Windows 8 To Be Released In October 2012

dkd903 writes "Microsoft has been very secretive about the next version of its Windows operating system. After the success of Windows 7, everyone is very interested in the next iteration – Windows 8. A few leaks have been the only source of news about Windows 8 till now. However, a slip up from Microsoft Netherlands has put the release date in October 2012."

nope

[The MAZZTer]

Furthermore, Microsoft is of course the next version of Windows. But it will take about two years before “Windows 8 ‘on the market.

Yeah, this is hardly a concrete release date. It's probably one person's very rough estimate, he might not even be close to the project for all we know.

Better translation

[Barryke]

Verder werkt Microsoft uiteraard aan de volgende versie van Windows. Maar het zal nog zo'n twee jaar duren voordat 'Windows 8' op de markt komt.

Correctly translates to:

Furthermore Microsoft is ofcourse working on the next version of Windows. But it will take about two years before 'Windows 8' will arrive on the market.

I'm dutch. The translation was engrish, i thought this might help.

Re:Let me be the first to say to Microsoft...

[sznupi]

Or we can just look at the version numbers in "about"...

XP 64bit & 2003 = 5.2
XP = 5.1
2000 = 5.0
NT 4.0 = ...4.0

Re:Let me be the first to say to Microsoft...

[denis-The-menace]

RE: What will be accomplished in Windows 8 that a simple Service Pack couldn't fix"

Profits!

Re:Let me be the first to say to Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has had its own (free as in beer) imaging software since Vista. It does the licensing correctly and works fine. You probably just need to switch to something else. We used WAIK / Imagex and install based setup for an 80,000 machine roll out just fine.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:NT 7.0 or NT 8.0?

[iccaros]

Win 7 Stig here http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/content_pages/windows_os_security.html [disa.mil]

Re:Let me be the first to say to Microsoft...

[Pinhedd]

Windows NT was 32 bit from the start, developed straight for the i386 architecture. It actually started development in 1989 and it's initial release (NT 3.1) came in 1993, about a year after Windows 3.1. Despite the similar names they have very little in common and that trend continued until the death of the monolithic windows kernel after Windows ME. Windows 95 was internally referred to as Windows 4 but this is not related to Windows NT version 4.0 which was released about a year after Windows 95. The next iteration of NT was Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0) which hit market about a year and a half after Windows 98 (Windows 4.1).Similarly, windows XP (Windows NT 5.1 and Windows NT 5.2 for x64 and Server 2003 R2) hit market about a year after windows ME (Windows 4.9). After this, the hybrid Windows line was dropped in favor of Windows NT which saw the rise of Windows Vista (Windows NT 6.0) and now Windows 7 (Windows NT 6.1).

Track record as I remember it, in chronolog. order

[Lonewolf666]

MS Track Record..

Win 3.1 (It apparently worked but it was basically a colourful clown suit for DOS)

By today's standards it was pathetic. I don't remember much of it, but what I remember was on the same quality level as Win95 later. Of course there was not much affordable competition back then (UNIX licenses were really expensive), so its success was deserved on some level.

Windows NT 3.1 Had a reputation as pretty solid, user interface was much like Win 3.1. That's all I can say.

Win95 (Its was Just Broken.. Big Improvement over Win3.1 but still It was just broken)

Yes. GUI was nicer than Win 3.1, but it was just as unreliable...

Windows NT 4.0 Windows 95 user interface but waaay more stable. Good system for work, but lacked Direct X and USB support so no gamer system.

Win98 (It took MS 3 Years to finish Win95.. This could have been windows 95)

True. Win 98 was not really stable like NT, but OK for home users.

WinME (a Travesty that it was ever released to the Public.. This should be a learning tool for everyone at MS.. This is the perfect Example of a Mistake)

From what I heard, true. I heard of people who replaced it with Win98 and reported better success. If a "downgrade" works better, you know the vendor screwed up ;-)

Windows 2000 Good all round system for work and gaming (descended from NT, and also identifies itself as NT 5.0 in some API call), but I guess Microsoft was not ready to separate it into a "Home" and a "Professional" version yet. Technology wise, this is what they should have offered to everyone instead of ME.

WinXP (Initially it was full of bugs and barely worked.. But once SP1 came out it was rock solid.. and Has been ever since.)

XP was essentially NT 5.1, Windows 2000 with fluff. Functionally, XP is a minor upgrade. Lack of support in all forms has made Windows 2000 somewhat useless by now, but otherwise it would still be a valid choice.

Vista (Again MS just screwed up... Buggy/Bloated/Slow/Crashed almost as much as it did anything else.. Again a product that should have never seen the light of day)

I did not try this one, but the reports are bad enough that I'm glad I missed the experience ;-)

Win7 (Just like Windows 98 was for windows 95.. This should have been what was released instead of Vista..)

From what I've seen so far, it is OK. I think Win7 is overall somewhat better than XP, but not a spectacular improvement. Less than what I expected for the seven years since XP was released.

Win8 (If you go by the typical MS Trend... It will suck.. It will be crashy and riddled with mistakes.. MS Seems to be Very consistent in screwing up every other release of their platform)

But the Biggest underlying thing...There is basically no reason to Update from XP.. MS Creates Reasons for you to upgrade... There is no ground breaking/revolutionary advancement.. There was a significant improvement between win95/98 and XP.. but since then nothing... Just Eyecandy that eats up more memory and slows your system down. Even that you can backport to WinXP if you know what your doing..

I don't know how good or bad Win8 will be, but I think XP will eventually be killed from lack of support. Security patches run out in 2014, after that it will be increasingly risky to put XP on a network that is not 100% locked down with a firewall. Driver support for new hardware may run out even sooner - that is what made me give up Windows 2000 a few years ago.