Windows 7 Won't Have Compact "MinWin" Kernel 580
An anonymous reader points us to an interview Microsoft's Windows 7 development chief, Steven Sinofsky, did with CNet. He reveals that Windows 7 will be a further evolution of Vista, and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. "We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same. We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. Windows Vista was about improving those things. We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you've been talking about. The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well."
hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Insightful)
shall we have a pool as to what will be next?
(and yes I know powershell was released as an addon)
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
For Vista, they promised loads of stuff, then stripped most of them out, presumably for a later version.
Thw MinWin kernel has been touted as non-production from the start IIRC, so that at least comes as no surprise at all.
I do wonder what all Windows 7 will not have; I would rather make a list of that.
For instance: WinFS, MinWin, capability to operate with less than half a terabyte of RAM, users... add to the list as needed; maybe after we define what Windows will not have, we can guess at what it will have.
Sadly, I only have bloat on that list so far...
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
These Linux/Mac zealots always have something to complain about. Microsoft stripped that stuff out of Vista to give the users a fast and snappy system everybody could enjoy on any PC. If they kept all those features Vista would have been a real slug instead of the lightning fast OS it is now.
[/sarcasm]
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
Colonel Sanders?
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It was always a metadata layer built on top of NTFS.
I'm not going to do the research on this to provide links, but I'm 99.9% sure of this.
The bennies were an ubiquitous API and unified approach to this stuff, that any 3rd party software could use, and even end users directly could manipulate it.
The problem is it may not be relevant anymore. With horsepower and disk space so high nowadays compared to then, the simple brute force of the currently used desktop search systembs by MS a
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Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Informative)
http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2006/06/23/644706.aspx [msdn.com]
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
The Windows database filesystem is something MS has been developing, announcing, and then killing off since the early 90s. It's sort of the Redmond equivalent of a phoenix, or maybe a Terminator.
At this point, I think they sort of *have* to announce it as a feature of every upcoming major version of Windows, only to cut it before the release of the OS. It's a tradition with almost 20 years behind it!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about WinFS being a phoenix or terminator. Those would be effective. I've always pictured each new Windows project as the Black Knight:
"Look, you stupid Bastard. You've got no features left.""Yes I have."
"Look!"
"It's just a flesh wound."
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
But your comment is exactly what I was thinking. We've seen it before, the touting of features on the next-best thing from Redmond, and we were much amused. They were constantly dropping features off the list, up to the point where there really were no technological advancements left in Vista.
They really appear to be doing the same: "The Windows 7 marketing speak will be a further evolution of our experiences with marketing Vista".
(and to the mods: parent should be modded insightful, not funny)
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the ability to slow down a computer to the point that you need a new computer, so you have to buy a new computer with another copy of Windows preinstalled?
Doesn't that count as a technological advancement?
That said, I still haven't read of a single feature of Vista that would compel me to shell out any more of my hard-earned money.
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:4, Interesting)
With the Linux desktop, whichever variety you choose, there remains large technological advancements before it is usable by the general public. With Windows, it works, and has been working for over ten years for the majority of people.
Vista has improved many small things that always ticked me off with XP. Better file browser, better wifi controls, but really, a countless list of small changes that make just make desktop life easier. If you want to see quantifiable changes with something that is about feel (the desktop), I'm afraid you won't find it.
Speed-wise, SP1 made everything more responsive and quicker, and switching between windows seems a lot better than on XP. And we all know that hardly anyone installed XP on old computers -- preferring at the time their old Windows 2000, but eventually XP won people over as they upgraded.
But, like another poster referenced, you likely wouldn't spend money on an os anyways. A few hundred bucks spread out over many years for something that I spend hours with daily, and makes things go easier IS worth my hard-earned money, and the frustrations saved over XP are worth it because I value my time.
For very similar reasons, when it comes to servers, I'll never use Windows, and instead stick with Linux -- less frustrations, more reliable performance.
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed about Windows for the last ten years, but the new Ubuntu just works. And I am a long-time Windows user that has tinkered with Linux since the 300 MHz days, constantly hearing about how it was the "year of the Linux desktop".
But I had a 1GHz laptop with XP that locked up all the time. I could never find the culprit (probably a driver or IRQ issue). I installed Ubuntu, it found all the hardware automatically, asked me my WAP password and away I went. It's fast and usable now, instead of slow and unreliable.
I don't know any such thing. I was at three companies where everyone was upgraded to XP. People loved XP. Businesses waited for the correct timing in their budget, but there was little doubt that it WOULD be adopted. Vista is universally reviled and most businesses I know are saying that they will NEVER go to it.
I also value my time and have no problem spending a couple hundred on a new OS. But having dealt with Vista and Ubuntu Hardy Heron I would say that Ubuntu is way more hardware compatible and takes far less time to set up and install. And seeing how difficult it is to get software to run on Vista, it won't be long before Linux is more software-compatible as well.
Fully 40% of my software in my business wouldn't run on it without major work (and many of these were Microsoft titles), about 25% never did run at all. Every software install on the test machine was a pray-and-hack affair. It was exactly as if I was trying to get the software to run on Wine or Mono, instead of Windows.
Linux has easily passed Windows in hardware compatibility. Who ever thought we would see that day? Now the attention will go to software compatibility, and when Wine and Mono improve a little bit more, Linux will have the advantage there as well.
And I predict that it will happen before Windows 7 comes out.
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu failed miserably to work for me.
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll take some slight inconvenience like needing to get a new wireless card to know that I'm not being prepped to be screwed over.
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:4, Interesting)
I disagree with this. For the most part the problems preventing Linux from being usable to everyone as a desktop are not technological ones. Lack of application compatibility and lack of hardware drivers are the two main issues and both are the result of the state of the industry. Were Linux and Windows switched market share tomorrow (by an act of Allah) in a year or two people would be complaining that Windows is not ready for the desktop because application developers, hardware manufacturers, and computer OEMs were targeting Linux. This is not to say, they are not real problems, only that they are no more a technological fault of Linux that they are of Windows.
I agree Vista does include numerous small improvements and features; but I'd also argue it includes anti-features as well, designed to benefit MS or their partners at the expense of the end user (more draconian DRM for example). I'd also argue that it is MS's monopoly on desktop OS's that is the reason why there is so little advancement in the field. Traditionally, one of the main problems with monopolies is that they retard innovation in that market because the monopolist has little incentive to put time and money into improvements because customers are going to buy whatever they make anyway. Other companies are likewise discouraged from investing in innovation in the market because the monopoly power means it will cost more for less return and with more risk than a healthy market. Face it, there is plenty of room for improvement of OS's. Hell, Vista still doesn't even have a spell checker that works in all my applications and uses the same dictionary, let alone other universal services. It's been what, ten years since the first OS with that feature was shipped (then killed).
Most people don't have a clue what an OS even is. People were never "won over" by XP, so much as it became ubiquitous because it was pre-installed on every home computer and eventually it was needed in business as well (despite the speed problems) for application compatibility. The drawback of speed didn't go away, but was made less important as the hardware people were running gradually was replaced with faster gear. Doubtless the same thing will happen with Vista.
I'm a professional in the computer industry and I have no problem shelling out cash for an OS. In fact, I've shelled out cash for WinXP, Vista, and OS X. Additionally I make use of Ubuntu and Solaris on the desktop and numerous other OS's for server use. That said, I do not yet recommend Vista for corporate use and don't use it as my main, Windows desktop because of numerous issues of which performance is only one. I expect within the next year those issues will mostly be resolved, but truthfully, I expected the same thing a year ago and it hasn't quite happened yet. Application compatibility is better, but still not good enough for me to do my daily work on it.
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That said, I still haven't read of a single feature of Vista that would compel me to shell out any more of my hard-earned money.
DirectX 10 is going to be it then. Ever more games are going to start requiring it to use the best features. Same with graphics cards. What's the point of building that ubber quad core gaming beast with a nvidia 90000^2 graphics adapter if you are using directx 9 and it only looks like you are running a 6600?
If you want to keep running the latest software, including games, on a PC then the upgrade to vista is inevitable as night and day. Or you could just buy a ps3 [sony] or a xbox 360 [microsoft]
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
But look at all the DRM technology they built into every layer of the APIs!
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Insightful)
shall we have a pool as to what will be next?
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Part
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:4, Funny)
Re:hmmmmm Vista... powershell ... winfs..... etc (Score:5, Funny)
You say that like its a problem.
I prefer to consider Windows Vista to be like the overclocked Voodoo quadcore with twin nVidia 8800s I run it on: reassuringly exclusive.
Cookie at the end of the page - very fitting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cookie at the end of the page - very fitting (Score:4, Insightful)
Offtopic? Look, Steve, stop wasting your mod points and go throw a chair. That comment hit the nail right on the head. What are you Microsoft shills worried about? I find all Microsoft programs to be user-hostile, especially the OSes.
Moving stuff that you knew where it was to somewhere you have to hunt for it, as Microsoft does with every new program and operating system, is as hostile as you can get. It's not just hostile, it's downright mean.
The incredibly long number you have to type in when you install a Microsoft OS (XP, Vista, presumably 7) is hostile. Having to activate is hostile. To demand that I trust you without your trusting me is hostile, would you put up with that from a human being?
The allow/disallow I keep reading about in Vista sounds hostile as all getout. Maybe they're reducing the user-hostility by ridding Windows 7 of it? I doubt that.
Why does Microsoft seemingly hate its customers? It is user-hostile as a company and as such can't possibly write non-user-hostile OSes or programs.
If I see that comment when I metamoderate, whoever modded it won't be getting any more mod points. The same goes for whoever modded a href="http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=565875&cid=23568891">this comment offftopic as well. Are there any mods today that don't work for Microsoft? This is just too obvious.
Re:Cookie at the end of the page - very fitting (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying "Microsoft sux" is not remotely insightful, and is just going to stir people up. Any idiot can do that. What one should do is what you did, saying "Microsoft sux" and listing why you think so. That provides something to the discussion... "Microsoft sux" by itself is just trolling/flamebaiting. (nb: I'm not the mod you're bitching at, I don't have mod points today. But if I did, that's how I would've modded it, and why.)
Re:Cookie at the end of the page - very fitting (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds to me like you believe that anything you're not comfortable with is hostile, whether it's sensible or not.
It's a hostile world we live in.
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I won't be running it, but that's because I don't buy pre-built machines with
Guarranteed To Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Losing small businesses (Score:5, Interesting)
Otherwise, I could be running on OS X for 1 laptop and the PCs would be switched over to Ubuntu or something similiar, maybe RedHat.
Years ago, the internet was hamstringed by many windows only incompatibilities. Firefox evened the playing field there. Most programs were windows only (Quickbooks and Tax Programs can run on Mac now).
Windows grasp in my business is tenuous indeed. Granted, mine is a small business - but aren't many in America?
Plus in Linux, it's simple not to include a webbrowser. You can do the same in Windows, IIRC, (actually just turn it off), but there always seems to be a workaround on firing it up again. Those are one of the biggest productivity killers - my employees should be surfing at home.
It's not that I care about licensing fees, but my operation is too small to hire someone technical who knows how to do everything the right way and I find the Windows boxes need the most babysitting. Time killer = Money Wasted.
Re:Losing small businesses (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Guarranteed To Suck (Score:5, Interesting)
Good, maintainable, understandable code is now perfectly fast. MS's competitors now have the advantage from a good code bas. Meanwhile, the development process at MS as stagnated. (Remember the story of the shutdown dialog in Vista. Twelve people all working on code various degrees away from the trunk. Not good.)
But I agree with your assessment that MS hasn't delivered on the cool. Apple is eating their lunch in the good looking and working camps. Linux is still king of the UNIX-like environment that seems to be in a Renaissance now. Still, MS has a big install base. They've worked hard to use incompatible file types to build lock-in. The aren't going anywhere for a while.
Re:Guarranteed To Suck (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Guarranteed To Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't remember hearing that Python's dying, but maybe I've not been listening carefully enough.
It does make you wonder what people are going to be using in a couple of years' time, with all of these platforms and languages dying out...
Re:Guarranteed To Suck (Score:5, Informative)
That's so so so not my experience in the market.
There's much more demand (as measured by people trying to hire me to use the appropriate technology) currently for my
Re:Guarranteed To Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Guarranteed To Suck (Score:4, Funny)
whut? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing you haven't used it, since you mention hearing it's dying, but not your own experience with it. You should give it a go, it's actually rather nice in its c# form.
Given that it is compatible with both Linux and Mac versions of
While your at it, try IronPython, the
Re:Guarranteed To Suck (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple has a chance to beat Windows 7 to the market with an OS that would be absolutely superb. I hope they seize the chance. I fear that their rapid increase in marketshare and product range might make this difficult.
..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that follows the pattern.
Re:..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. (Score:5, Interesting)
OTOH, consider this: Windows cannot be fixed without breaking backwards compatibility.
Therefore, in order to offer a new product, the old one should be abandoned, which cannot be done at the present point in time.
Imagine, then, that this possible decline of Windows is actually planned.
We know Microsoft is working on a new Windows kernel, on a wholly new operating system and whatnot... could it be that they are actually planning to lower their market share (thus dodging some anti-trust bullets), and then offer something new and improved, even if it proves to be Unix reinvented?
Or is it too much to expect from a behemoth?
Re:..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC, Apple did this when they moved from their old OS to their current one and it did wonders to ease the transition while still allowing Apple to break free of the shackles of backwards compatibility.
Precendents and why Microsoft won't.... (Score:3, Insightful)
IIRC, Apple did this when they moved from their old OS to their current one and it did wonders to ease the transition while still allowing Apple to break free of the shackles of backwards compatibility.
And thousands of Linux / MacOS X geeks are doing it with Windows on a daily basis for all those applications that need Windows.
By it either by using compatibility layers like Wine (which reaching a 1.0 milestone) or using virtual machines like VirtualBox, VMWare, Xen, etc... (I saw the "seamless integration" mode of VMWare on a MacOS X and its really nice). And these virtual machines are only running out-of-the-box plain Windows on out-of-the-box plain hosts. Imagine what Microsoft could achieve, given tha
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Because Apple didn't have to deal with 10,000+ poorly written, complicated mission critical applications cobbled together from bits and pieces of whatnot over the past two decades. That's what Windows runs in the Enterprise and medium sized business. That's what Windows 7 (8, 9, 11, whatever) has to continue to run over the next decade, at least. Because many companies might change their desktop environments, perhaps even the server, but migratin
Re:..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh it doesn't. We're running XP now and will likely continue to do until 20xx (xx being an arbitrarily high number) when MS shuts down support for XP. Likely sometime after Service Pack 6 is shipped.
That's Microsoft's problem. Why upgrade? We buy a new Dell with Vista? Who cares, we just burn our default image of XP onto the machine, just like we do if we buy a machine with XP on it.
The new Dell business class machines "won't run" XP because the new peripheral bits don't have XP drivers? Who cares? There are going to be bizillions of XP capable machines out there for at least the next decade. Is XP a PITA? Yep. Would we like to go to something safer and saner? Yep. WOULD we upgrade if it made significant business sense? Yep. Does Vista offer that? Nope. So no biscuit for you, Mr. Ballmer.
Typed from a Mac cuz I'm wasting time at home instead of wasting time at work...
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Write a new, well-designed OS. Include a minimalist Win32 environment in a VM sandbox. Basically, Wine for Windows to run legacy apps.
Apple has done it twice.
Re:..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. (Score:4, Insightful)
Write a new, well-designed OS.
What's wrong with the design ?
Include a minimalist Win32 environment in a VM sandbox. Basically, Wine for Windows to run legacy apps.
Ah. So basically the same thing they did with NT ?
Apple has done it twice.
MacOS Classic -> MacOS X (basically the same as DOS-based Windows -> Windows NT, only a bit over half a decade later).
What's the second one ?
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I found this announcement disappointing because I had hoped that MS would make that clean break with Windows, and deal with backward-compatibility using virtualisation. I was about to say so, and cite Apple's use of emulation in the move from OS 9 to OS X as an example.
It's not a like-for-like comparison, though, because Apple's market share was negligible, and any negative impact would have limited consequences.
If virtualised backward-compatibility was done badly in a hypothetical Windows clean break,
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Cynical First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cynical First Post (Score:5, Informative)
doesn't sound promising.. (Score:5, Funny)
What, all five of them?
Disappointing (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh well, maybe this will enable the year(s) of the Linux on the desktop (smile)?
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So the difference is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only could the average user not find an advantage in Vista over XP (remember, users rarely care what's under the hood, they just want to use the system), now even geeks won't see a difference between the old and the new system?
Ok, let's be constructive. We heard now what will not be different between Vista and "Windows 7". So what will? Because, well, if it's the same... I'm no marketing guru, but I guess even the marketing guys in Redmond might have a hard time selling the same product again.
Re:So the difference is... (Score:5, Funny)
It'll be simple for the marketing drones:
Do you remember the last time you had a steak? A really big, thick juicy steak. Yeah, that was great, wasn't it. That was XP.
And then you remember how it clogged up your colon, and you couldn't do anything for a day or two? That was Vista
And then you remember how it all finally came out, when you spent a half-hour on the can, insides being stretched to Hello.jpg proportions, tears laced with internal-bleeding running down your face, screaming and punching holes in the bathroom drywall, until finally at last everything was right again, and wave of adrenalin-induced euphoria washed over you once the pain was gone, finally gone? That was Vista SP1
Don't you want to experience that wonderful feeling of eventually bliss all over again? Windows 7, coming soon to a colon, urr, computer near you*.
(c)Windows(tm) Marketing(tm) Team(tm) 2008)(tm)
*Steak not included
Re:So the difference is... (Score:5, Informative)
Do you remember the last time you had a steak? [...]
I don't know where you eat your steak, but if it's doing that to you, you should go somewhere else...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...now, what exactly?
Not only could the average user not find an advantage in Vista over XP (remember, users rarely care what's under the hood, they just want to use the system), now even geeks won't see a difference between the old and the new system?
Ok, let's be constructive. We heard now what will not be different between Vista and "Windows 7". So what will? Because, well, if it's the same... I'm no marketing guru, but I guess even the marketing guys in Redmond might have a hard time selling the same product again.
Ah. You are of course young and inexperienced, and you are unaware of the completely new and reworked[1] Start menu, improved compositing[2], and 3D multiple desktops placed on the faces of a Modron Clippy-like Windows/Office assistant who will put all the Cancel or Allow? messages in a funny-looking message balloon for your convenience[3].
[1] pinched from KDE
[2] ditto from Compiz
[3] don't ask.
Some old story... (Score:5, Insightful)
What was that really good filesystem we were going to see in Windows XP, sorry I mean Vista?
Oh right, this time it is because of backwards compatibility, rather then any other reason. But still, people keep saying it, why doesn't MS just dump the crud, go with a great new secure system (MinWin sounded like a good start), and use emulation to support all the old software?
With drivers (the specific reason given here), they could easily have a backwards compatible layer implemented above the microkernal for drivers that needed it.
Meh.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, Vista has it's problems, granted, but can any informed person here state what's so bad about the Kernel itself, since that's what's causing all the fuss??
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Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll bet their target now is to generate hype, then cut features, and try to slip the product out before the hype wears off and everyone finds out it was a sham ad campaign.
Contradiction error (Score:5, Funny)
Bzzt! Logical inconsistency detected! Abort/retry/fail?
MINWIN IS NOT A NEW KERNEL! (Score:5, Informative)
Translation: (Score:4, Funny)
Windows 7 will be incompatible with just about every third party application. Any compatibility with other Microsoft will be purely incidental.
"We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel"
We're making it an even larger resource hog. Idling, Windows 7 will likely occupy 2 or more cores, and 4GB of ram.
"The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well."
We're going to try our best to make Windows 7 so convoluted that no one can possibly discover the vast security holes.
Hope this is a bit easier to read.
Let me guess ... no WinFS either? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who would have thought Microsoft could have figured out a way to sell *two* Windows licenses per machine (one for Vista, and one XP license when people downgrade)? It's brilliant! Well, as long as too many people don't switch to other alternatives, but en masse migration is a long way off. Still, it would be nice if Microsoft offered a more modern "Vista replacement OS" once Windows XP is completely phased out. Windows 7 could fit that bill.
Well, unless it is so bad people will want to downgrade to Vista. That's a scary thought.
It Seems Obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait. (Score:5, Insightful)
Could you guys just go back and evolve Windows 2000 instead?
4. Profit! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Promise the next version will be a geek's wet dream
2. Over the course of the several years of development, slowly step away from each and every major feature
3. Release the new version which is, at best, a minor upgrade from the previous version.
4. Profit!
We are currently at step 2.
this is fantastic news! (Score:4, Funny)
as a linux user, (i befriended the penguin after one day of vista) watching MS drop the ball a second time is good news.
i can feel it.....
2010 will be the year of linux on the desktop.
(at least for some people it will be, just like how 2007 was the year of linux on MY desktop)
Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
MUST be backwards compatible (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the exact reason why Microsoft keeps extending its flawed product while pretending to fix it.
Version number? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand Microsoft has never been logical with version numbers, Word 2 -> 5 -> 97 -> XP -> 2007. Exponential growth seems to be what they're aiming for.
The Wow(tm) starts Later(tm). (Score:4, Insightful)
Vista's uptake has been stupendous, with copies flying off the shelves and midnight queues on release day turning into major street riots, police deploying water cannons and rubber bullets, to rival the release scenes for the PlayStation 3 and the Zune. It is expected to give a significant boost to the computer hardware industry, per the Mended Windows Theory of economics. But Windows 7 aims even higher.
"We have a radical vision for Windows 7," says Steve Sinofsky, corporate vice-marketer for development. "It's definitely the one to wait for. You should avoid buying any other operating system or even looking at them until you see Windows 7
So what will be the coolest new feature in Windows 7? According to Sinofsky, that's still being worked out. "We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe it's hypervisors, or a new user interface paradigm for consumers, or rotating cubes like in Ubuntu, or WinFS, which is definitely due to ship with Windows NT 4 in 1994. Or whatever Apple puts in Mac OS 10.6, really. Hell, I dunno. What's really shiny?"
The much-derided Digital Rights Management system in Vista will be worked over. "We'll be including 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, but of course that's only if you want to play *premium* content."
Independent bloggers Wiki Jelliffe, Patrick Durusau and Alex Brown were incontinent in their praise. "I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will surely go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, that will be all fixed with $NEXT_VERSION. And they?ll finally be ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF. Also there will be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It?ll be awesome! I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION."
"It's too early for me to talk about it," added Sinofsky. "But over the next few months I think you're going to start hearing more and more."
Read the first sentance of each answer. (Score:3, Insightful)
- Well, that's a great question.
- There are a number of elements of the question...
- In a way that's a different question.
- What I think I want to say is what I just said...
- I didn't actually say that.
I know that I've just pulled some quotes out of context and sometimes that makes things look worse than they are, but does anyone else see my problems? Do you have a hard time even reading the answers? Very disappointing but, again not unexpected of Microsoft.Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista's mistakes are understandable from a certain point of view.
Really, they should take a major hint from apple. Go ahead and make major transitions, but use virtualization to bridge the gap. Under no circumstances break compatibility.
C//
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Funny)
(I'm sorry)
Compatibility will be Perfect! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the drivers and software that run on vista are going to run on Windows 7. Clearly, all they're going to do is rebrand Vista, change some eye candy, and pray it sells thistime around!
They'd be doing it now, but they need to wait long enough that people will believe they've done some actual work on it.
Re:Compatibility will be Perfect! (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the drivers and software that run on vista are going to run on Windows 7. Clearly, all they're going to do is rebrand Vista, change some eye candy, and pray it sells thistime around!
They'd be doing it now, but they need to wait long enough that people will believe they've done some actual work on it.
Re:Compatibility will be Perfect! (Score:5, Funny)
(someone mod me up please)
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I the only one who's leaving system administration over Vista?
It's being rammed down our throats right now and it's just way too awful. It's actually the reason I'm quitting my sysadmin job and am going back to college for a non-computer related degree this fall.
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers != Microsoft.
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Insightful)
We're rolling it out, even though none of the IT staff (just the manager) wants to. We just see it as being a hassle -- retraining the staff as well as ourselves -- with no real benefit, as all the software anyone needs to use works fine on XP.
Not to mention that we'll now be running an OS which contains code specifically designed to prevent the computer from working. We've already had one system fail to activate using our key management server, and we've only rolled out half a dozen. In a perverse way, I'm actually looking forward to when every desktop is running Vista and then decides it's not activated and nobody can do any work while we try to fix a problem caused by code that shouldn't be there in the first place. A high profile screwup like that could be the death knell for shitty license activation schemes.
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft trotting after apple (Score:3, Interesting)
Vista is so complex that normal users and even sysadmins are suffering. While I'm that navigating through the labyrinth that is Vista's various control panels and settings gets easier with time, it mainly shows an almost total lack of communication between the various development teams at Microsoft.
I also imagine that Microsoft's lack of direction is making them panic. Kicking
Re:3, 2, 1.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Driver compatibility will come with time as people like Nvidia get their act together.
Streamlining Vista can already be done though, it doesn't have to take a lot of resources unless you want all the eye candy and the resources. I think you still have a valid point, with all the work that went into it you would think it would work faster. Personally I don't notice any lag, but I'm running on new hardware.
It remains to be seen what Windows 7 will offer that will redeem it. The vast majority of people see no reason to go to Vista and as a home user I understand their feelings. As a sysadmin though I understand why Vista is the way it is and how it's desirable for a corporate environment.
It's the same basic issue that developed when the 9x line died and everything moved to NT. We can all agree that the NT model is far superior to the old real-mode model. The problem is that you have a business optimized OS being pushed on home users, in an attempt to make the home users happier you screw the business users and you end up with Vista where no one is happy.
Of course if the whole thing was more modular then it would be less of an issue. Then Microsoft would be doing what the Unix world has been doing for 40 years and what Apple caught on to a few years ago.
Big companies take a long time to adapt though, look how long it took IBM to recover from a failing business model, almost 10 years. I think Windows 7 will be Microsoft's wake-up call if Vista isn't already. Execs have a habit of being hard-headed about stupid things though so I wouldn't be surprised if that was holding things up.
Re:So the scaling back of Featues begins (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
nitpick (Score:3, Informative)