Microsoft has officially announced to ActiveWin (over a conference call) the release date of Windows Vista. Windows Vista will be made officially to consumers in January 2007, while making Windows Vista available to businesses only in November 2006. In addition, there will be a feature complete Beta 2 CTP released in the next quarter.
Official: Windows Vista Available January 2007
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he said 31/12/2006.
No he didn’t lie. With software engineering you can never have a solid date. You can have estimations. And besides, Vista WILL be released in businesses in Nov 2006, which is before 31/12/2006.
Vista WILL be released in businesses in Nov 2006, which is before 31/12/2006
huh?
The original poster is located in Quebec…they post their dates in dd/mm/yyyy format.
Original Poster is Eugenia Loli-Queru… BTW, she’s located in California.
I meant Stevie lied
By ronaldst (0.79) on 2006-03-21 18:03:55
The original poster of this subthread. His profile says Quebec.
when posting in internet, people should get used to use iso standard format: yyyy-mm-dd
Eugenia Loli-Queru’s from Greece (I think). We Europeans write dates in the proper format :p
The proper format is an ISO standard date:
2006-12-31
That date format is also easier to sort. 🙂
That still means MS will miss the lucrative holiday season, unless by “businesses” that also includes OEM’s (the article doesn’t specifically say what types of businesses). But yes, date slippage is a fact of life that any developer will face on a pretty regular basis.
Generally, OEMs get Windows released to them about a month or so before they go on sale, so they can do their own testing and whatever it takes to start preinstalling them on their own machines and to get them into retail. I suppose that by the time they get through with all of this, this will be after New Year’s 2007, so, there you go…
He’s talking about Steve Jobs, and his little jokes about a Dashboard widget that shows how many days ’til Vista. He put in the date of 12/31/06 as the launch date to make fun of Vista.
I guess he was pretty close.
So, that makes Oct 2001 – Jan 2007, just over 5 years. In 2001, George bush was elected, Wikipedia went public for the first time, foot and mouth was hitting the UK, Mac OSX 10.0(!) was released, Jeffry Archer was sentenced to four years imprisonment, 9/11, launch of the iPod, Microsoft ends support for Windows 95.
It’s been a long time, eh?
Not really. It feels like a normal development cycle for such an important piece of software that many businesses are bet on. 5 years for a completely new version, plus many updates on the previous version, plus a new server OS right in the middle, I think that this sounds about right.
I can’t see what’s wrong with Windows 2000, neither can a lot of businesses. Microsoft want to try win over business and consumers with a single product. If Microsoft cared, really, about it’s business users, it would have provided regular, minor upgrades to the Windows2000 base to provide businesses with a slow moving, but highly stable platform to move forward on.
Instead, they made XP, with less stability, higher requirements, more security flaws and tried to force that onto business users as an ‘improvement’ over Windows2000. Nobody was taking it, so they had to obsolete 2K quickly. Windows Vista, whilst a genuine effort at evolution, is more of the same attempt to win over consumers, and force Businesses into upgrading.
I think your idea is excellent. Considering the complexity and need for response to issues/security threats, rolling in incremental updates is a natual extension of the foundation already in place by Windows Update. I can see the problem though…this would necessitate broadband and many don’t have it. And they can order an update. The rest can subsribe.
This is a good idea!
“Not really. It feels like a normal development cycle for such an important piece of software that many businesses are bet on. 5 years for a completely new version, plus many updates on the previous version, plus a new server OS right in the middle, I think that this sounds about right.”
Give me a break! Nothing Microsoft puts in Vista warrants a 5 year development cycle. The truth is that they tried a new approach, couldn’t handle it, gave up and went back to refresh Windows 2003 and turn it into a consumer OS.
Umm, actually they were using the old model, and then 3 years into it decided they needed to change, and they did.
Oh, and I am sure you have any clue about software engineering and can make such a bold statement as that.
“Umm, actually they were using the old model, and then 3 years into it decided they needed to change, and they did.”
Development model and code base are two completely different things. Thanks for playing though!
“Oh, and I am sure you have any clue about software engineering and can make such a bold statement as that.”
Actually I do, and actually I can.
“The truth is that they tried a new approach, couldn’t handle it, gave up”
Yeah, they are two separate things, but you didn’t say thing about that at all.
You said they tried a new approach first and “couldn’t handle it” and then went back to the old way.
When in reality, they were on the model and decided something really needed to change, and so they started over with the new approach.
With “approach” I was referring in broad, general terms to stuff like a .NET-dominated API, WinFS and other “novelties” not in the current Windows code base. Obviously I was too vague and thus I stand corrected.
WinFX is still .NET based, and WinFS is still in development, it just won’t be ready in time for launch (which, I guess is sad, but truely, I don’t lose my files , ever, so it’s not a big deal for me).
It still, of course, has the Spotlight-type funcionality, with meta-data, fast searching, etc… just not the nice WinFS stuff.
My friend Apple Created a complete new platform in the 5 years Microsoft is trying to patch XP. Vista is not a GREAT product, it is simply XP – problems we cried to Microsoft to solve since even Windows 2000. I know you will start telling me that there are other features here and there; but believe me greater than 80 % of any OS will never be used, just basic features are important to many people, which Microsoft just patched not redesigned or re-engineered.
I still can enjoy vista-like features with windows XP, if I use XP with limited user account-called “user” and applied the high security template (hisecws.inf) that comes with windows XP; for a good intro guide see “http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Understanding-Windows-Securi…
Also few Internet Explorer tweaks and you will be able to make it so immune.
Finally with this solution you will need the knowledge how to administer your system from limited account like “user”.
For experienced administrators vista means nothing more than XP, it just means more burden on your pocket.
BUT,for novices it will be much more easier to get windowsXP-like high security configuration with little administrative knowledge or experience.
Still beating a stone tablet in 1985? Normal development cycle is now only 2 years for a major app.
I see where you think you’re going with your statement about OSX 10.0 being released 5 years ago. Yes, Apple has released numerous updates, but they’ve all been point releases (and not major releases). XP has had 2 service packs, Win2k3 was released (and also has 2 service packs), R2 was released, IIRC Win2k got an SP or 2…not to mention this _is not_ a point release of Windows. XP=5.1, Vista=6.0…a major release. They boys in Redmond have been quite busy.
Just look how far OSX has come since 10.0. It was unusable, slow, and featureless. OSX wasn’t really usable until 10.2, and sometimes arguably 10.3. In 5 years, Apple have taken a new(ish) Operating System, and pushed it forward to a feature complete OS, giving end users the actual features Vista has promised, now. Apple have also been working on iLife, the Pro Apps, iPod, the hardware range, switching processor architecture and more. Redmond may have been busy, but Apple have been the most productive.
“Just look how far OSX has come since 10.0. It was unusable, slow, and featureless.”
Windows XP was usable from day one. Granted Apple really had their hands full going from OS9 to X, but they still should’ve gotten it right the first go round.
“and pushed it forward to a feature complete OS,”
Define feature complete. Windows 95 did everything I wanted it to back in the day, and would still be considered feature complete by quite a few home users. Don’t buy into the hype created by OS vendors (MS included). Again, Apple should have nailed this from the beginning.
“giving end users the actual features Vista has promised, now.”
From a developer’s standpoint, Vista blows OSX out of the water feature-wise.
From a developer’s standpoint, Vista blows OSX out of the water feature-wise.
REally does that mean MSF is going to phase out support for an entire software architecture, and finally get rid of the dated x86 instruction and BIOS?
no because MSFT could never do such a change. And Vista doesn’t have a single feature that isn’t found on OS X today, and you can’t buy Vista yet.
Note I was going to buy Vista, as I hoped it would finally force developers to properly design software. But since it won’t support EFI, and is instead relying on 15 irq spots in bios, then I won’t. I don’t use a floppy drive so why should I use 20 year old tech for my hardware?
I dont quite follow…..what do u mean dated x86 instruction? Arent Macs now x86 based?
no because MSFT could never do such a change. And Vista doesn’t have a single feature that isn’t found on OS X today, and you can’t buy Vista yet.
Now that, sir, is just a ridiculously naive statement. Would you wish to revise it?
Now that, sir, is just a ridiculously naive statement. Would you wish to revise it?
And would you mind to elaborate ?
From a developer’s standpoint, Vista blows OSX out of the water feature-wise.
How about the Core* APIs of OS X?
Or the WebObjects framework?
Did I mention the venerable Applescript?
Of course, we can’t really compare a product that is almost a year old (Tiger) to a product that is still 1/2 year away from release in a fair manner.
“From a developer’s standpoint, Vista blows OSX out of the water feature-wise.”
How can you know without anything having been released?
There have been CTP’s of WinFX coming out for a couple of years now.
Well, 10.2 -> 10.3 -> 10.4 had alot of improvements…far more than XP and it’s service packs. I wouldn’t really call the differences between 10.0 and 10.4 updates. Apple did put alot of new features in OS X. This is not to say that Vista won’t be a major release(I won’t pass jugdement until it is released) but I can say in the 5 years since XP was released OS X has come much farther than XP+SP2.
Actually, I think Linux and friends(all the pieces of the distros) have probably seen the most change since 2001.
-Mike
OS X had a lot farther to come. From 10.1 at least, it really wasn’t ready for prime time. I think 10.3 was the first version that as released Apple could be proud of (10.2 eventually got there).
“I think 10.3 was the first version that as released Apple could be proud of”
What an incredibly dumb statement.
People seem to forget that Microsoft puts out a lot more products in a lot more product ranges than Apple does. Microsoft does operating systems, office suites (on 2 platforms), developer tools, databases, gaming consoles, games, hardware, etc. etc.
Apple does a lot less (no, iWork can in no way be compared to MS Office, no matter how much I like it).
In the past 5 years, MS put out Office 2003, with Office 2007 on the way. It put out the Xbox, entering a whole new market. In the meantime, it is working on the Xbox 2. MS is working on Vista. It had to mantain XP and 2000. Etc.
There’s no way you can look at the last 5 years and say: “Apple has done more than Microsoft.” It’s nonsense. Apple has less markets to serve, and in each market except the music player market, the market Apple serves is smaller than the one MS serves.
You can’t make a fair comparison in that one, boys and girls.
Edit: Heh, I even forgot the whole online services crap MS is doing.
Edited 2006-03-21 23:46
Thom,
What about the iPod, the iTunes music store, the Intel transition, Mac OS X server, .Mac?
You sure can compare the two. They both are software makers, that have enterprises in the hardware business. Be it Origami versus iPod, or Microsoft Office Suite to iLife/iWork there are some similarities.
To say there isn’t is to be ignorant that at the core these are two competing coorporations. One can’t compete with another who does not share any similarities with the other.
Kambiz
You don’t want to even know all the products Microsoft has put out since even 2004. It will put Apple to shame.
>>You don’t want to even know all the products Microsoft has put out since even 2004. It will put Apple to shame.
Because “more” equals “better”, right?
No sir. That wasn’t even close to the point. Someone tried saying Apple has “done more” than Microsoft, simply because Microsoft hasn’t released Vista yet. They have, however released Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows XP MCE 2005, and a few others since 2001, as far as operating systems go.
Mac OS X server and Mac OS X are almost the same, the only difference is server applications and management apps, Thom mentioned the music business, and .mac came out in the 2000-2001 time frame, and as far as the transition goes, Mac OS X has run on x86 since Next so how is any of that really relevant?
Apple has shipped:
Mac OS X 10.0-10.4.x
iPhoto
iWeb
iMovie HD
iDVD
GarageBand
IWork
Transition to x86 (not finished)
Several different versions of the iPod
Final Cut Pro 5
Aperture
Logic Pro
Shake
Microsoft, since 2001 has shipped
3 different versions of Visual Studio
2 different Versions of Office (and working on a third)
2 different versions of Windows 2003 for 3 different platforms (IA64, x86, x86-64)
Windows XP and 2 service packs, for 3 different platforms(IA64, x86, x86-64)
Windows XP Embedded
Windows CE and Windows Mobile
2 versions of Windows Media Center
Windows XP Tablet Edition
multiple service packs and updates for win2k
Xbox and Xbox 360
Great Plains and Outlook CRM
Rebuilt that Crappy MSN
SQL Server 2005
Exchange 2003
.NET runtime 1.0, 1.1 and 2
ISA server 2004
Neither of these lists are exhaustive. :-p
While no one is saying Apple isn’t busy as hell, and putting out good stuff, the shear volume of products that comes out of Redmond is astonishing. (This is in no way a judgement about the quality of those products, I leave that for another day, another argument)
Agreed, neither of your lists was exhaustive, but:
– You mentioned Microsoft’s “3 different versions of Visual Studio”.
– Forgot to mention Apple’s Project Builder & 2 versions of it’s successor, Xcode.
– You mentioned Microsoft’s “n versions of this, n versions of that”
– Forgot to mention that practically all of Apple’s apps in your list had more than one major version released in the same timeframe.
For a company as big as Microsoft, I would have expected a LOT more.
Edited 2006-03-22 09:04
People seem to forget that Microsoft puts out a lot more products in a lot more product ranges than Apple does. Microsoft does operating systems, office suites (on 2 platforms), developer tools, databases, gaming consoles, games, hardware, etc. etc.
Apple does a lot less (no, iWork can in no way be compared to MS Office, no matter how much I like it).
I am sure you are aware of Final Cut Studio and other professional applications from Apple. These products are certainly not as “trivial” as iLife and iWork.
One thing I will admit is that MS has a larger and more diverse customer base than Apple. Their testing process is definitely far more complex than Apple’s. Their products also have to satisfy a more diverse audience. However, MS have far more resources available as well.
“There’s no way you can look at the last 5 years and say: “Apple has done more than Microsoft.” It’s nonsense. Apple has less markets to serve, and in each market except the music player market, the market Apple serves is smaller than the one MS serves.”
Relative to the number of developers Microsoft and Apple employ you can.
“People seem to forget that Microsoft puts out a lot more products in a lot more product ranges than Apple does. Microsoft does operating systems, office suites (on 2 platforms), developer tools, databases, gaming consoles, games, hardware, etc. etc.”
Microsoft also has over four times as many employees as Apple. Wikipedia lists the totals at 65,412 vs 14,800 for 2005.
“There’s no way you can look at the last 5 years and say: “Apple has done more than Microsoft.” It’s nonsense. Apple has less markets to serve, and in each market except the music player market, the market Apple serves is smaller than the one MS serves.
You can’t make a fair comparison in that one, boys and girls.”
I think you probably can make a fair comparison. If you translate from Apple v. Microsoft to the relevant parts of this discussion: Apple’s operating system division v. Microsoft’s operating system division. When I look at an operating system I don’t care whether the company behind it also makes something else. I don’t think “Well sure there’s a few security holes, but they’ve been really busy with the Xbox/iPod.”
True there remains the size of the market served, but I for one doubt that has much impact on the people actually developing the OS from that. An OS requires certain features whether one million people use it or one hundred million do. The support division are, I imagine, seperate from the people doing the devlopment.
“People seem to forget that Microsoft puts out a lot more products in a lot more product ranges than Apple does. Microsoft does operating systems, office suites (on 2 platforms), developer tools, databases, gaming consoles, games, hardware, etc. etc. ”
People didn’t forget that, but we here are judging the OSs not office suites or other programs; Isn’t this site called OSNEWS?!
I think you can compare them. Its a bit of a red herring to say since Microsoft has more products you can’t compare their OS offering(since that is the only thing being compared) with Apple’s. Because they have more markets and thus can’t spend as much time on their OS division isn’t sufficient. In terms of operating systems, Apple has done much more than Microsoft in the last 5 years.
Now I do happen to agree that the initial versions of OS X were rough around the edges, but the arguement you put forth doesn’t explain away Apple’s advances nor gives MS a free ride on their neglect of their OS(and yes, I think they should have released a new OS 2 years ago, remember 5 years is the difference from Windows 95-Windows 2000, I really hope with Vista we see similar progress)
Nobody forced MS to release “brand new” office suits every single year(office 2003,office xp,office whatever-they-call,…, office 2007).
Seriously, how many ppl upgrade their office suits every year any other than the document file compatability issues caused by files created in the latest version of office suit?
If MS cannot manage the schedule for vista, one of their most important products, they should increase the relatively less critical office suit release interval and put more resource on the Vista development.
We, including ppl from MS, all know that vista deals with hugh ranges of PCs. But that is the problem MS created, not we costomer created. If MS want to deal with limited PCs, MS can come up with their own PC like Apple.
Dropping several features while delaying the release date for 5 years(maybe more) is a very bad move by MS.
I do believe that MS have more potential than this. I hope they come up with some decent projects, such as making a brand new OS from scratch. I know this may sound very risky but it’s much better investment than that origami project..
Between 10.0 and 10.4 Apple has released the vast majority of the features available in Windows Vista.
Spotlight
Compositing on the GPU
Drawing widgets on the GPU
Comparing WinXP and Mac OS 10.0 is only unfair in the sense that Mac 10.0 was unusable
.
But to say 10.0-10.4 isn’t a massive difference is to say “I’ve not used them both.”
A little more time in the software industry and you’ll pick up on something: Release version schemes vary from software house to software house.
Apple took the rapid iteration approach, Microsoft took the single release approach. They came from similar places, made similar changes, and are arriving at similar places.
Also, I believe Apple changes major version numbers only when there are incompatibilities introduced at an OS level, like switching to BSD on a Mach kernel with a rewritten Mac GUI that takes some notes from Nextstep.
Yes, Apple has released numerous updates, but they’ve all been point releases (and not major releases).
OS X 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 are all *major* releases! There are large amounts of API changes between all of them. In fact, the OS X API only stablized in 10.4.
Point releases are the 10.*.* upgrade releases.
George Bush was not elected in 2001. (Nor was he elected in 2000 for that matter.)
George Bush was not elected in 2001. (Nor was he elected in 2000 for that matter.)
True, technically he was placed into office by the eletorial college, not directly by the people – by hey, that would be getting all nick-picky about the selection proceedure 🙂
How did they miss Christmas?! Do they not see the benefit of having it out before the Christmas shopping season? Will there be coupons for a free/discounted upgrade version for people who buy machines between November and January (when which business will have Vista available to them)?
With the statement made – businesses will get it in Nov but widespread release in Jan – it seems to indicate the multimedia portions may not be ready. Maybe integrating multimedia stores and other odds & ends which are more dependent on contractual and legalese rather than optimization.
On the other hand, the enterprise release may just be for widespread shakedown and they will recieve a finalized product in Jan.
The XP situation isn’t bad. At least it gives smaller guys an opening to offer improvements, I don’t have to run tech support 1/10 as much since everyone is somewhat proficient in XP, all my devices work on it, and the platform is pretty stable. It takes a few years to get to that place.
I just remembered — in last June’s MacWorld Developer’s Conference I believe Steve Jobs joked around in some dashboard widget setting a timer for 12/31/2006 as the date that Longhorn will be released.
The month of November and the month of december are the same month on your calendar? lol
Stevie missed his prediction.
And I think you’re missing the point. 🙂
To quote CNN:
“Microsoft said Vista is delayed because it wants to improve overall quality, particularly in security, and that PC makers didn’t want the operating system introduced in the middle of holiday sales, because a new version would create instability in the market.”
I must say that I find the last sentence a bit odd due to the fact that everyone knows that manufacturers, specifically PC makers, want the new OS to spur sales. Sales in video cards, hard drives, new system, more RAM, etc.
None the less, this is a delay out into 2007 and does indicate a slip from the original intended release (general availability) of 2nd half of 2006.
I see their website has managed to get around IE’s popup blocker and stick a nasty in my face anyway. Their site just feels so intrusive I am nearly afraid to use IE to surf there.
All that site is lacking is a message that says “You must install Comet Cursor to view this page”.
Why would MS chose to officially announce the release date of Vista to them?
Edited 2006-03-22 00:14
Microsoft said Vista is delayed because it wants to improve overall quality but I think that they want to take a look at “Leopard” apple OS X.5 before releasing it and make some adjustments and copy the new features!
I don’t think so. Leopard will probably be released at the same time as Vista. So far, we have not seen anything from Apple on Loepard and we will have to wait until August due to a later-than-usual WWDC. By that time, MS would be focusing mostly on testing and polishing existing features; adding new features (especially non-trivial ones) will be totally out of the question.
On the other hand, Apple has plenty of opportunity to copy Vista, as far as timeframe is concerned.
Edited 2006-03-22 01:05
By that time, MS would be focusing mostly on testing and polishing existing features; adding new features (especially non-trivial ones) will be totally out of the question. the non trivial ones are already out of Vista: new file system, etc. etc..
On the other hand, Apple has plenty of opportunity to copy Vista, as far as timeframe is concerned. like what? Tiger already have most of vista’s “new” features, they just added more options to the same feautures.
I bet that at least a couple that the new Leopard feautures will be copied and then, they will say that it was a planned feature…
Sounds just about right. I for ong get a sour taste in my mouth every time MS claims to be “innovating” something.
🙂
It means that Xubuntu will have two releases before Windows Vista — one in Dapper and one more after Dapper. The new Xfce 4.4 will rock until then.
I bet Windows will slowly go downhill just like Internet Explorer compared to Firefox. It will not be enough to a sudden take over, but good enough is good enough, right Microsoft? Keep delaying…
I doubt that is ever gonna happen. There are many things going for Vista…namely Direct3D 10 and a crap load of games. Lets see the fact that it is going to be bundled with like 90% of computers…the fact that it will be an incremental upgrade to XP…yeah I can see a lot going for it. A lot of XP users are dying for a refresh. They dont want to switch to Linux or OS X and lose a lot of freedoms they are used to. Granted XP is not the best OS but sometimes people care about the things you can do with something over its quality…otherwise the world will be a lot more different!!
No no no. My friend, Xubuntu, Xfce 4.4, will be fast and will support the GTK themes, and will have a new filesystem which will be fast and pretty. When all those people upgrade to Windows Vista, if they want to load Linux on their old hardwares, they probably will be able to use a nice OS for free. A nice OS that will probably be faster on the old hardware than Windows Vista will be on the new hardware. For the first time in the OS history, Linux will beat Windows in many fronts. I recall a time when Linux needed more memory than Windows to run decently. Now Linux will need less memory than Windows. Linux will need any VGA card. Etc.
Windows Vista will be a fine OS. But I can program for Linux will enough so I don’t care about Avalon, .NET, XAML, etc. They can bloat their OS all that they want, but Linux has reached a point that Windows doesn’t matter anymore. You will see! Try to use Windows Vista on your current hardware if you dare. 🙂 Slowwwwwww… motion…
I bet Windows will slowly go downhill just like Internet Explorer compared to Firefox.
You forgot the emphasis on slowly
I don’t beleive Microsoft will be able to keep these dates. I saw a Demo yesterday from a Microsoft evangelist and it was painfully slow.
Also I am not sure Microsoft really start tested for compatibility issues with applications. Between the time the first beta of Sp2 of Windows XP came out, it was much more stable then that and it took Microsoft about six month to do all the testing. Vista has many more changes and is not even close in stability compare to the first beta of Sp2.
Many web designers will wonder where the pretty Windows XP fonts went to? 🙂
That will be fun to watch! The Web Designers having to support the new fonts of Windows Vista and the old fonts of Windows XP. For the first time in many years the Web Designers will have some fun, and will stop complaining about fonts on Linux.
negativity,
None of the things you said make any sense and you have nothing to back you up. So why post?
Because I’m enjoying my Linux desktop and I want to kiss everyone, even those who use Windows. 🙂
Here, my screenshot to prove that I’m not full of bullshit only:
http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200603220019272560x800scro…
Dude, My Linux is like Windows 98 in speed, with a bunch of cool things. There’s no way Microsoft will compete with this with bloat-ware Windows Vista.
Wait and see! My PC is AMD Athlon Barton 2005+ with 512 MBs of RAM, and it’s great. No need for more than this. Only on Windows people are using 4 GBs of RAM to use some .NET tools like Visual Studio .NET 2005 and etc.
Dude, I give 10 to my Linux and 2 to Windows XP, in all sincerity. You may disagree. And I will disagree with you.
Wow… Linux has come a long way since I last tried to install it (’99) Looks nice! (wouldn’t work with my Evans & Sutherland Lightning 1200 card)…
I only have 512M of ram, and VS 2005 works great, you can feel free to disagree with me, but you don’t need even 1G of ram to run VS 2005, and obviously you haven’t tried it
Because I’m enjoying my Linux desktop and I want to kiss everyone, even those who use Windows. 🙂
Here, my screenshot to prove that I’m not full of bullshit only:
http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=200603220019272560x800scro…..
Dude, My Linux is like Windows 98 in speed, with a bunch of cool things. There’s no way Microsoft will compete with this with bloat-ware Windows Vista.
Wait and see! My PC is AMD Athlon Barton 2005+ with 512 MBs of RAM, and it’s great. No need for more than this. Only on Windows people are using 4 GBs of RAM to use some .NET tools like Visual Studio .NET 2005 and etc.
Dude, I give 10 to my Linux and 2 to Windows XP, in all sincerity. You may disagree. And I will disagree with you.
LoL your Linux even looks like windows 95…ewww what an ugly desktop. Vista rocks! Way to go Microsoft.
“Wow… Linux has come a long way since I last tried to install it (’99) Looks nice! (wouldn’t work with my Evans & Sutherland Lightning 1200 card)…”
*ahem* that’s not even the nicest interface… tastes may differ, but I prefer KDE for eye-candy:
http://www.lynucs.org/
And… Linux with XFCE will even run very smoothly on a computer with 128MB of Ram. I know from experience. I also had one version of the Mepis LiveCD with Xfce running on my brothers old laptop with 64MB of ram once. Which was a little slow, but usable.
Am I the only one who maybe thinking there are a number of things outside the so-called ‘quality’ excuse that Allchlin used?
1) Pushed it back so that their partners have enough time to adequately test their new (and current software) with the new user setup, and provide the necessary patches for a smooth transition from Windows XP of everyone is an admin, to the complete opposit in Windows Vista where by everyone is a user, and none will reside in Session 0.
2) Office 2007 and Windows Vista simultaneous release to build up the hype by being the ‘first Office suite out the door, optimised from the ground up for Vista technology’ – yes, imagine Stevie jumping around the stage along with the legion of geeks from Microsoft in the crowd trying to build up some excitement.
3) Businesses may receive Windows Vista in November, but it’ll be atleast 6-12months before any employees get to see atleast a test environment being setup for them to use.
There is a long lead time for Windows releases and their actual deployments in large organisations; I think their focus is getting it out to the business customer first so that they can adequately test all their applications – both supplied and in house written, so that any changes, upgrades and so forth that need to be done, can.
4) Will the customer version that is released, will be the equivilant of SP1 being bundled up with it? are there extra applications they wish to include.
To be completely honest, I would hardly call a 3 month gap between the business and consumer releases, significant amount of time to adequately test it, which Microsoft claims they wish to do.
5) Going by the feeed back on this latest release to testers; the feedback ranges from crap, to stable, to buggy – I don’t know where Jim got the feed back of ‘ship now’ from, because obvious it must be from some over caffinated geek, as most people I converse to will say it needs another 12 months in the cooker.
6) Whats the story with the lack of any movement by ISV’s? I’ve seeing nothing in the way of preperation of applications to ensure compatibility – is this a new sign? has the Windows Vista hype failed to rub off onto ISVs or is this just ISVs as per-usual, ‘f*ck the customer, and f*ck compatibility – let them hobble along until the next release’.
Big surprise. It must be because Ubuntu is so popular.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Who’d have thought it, a Linux troll with a sense of humour!
my hope still lives that this will give the KDE distro’s a chance to land with the ‘uber’ distro on or before the date of Vista’s launch.
SUSE 10.2 in Jan-Feb 2007 (as has been stated is possible) may allow for KDE4 along with many other crucial technologies.
jason.knight writes:
Yes, Apple has released numerous updates, but they’ve all been point releases (and not major releases).
Em, no. OSX updates (10.2, 10.3, 10.4 etc) have been *major* releases. It’s 10.4.1, 10.4.2 etc that are the equivalents of “service pack” releases of the OSX world.
It’s not the naming scheme that constitues a major release, it’s the feature set. OSX releases have brought enahncements in base OSX libraries and kernel, featured applications, even in application frameworks.
The reason Apple uses the .x naming scheme is simple: they are stuck with naming their operating system 10 (because of the X branding. X = 10 in roman numerals).
Thus, they cannot put out a new release as OS 11, so they do it as 10.4, 10.5 etc (X.4, X.5).
They do however use the feline names (Tiger, Panther etc) as a means to differentiate between major releases.
So there you have it.
My mum had to phone up her ISP to tell than she dont have Windows to register here internet and she said she had Linux. The person on the other end said (NTL) “Linux?, thats old”
My mum replied “Old?, it’s the latest technology”, makes you laugh because Windows XP is over 4 years old and Linux is the very latest technology. Now Windows users have having to wait 5 years for a OS upgrade. I just find it all abit to much and rather laughable.
I have to say that I join the throng of posters in being surprised that Vista won’t be available for the holiday season, considering that so many people buy new PCs at that time of the year.
As for the delivery slippage, well, if it actually helps them release a higher quality product then it’s a good thing in my opinion.
Sure its a little on the long side to wait for an OS update/upgrade. but: consider this, there are TON of major changes in Vista,
tons of new stuff under the hood so to speak. so you can not compare it to Linux releases as they are faster and more incremental. it more like a Debian release in that sense.
Microsoft has done some very cool stuff under the hood to increase security and stability like:
*video drivers now in userspace instead of kernel space
*internet explorer and windows explorer seperated
*low rights framework -IE7 uses it and other applcations will be able to also
*bitlocker full driver crypto
etc etc…
-Nex6
Yes but 5 years?, thats FIVE YEARS!, Half a decade.