Windows 7 To Be Released Next Year? 561
KrispySausage writes "A recently-released roadmap for the next major Window release — Windows 7 — indicates that Microsoft is planning to release the new operating system in the second half of 2009, rather than the anticipated release date of some time in 2010. This quickly-approaching release date would seem to be at least partially verified by news of a milestone build available for review by an anonymous third party." We've previously discussed the upcoming new OS version, as well as its danger to Vista.
windows7 (Score:3, Insightful)
they are taking a leadt out off Apples book again, "release often and charge alot for overglorified service packs"
Vista's missing features (Score:3, Insightful)
2 - There were some neat concepts that were promised with Vista and never delivered, like the file abstraction stack, or WinFS. Now they might have time to do it right.
3 - Vista was a total bomb. There is no denying it at all. So why bother? Admit your mistake and move on quickly. All in all, this sounds like a surprisingly smart move on their part.
Such optimism? (Score:4, Insightful)
two thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
and WIN98 SE maybe this is Vista SE...As long as they cut some bloat and give me back admin controls in less than convoluted places, I'm cool.
Me 2!!!oneone!!one! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Vista's missing features (Score:2, Insightful)
1 - Microsoft says they learned from their mistakes, and have been deconstructing Windows to remove bloat, and make the whole thing run faster. Windows Server can even run sans-GUI now, and they're building up from a minimalist stack. This is a really good thing.
Be realistic, remove bloat? This is Microsoft you're talking about.
2 - There were some neat concepts that were promised with Vista and never delivered, like the file abstraction stack, or WinFS. Now they might have time to do it right.
They've been promising stuff like this since the NT 3.5 days. I'd consider that plenty of time to deliver.
3 - Vista was a total bomb. There is no denying it at all. So why bother? Admit your mistake and move on quickly. All in all, this sounds like a surprisingly smart move on their part.
Has Microsoft ever admitted to making a mistake?
Call me skeptical, but experience does teach an individual.
I figured this would happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Such optimism? (Score:5, Insightful)
* UAC - annoying and not remotely secure. People will be trained to always click yes, or just disable it. Further more, it prevented me from installing legit software, and copying files in certain directories.
* Drivers - People say an OS is only as good as the software for it, and I'd argue an OS is only as good as the drivers. If you can't support your hardware, then software isn't even an issue. Now all drivers MUST be signed, yet many signed drivers don't work very well, if at all. I think it would be a good idea to have all drivers in one central repository (like the Linux kernel) so you won't have to worry about tracking down drivers for old hardware, but make sure the drivers work. And here is an idea, make the drivers modular. Drivers cause more BSODs and crashes than anything else. Don't let a single driver bring down a system. This is just basic common sense.
* Design for productivity, and not looks. Sexy is sexy, and we all like sexy things. In the long run however, I want my computer to enable me to work, not prevent me from doing so. Usability studies have shown that Vista's UI slows people down performing the same tasks. Scrolling in the Start Menu? Again, the writing was on the wall here. Look at the UI changes in Windows Media Player, and you'll see a program that has become less user friendly, while prettier. Why should we expect Vista to be different?
* Performance is piss-poor. Again, people like fast computers. Installing Vista is just a bad decision.
* Vista's worst enemy is not OS X or Linux (as much as I love me some Linux). Vista's worst enemy is XP, which post-SP1 has been a pretty decent OS. For the end user, Vista provides no real benefits or new features besides better looks, while slowing your PC down considerably. And with projects like the Vista Transformation Pack, you can make XP look like Vista. Why would someone want Vista?
Re:Vista's missing features (Score:5, Insightful)
I found it hard to continue reading your post after point 1 began with "Microsoft says". As you rightly point out in point 2, MS-says with respect to what we-got in Vista didn't quite match up. MS promised a lot and users got an OS that felt to many like a regression.
MS has a habit of "promising" features that it doesn't know how to deliver; its useful if you want to discourage investment in potential competitors. After all, why go and develop a new fs technology if the company with a 90%+ monopoly in the OS sector is going to integrate it into their product?
"Windows 7" will be an incremental change to Vista with some bug fixes and a desire to gain a better image in the market than the ironically sullied Vista has. How can MS develop features in less than 1 year that they couldn't manage to make in 4?
Re:Marketing Slogan (Score:5, Insightful)
And we all know how that ends out.
Re:windows7 (Score:2, Insightful)
This is fake, mod article down (*sigh*) (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows Seven with a build number of 6.1.6519.1? The Windows Seven that is currently in the kernel-only, text mode, MinWin phase?
This was probably some kind of a Vista SP2 build, something that will be released next year and is in heavy development. That, or the guy was given a modded/themed current version of Vista and was fooled.
Re:Low memory requirements from ms... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:windows7 (Score:4, Insightful)
I like Macs, best UI stuck on a Unix out there, but there's a lot to hate about the cult and what it gets away with.
Re:windows7 (Score:1, Insightful)
It's W7 v Linux Open Source (Score:2, Insightful)
Your average home user is now in a position to purchase even a mid-range PC for £500 which probably offers more document management and multimedia capabilities then they will probably need; typically just browsing, email, IM, media play/record, DTP etc.
Persuading this market of the *additional benefit* of upgrading, firstly to Hasta la Vista and, apparently quite soon, to Windows 7, will be a tought sell.
IMO, unless MS or another software vendor comes up with a so-called "killer applicaton" in the mean time, that will only run on the latest MS OS platform (though I think MS7 will still be 32 bit?) or only on a high spec hardware (forcing said user to upgrade their PC to a new one pre-loaded, of course, with the new MS OS!), then how, exactly, MS intend to market this new OS any better than Vista is beyond me.
FYI, I've been dual booting Vista and Linux K/Ubuntu for a few months now and, aside for some driver issues, the Linux environment has not compromised my core usability in any significant way, though clearly some tweaking - which would generally be beyond the level of (and undesirabe to) the mainstream home market - is still currently required.
But as the open source OS market continues to grow, how does MS intend to combat this threat?
By speeding up their own release cycles, of course, in desperate attempts to quickly copy and match the latest OS functionality and UI gimmicks already freely available on the rival platforms!
Re:windows7 (Score:0, Insightful)
How is this speculation Informative??
Interesting, maybe...
ugh.
Re:Marketing Slogan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:windows7 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:windows7 (Score:3, Insightful)
The normal Microsoft Propaganda. (Score:5, Insightful)
They know they can't possibly get anything worth a damn out that quickly.. but that's not the goal here. The goal is to stave anyone figuring they might as well think about switching to Linux or OSX, cuz "Microsoft is going to fix Windows Real Soon Now".
In reality the product will actually be released in the middle of 2010. It may be good, it may be another bomb. How long can Microsoft keep up the "But the next one is going to be just GRRREEAAAT!"? Stay tuned...
Re:Such optimism? (Score:3, Insightful)
On the MSDN blogs there have been developer conversations detailing why it's difficult to near-impossible to get hardware makers to follow the rules for making good drivers. In at least one case a video card maker intentionally wrote in code to cheat WHQL testing so their hardware would run in an extremely cut-down mode to pass quality testing, but it would have been impossible for Microsoft to PROVE this was intentional. So basically hardware makers write crappy drivers that crash and people blame it on Microsoft.
Video has always been in ring 0, so it's always going to have the chance to bring down the system. That's really unavoidable if you don't want to sacrifice some speed for safety.
Re:windows7 (Score:1, Insightful)
XPSP2? NTSP3?
Re:windows7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:windows7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Not this shit again (Score:3, Insightful)
And then one by one the whiz-bang features they promised at the time of announcing the product disappear, and it turns up late and full of bugs.
Every time.
Sad thing about it is that people still fall for it.
Every time.
Why? How many times do you need to be disappointed by them before you decide that enough's enough? I swear, it's like an abusive marriage. They're the drunken husband in the string vest - they beat you up, then they promise you they love you and they'll change, only for it to happen again. And again. And again. And you, the battered wife, are convinced you're lost without them.
Seriously, folks, pack your bags and get out of there. He's a brute and he'll beat you again. Because you let him.
Re:windows7 Speaking of Defragging... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://cbbrowne.com/info/defrag.html [cbbrowne.com]
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-newbie/58320-disk-defragmentation.html [linuxforums.org]
This one challenges Novell's reply:
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/qna/15032.html [novell.com]
http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting [oneandoneis2.org]
(Oh, BTW, just heard now 17:05 local PST, Yahoo! is scheduled to layoff numerous employees, but it's about 19hour old:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/technology/22yahoo.html?bl&ex=1201150800&en=0019b93b4bb1c219&ei=5087 [nytimes.com]
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/Business/Downsizing_and_Layoffs/ [yahoo.com]
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