing will force the users to walk the upgrade-treadmill. Anything that eases the pain or something that allows them to get off the treadmill is a no-no. So first learn to present the project in the correct perspective. It might benefit the users, it might benefit the developers. But if it offers even a theoretical respite from the upgrade-treadmill, the project is a non starter.

You seem to be under the impression, there is competition and if MSFT does not do what is best for the customers, they will desert it in droves. Time and again MSFT has proved that its customer base is loyal to a fault and is a sucker for punishment. Now go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan for Windows-7 that will force all the weary recently upgraded to Vista finally dudes to plunck down more money to upgrade to Windows-7.

Re:How about pulling a Mac?

[jZnat]

If you're looking for polish and consistency (well, those don't seem to coexist happily very often; think about it), look no further than Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mandriva, Linspire (which will be based on Kubuntu if it isn't already), and Fedora. I look forward to KDE 4 for a polish that should surpass any polish or consistency you come to expect in Windows (yeah right; polish, maybe, but consistency on Windows? laughable) or Mac OS X (polish definitely, and consistency is still weird when it comes to the GUI; I hear that will change in 10.5), but that's just me. For polish now, like I said, look at K/Ubuntu, Mandriva, Linspire, etc.

Re:How about pulling a Mac?

[FlatLine84]

FUD or not, not everything is is easy for Joe Schmoe to install on Linux as it is on Windows. Besides apt-get or yum, or even cpan, it's a pain in the balls for the home user to install something and get it to work. Hell, even using yum or apt-get, a lot of times you still have to play around with conf files to get something to work. Too many years of being given that, and the average person won't spend the time playing around to get something to work.

Re:Gee..

[EvanED]

..create MORE 'Windows Legacy?' This is one of the major, abyssmal design choices in current Windows versions responsible for truck loads of the issues every Windows user and their grandma have come to hate said OS

This is at least somewhat correct. Legacy support is responsible for a lot of Windows's problems.

However, it's also perhaps the biggest single reason for its success.

You've just described OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

You've just described OS X... only 2 versions (supporting both 32 and 64 bit),and no client restrictions.

I think if people were interested in such a scheme, they'd be buying OS X.
But as many people still (mistakenly) swear by the Windows superiority and market-share, it's obvious that people don't really care about what MS is selling, they'll still buy it, simply because they're comfortable with their "Start" menu and delusion of right-click exclusivity. I think it's as simple as that.

Re:Try Linux

[Gription]

At least Linux gives you a choice of user interfaces...

The fact that Microsoft can't figure out that making a massive non intuitive change to the UI (when it isn't required for functionality) is insane. Business needs simple and straight forward solutions. It doesn't need a 'cartoon' interface.

BTW - How come their new, more secure OS lists EVERY USER NAME at login? (and you can't turn it off...)
Lets play "Guess which user has a weak password"! The game is much easier if you start with all of the user names.

Re:How about pulling a Mac?

[jellomizer]

I would go that much credit for the Mac Comunity. There is just a smaller portion of them overall and many have been useing Macs for a long time because there is a smaller comunity base they tend to feel more personally bonded to Apple. Apple could sell iPoopOnAStick and probably 1/3 of the Apple Faithful will buy it. There are probably about the same number of Apple Zealots and Windows Zealots who will stick to their product no matter what... But because Winodws has far more users the number of Zealots is a lot less percentage wise then Mac Zealots. If you look at my guestimate windows would still be the dominate OS in market share, but there would be a large amount of people going different ways.

Re:Well, I doubt that's the reason for the bomb

[Opportunist]

I'm not saying computers are "solved" and we don't need another, better OS. What I said was, that Vista was not needed.

What I'm saying is not that software as a whole can't evolve. What I say is that Vista offers not enough additional value to warrant switching, and that the average user is quite fine with XP as long as architecture or system requirements don't force him to move away from it. Vista offers nothing the average user misses in XP. And that's actually a first since WinME.

Win2k was the quite successful "merger" of the NT line with the 9x line. It offered the stability and sturdyness of NT along with the "game compatibility" of 9x. It was a huge step forwards for both lines of products, not to mention USB support that NT lacked completely and 9x's support was ... well, not really what USB support was supposed to be.

XP offered less additional value, but it did. More stability, better support for certain drivers, easier integration of WiFi equipment, easier update support, a bit more security.

Vista doesn't offer anything really measurable that you can't get easily with free third party tools. More importantly, its performance is not on par with XP due to a lot of changes that appearantly aren't really optimized yet.

Vista's problem is that there was no need for it. There is no new hardware that isn't supported in XP, as it was with USB and WiFi. There's no must-have new architecture out that requires Vista. And the only Vista-only software we'll see for quite some time to come are games, and even that only if studios dare being DX10 only.

That's why I said it's not needed. There will be a need for OSs that support future developments, no doubt. But Vista, in its current state, has no selling point.

Dimsal failure

[theolein]

For Microsoft to be talking about the next Windows release so soon after its first main release in 6 years, Vista, and potentially putting customers off buying into Vista now, speaks legions about just how bad Vista adoption is going (notwithstanding fanboi propaganda FUD like the /. article comparing Vista to OSX marketshare). It says to me that Microsoft must really be panicking, badly.

Re:simplicity...

[codemaster2b]

No, No, and... No.

Single hardware compatibility list? Absolutely not! The strength of the PC is MODULARITY and standard INTERFACES. The reason you own a PC now and not a Mac is that PCs allow you to swap components. And, they permit lots of competition by allowing a free market.

What if I wanted to make and sell a hardware-based product? Could I? Just how hard would it be to get my product on that single hardware compatibility list? Hm?

And you didn't mention it, but the logical extension of your concept is a single software compatibility list. If your software isn't on the list, you can't load it. Perhaps I'm reading more into it that you meant, and if so, I apologize. But I'm a software engineer. I make hardware and software products. I do not want my financial success to be at the gracious mercy of Microsoft allowing me to install my product on my target market's computers.

Also, think of the manipulation. What if some commercial interest expressed an opinion that your software/hardware should be banned. Say the RIAA or MPAA? What if the law itself was wrong? [I'm not saying that the law is wrong. But the concept of "the law is always right" is wrong. Otherwise, we would not have a method for removing bad laws].

And we haven't even mentioned the government yet...

Simplicity is a dream. The problem is, simple does not meet the needs of everyone. [Jesus is the exception here]. You cannot make a computer that does meet everyone's needs, yet remains simple for everyone who uses it. Excuse me, there is a way - but the computer would have to interact uniquely to every person. I don't want to be known quite that well by my computer, if you get my drift.

Why?

[Tom]

Why comment on "Windows 7" at all?

It's obvious that MS is pushing the PR now in order to draw attention from Vista. Vista is a trainwreck, so they're playing the "look, shiney!" game.

Re:Not reverting to 9x vs NT days

[MSTCrow5429]

Consumers might not know the difference between "XP" and "Vista," but they do know the "Windows" brand, so as long as it has "Windows" in it, they will seek out and buy it.

Re:Try Linux

[Fallingcow]

I'm still trying to figure out what XP and Vista do that Windows 95 didn't, which requires them to take up so much more HD space than it did.

Win95 ran happily on a 1GB HD, with several hundred (maybe as much as 700, IIRC) MB left for apps, and I can't really think of more than one or two very minor new things that XP does that I actually use. Image/video thumbnails are nice, I guess, and having a CD/DVD burning program integrated into the file manager seems like a no-brainer, except that the one they made sucks so badly that I only use it as a last resort, usually on someone else's machine, so frankly I could live without it. The new network management system is obviously better, but doesn't justify more than 2-3MB of extra disk space usage, tops.

Why are XP and Vista so huge? Is there something I'm overlooking, or has MS' code really become so bloated that it takes 1.5+ GB to accomplish what 200-300MB did before? Hell, I can fit a Linux desktop that does SIGNIFICANTLY more in that much space, with Openoffice and a real CD burning app, full-featured media player and all kinds of other goodies. Why does the basic MS OS take up so much room?

No. That won't help.

[kinglink]

More choices is absolutely the WORST idea. We already have what? 5-6 variants of Windows and that's just English. Two completely different versions of windows each with X variants would just complicate the problem.

What we need is Three things.

A. Make features, not bullet points. This means give us features to help us. Not a newly designed interface that just looks pretty. Make stability and bug free a FEATURE. Look for features we can't get elsewhere, and ways for us to extend it. That means don't worry about firewalls (ship with Zonealarm) don't give us a weak anti-virus and pretend that's a major feature. Don't pretend "integrated music player" is a feature. Microsoft's current beliefs are bullet points are better than other goals. Games that run at 60 fps are more important than games that are "fun". Office suite that integrate perfectly are better than bug free. Get over it and get us actual innovation. And if you offer Backwards compatibility with old windows code make sure it's 100 percent Backwards compatibility before you ship.

B. Ignore the side projects. Windows 7 is about WINDOWS not Media player, outlook, office, and the rest. Want to include those? Great make them bug free, and allow us to uninstall all of them, otherwise focus on Windows. Giving us 30 programs along with windows doesn't make you my friend, when I have to work around 29 of them to get MY functionality back.

C. Cut the price, cut the fat. Two versions of Windows. Upgrade for 100 dollars, Full for 200 dollars. don't try to nickle and dime us saying "well ultimate has..." Ultimate has shit. Either an upgrade or full and make them AFFORDABLE. When Windows costs more than any of 4 tvs I own. (Including a 52 inch CRT) that's a problem.

Vista died because no one needed it and no one wanted it, but Windows is slowly forcing it's bloated corpse on us. That's what caused the Vista Like release, an unwanted unneeded product who's only benefit is making Microsoft more money and looking pretty.

Re:Try Linux

[whmac33]

I think you're describing Windows 2000....

Personally, I like that one the best.