Submitted by We already know some of the directions Windows 7 will be exploring: a system-wide multitouch user interface framework, a focus on performance, all while building on top of the groundwork Windows Vista has laid out. While off-hand remarks have been made concerning the operating system’s release date, it appears Microsoft now formalised the release date of Windows 7.
In a letter sent to Microsoft customers titled ‘An Update on the Windows Roadmap’, company senior vice president Bill Veghte states:
Our plan is to deliver Windows 7 approximately three years after the January 2007 general availability launch date of Windows Vista. You have told us you want a more regular, predictable Windows release schedule” and he said that was the impetus for setting the 2010 ship date.You’ve also let us know you don’t want to face the kinds of incompatibility challenges with the next version of Windows you might have experienced early with Windows Vista. As a result, our approach with Windows 7 is to build off the same core architecture as Windows Vista so the investments you and our partners have made in Windows Vista will continue to pay off with Windows 7. Our goal is to ensure the migration process from Windows Vista to Windows 7 is straightforward.
Contrary to popular belief, Microsoft never officially ‘slipped’ Windows Vista. Many off-hand remarks were made concerning the operating system’s release date, but once the date was officially set, they didn’t release it a day late. Assuming this letter can be seen as an official communiqué, this means we have Windows 7 in our hands in 18 months.
So I guess that means we should expect to see it sometime in 2012.
Before you accuse me of trolling, has MS *ever* released a major new version of Windows on time?
Win7 will have the same Vista architecture. There’re no major architectural changes in Win7 because the major architectural changes have already done with Vista
Win7 : Vista = WinXP : Win2000 (minor architectural changes in Win7 compared to Vista, minor architectural changes in XP compared to Win2000)
Vista : WinXP = WinXP : Win98 (Major architectural changes in Vista compared to XP, Major architectural changes in XP compared to Win98)
Edited 2008-06-25 08:18 UTC
At best Vista : XP = XP : NT4.0.
XP was based on the NT line of kernels, 98 was based on the 9x line, the two kernels shared almost no commonality, despite hosting somewhat similar userspaces.
The changes from XP to Vista are not that drastic, at the kernel level it’s mostly tweaks and some new functionality, to support things like IO priorities and UAC as well as a rewritten network stack and significant changes to the GDI.
in that case its not a major revision and hence not windows 7.
windows 5 was windows 2000 while windows 6 is vista. i would expect windows 7 to be an incremental update too, but in that case the naming fails and only adds to the confusion.
wouldnt be the first time mindless journalists messed up the concepts though.
/stone
Actually, wouldn’t that technically be Windows *NT* 5/6/7?
So Windows 7 will be what Vista should have been to start off with?
“Assuming this letter can be seen as an official communiqué, this means we have Windows 7 in our hands in 18 months.”
Even so, no-one in his or her right mind will install before SP1 which means an additional 6-12 months. That timeframe puts Windows 7 squarely against Ubuntu 10.4 LTS (+patches) and a very stable Snow Leopard. Not the competition I’d enjoy if I were to try to sell Vista 2.0.
DISCLAIMER: I haven’t upgraded all my Macs to Leopard yet as 10.5.3 is the first version of Leopard I consider to be stable enough. Going for the initial release of any OS is not a good idea in my book.
If that is the case, any reviews of Vista before SP1 should be ignored, since those people were obviously not in their right minds, right?
You are right about waiting for SP1 in terms of businesses, but they don’t use OSX or Ubuntu anyways.
Edited 2008-06-25 17:41 UTC
Absolutely not! Any full release is fair game to review/flame/hack to pieces.
Honestly? For a number of reasons I actually don’t think it’s wise to use a fresh-of-the-presses OS, business or no business.
Well…times are changing. 🙂
So what’s the incentive now to buy or install Vista? Most people will wait for the next OS that actually might get things right based on all the feedback and problems with Vista.
I know everyone’s milage has varied based on comments, but I think we’re all united in saying “We’ll wait!”
most people get new versions of windows when they buy new computers and it comes with it …pretty soon and you wont be able to buy a copy of winxp anymore ..and thats for people who actually go out and buy a copy of windows and there arent that many people who that ..
I’m not so naive as to believe Vista and Windows 7 will kill Microsoft, or even level the playing field, but with what is essentially Vista 2.0, as an earlier commenter put it, how can people expect things to improve? Just the earlier news that Windows 7 wouldn’t be a rewrite, but an expansion on Vista, was probably enough to make people give Linux a try before it was too late to go back to Windows. Windows is in decline now, and Windows 7, unless there’s some extremely deft marketing or some must-have features, will not change that trend. I expect it to slow Windows’ decline, but not reverse it. I’d like to see a good Windows 7. I’m a Linux user, and a bit of an advocate, but hardly a fanboy. If Windows 7 is everything promised of Longhorn that Vista failed to deliver, I’ll be pretty happy with it.
Other article about Windows and other article where non-windows users quickly write about changing to other SO. Boring. But seems that this people has nothing better to do than reading websites. I understand. Nothing more to do. Sure.
1) Windows Vista was released with a mountain of new api’s, and yet, not a single bundled application takes advantage of these new apis. Why are components within Windows still using widget kits from circa win 3.1 for instance – anyone notice that Windows 3.1 dialogue in the font add/remove?
This is a symptom of a bigger problem, and Microsoft’s unwillingness to throw things out. They seem to be like a compulsive hoarder who claims that ‘one day I might need it’ but reality is, that ‘one day’ never actually comes.
This then rolls onto Microsoft complaining that software and hardware drivers aren’t coming out faster enough; again, the role of the operating system vendor is that of leadership – how can one take the operating system company seriously when it refuses to use the new API’s itself for its own applications.
2) Its the small things that count. Bill Gates seems to be off on flights of fancy whilst ignoring it is the little things that make a desktop pleasant. Take Mac OS X and KDE, for example – spell checking everywhere. A decent command line and file system structure for the 21st century rather than the hobbled together DOS paradigm Microsoft is still hugging onto like a life raft.
3) Issue every programmer with a Pentium III with 512MB RAM; their objective should be to get it running smoothly on that. Stop showering your programmers with luxury. Maybe if they saw their application on a woefully under powered machine, and had to use those machines on a daily basis – it would give them a greater appreciation for optimising code.
** Side note, in all honesty, I would give Windows a second chance, but it would require a major overhaul for me to do so. I have nothing against Microsoft, but what I don’t like is Windows, and the constricted nature of it when it comes to using the command line, or really bone head stupid ideas such as, in the case of Windows Messenger Live, not possible to change preferences unless logged in.
Edited 2008-06-25 10:12 UTC
A good operating system should not require you to use the command line. Period.
KDE isn’t perfect, whilst I like KDE, it’s UI can, and needs to be, improved upon.
It does seem fashionable to be a Microsoft basher these days.
Dave
That’s no excuse for having a poor command line. Just because you are not required to use it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be there or that it shouldn’t be useful.
Look at Mac OS X. No “normal” user need never touch the command line, but for those who want to there is a fully featured bash shell with useful apple-specific functionality.
That’s been fashionable for at least a decade.
Ah, the good old days of BeOS, OS2, Linux kernel 2.x, Win9x, NT 4, and others.
Needing or not needing a command line doesn’t have anything to do with being a good operating system or not. Free operating systems do away with the command line for general use, although I admit that its necessity for configuration purposes could be decreased even more, but work in that area is being done.
Most of what kaiwai has said consists of genuine criticism of the way Windows has been developing over the years from his point of view, although he could have uttered that more gently, but we all know that diplomacy isn’t one of his strong points.
Your only reaction seems to be that he’s bashing Windows, even though he had been using Vista for months before deciding enough was enough and going to Mac OS X and Solaris. Still he keeps his chances for future Windows usage open, what more do you want?
As far as I have seen from my limited exposure to pre-installed Windows Vista, it isn’t that bad an operating system, but also nothing special. Considering the technical possibilities and limitations of the Windows computing paradigm, it doesn’t look as bad as you can read in multiple places on the internet including OSNews.
Hardware manufacturers seem to have dropped the ball though with respect to having drivers available at or soon after its launch, a situation that is only now slightly improving. Seeing that Windows 7 builds upon this foundation, there could be some hope for its users that the problems that occurred going from Windows XP to Vista, won’t happen this time.
The point about having developers issued older hardware with limited amounts of memory is particularly interesting to me and I agree completely.
I have access to multi-ghz, multicore systems with many gigabytes of memory, but have slower systems around (Pentium III 1 GHz, G4 400 MHz, UltraSPARC II 400 MHz and Loongson 2E 670 MHz) for development purposes and to test if the latest GNU/Linux operating system and associated free software run well enough on those compared to their performance on the greatest x86 hardware available to me.
Even if that is too much hassle for Microsoft in general and the Windows developers in particular, there are still projects such as the free (L)GPL’d QEMU and proprietary products that do the same thing (which are probably more palatable to the company for licensing reasons), in that they can virtualise or simulate a slower system on top of more modern hardware.
That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it.
I not a great lover of the command line but there are
times ( and I’m referring to using Windows here )
when I prefer to use it because the dialog boxes / property sheets are so tedious that they are more hindrance than help.
If there is no reason for the command line then do away with it rather than implementing it shittily.
PERIOD.
I never said that everything should be done via command line; I implicitly stated that I wantd the UI and command line to be equal in attention which Microsoft developers give it. How you lept from what I said, an improved command line, and then claiming I said everything should be done via command line – I can work out how you made basically you did a strawman – a misrepresentation of what I said.
I don’t expect a reply. Its typical around here to ‘comment’ and ‘run’ rather than enter into some sort of conversation.
Again, I never said it was perfect. You are replying to ME, address the issues *I* raised. If you want to create a whole new line of conversation, then create new thread.
And it seems fashionable for people like you to parade around claiming to be the ‘impartial observer’. Who is bashing Microsoft?
I’m sorry, as soon as you use the words ‘hater’ and ‘basher’ and other pejoratives, you’ve lost the argument before you even have started. So please, don’t even try to argue your case until you drop those immature and pathetically childish words which have the equivalence of “stop being so mean to me!”
Edited 2008-06-26 00:56 UTC
I only have to look at the large number of joyously happy posts in a variety of threads that seemingly bash Microsoft for the smallest of sins, but largely ignore Linux and BSDs many failings. Convenient? You bet.
I’ve been using Vista for a month now, and it’s great. Whilst DOS isn’t that great, it’s not that bad either. It does the job, and does it well enough to be without any major issues. Sure, it could be redesigned, but is it worth it? For the small percentage of people who use it, for a small percentage of the time, is it worth it? I doubt it. 99.9999999% of Windows users use the GUI, and probably for 99.999999% of the time. There is far less of a need for Windows to drop to a command line than other operating systems.
Dave
And you assume that EVERY user in the world who uses Windows is a Joe Home user such as yourself – and you call me naive!
You obviously haven’t worked out the work that Microsoft has done to improve the ability to control things via the command line in the latest version of their server release.
There is demand out there, specifically from people whose money is actually worth a damn to Microsoft – not dinky little home users such as yourself.
As for the short comings of Windows versus *NIX; there is a HUGE difference sunshine. The short comings of *NIX can be worked around by reading a book and expanding ones knowledge or waiting till a user friendly front end is made. The shorting comings of Windows are an issue of fundamental architectural design flaws that can only be corrected if one has the source code – unless you know of a place where one can obtain this said source code, may I suggest that silence from you is the best course of action.
There is a MASSIVE difference between the short comings of both operating systems; and I’m sorry, I’d sooner spend 20minutes reading a book and learning, than sitting at my desk, throwing up my hands and say, “I am at the mercy of Microsoft”.
Edited 2008-06-26 03:58 UTC
Yeah well, that’d explain why Server 2003 has seen Microsoft claw back a fair bit of the Linux server space, wouldn’t it? It must be doing something right.
You Linux fanboys are all the same – you shit your pants when someone bags your OS, but you happily bag every other OS out there.
And hey, I work in the industry, I spend my day playing with Server 2003 and Debian servers.
Dave
Bill Gates has almost NO direct involvement in Windows/MS anymore. It seems he couldn’t care less about this crap. He made his billions, now he can go off on his “flights of fancy” anytime he wants. He deserves it
Too bad he gave the CEO position to the walking, talking, douche that is ballmer…
You’re pretty much on point, to borrow a phrase from another forum.
2) Attention to detail is not a strong point MS. Attention to detail really is the mark of quality. It shows the company loves their product, and has an expertise in their field. Apple excels at this, and they are rewarded with legions of fanbois and increasing market share.
The Windows command line was never updated to fit into the object oriented nature of Windows. Powershell is a rewrite of the Windows command line that solves the problem. People disparage Powershell for being more of a scripting language then command line, but that’s kind of the point.
I still don’t see why a user needs to see the file structure anyway. Administration and repair sure, but day to day operations, not so much. I should be able to set rules, and my files would get sorted out automatically.
3) When I hear people say that their 4 socket, 16 processor, 100 GB of RAM, quad SLi desktop will be the norm someday, it makes me want to throttle them. That’s not what I have now, it’s not what most people I know currently have, and I don’t know anyone who is thinking about upgrading to that.
I agree with almost everything you said there kaiwai. I would point you to powershell though for a modern commandline, basically bash taken to the next level.
I also disagree with the whole ancient hardware thing. Developers are currently NOT writing multithreaded code, and we are getting more and more cores in our cpus as time goes on. As it stands now, quad cores are going to be a complete waste, since devs do not take advantage of parallel processing.
Developers should all be on quad core NUMA machines
Edited 2008-06-25 17:51 UTC
This is a symptom of a bigger problem, and Microsoft’s unwillingness to throw things out. They seem to be like a compulsive hoarder who claims that ‘one day I might need it’ but reality is, that ‘one day’ never actually comes.
Wrong. Not everyone wants to buy all new software when the old software works, and quite well at that.
If MSFT “throws” stuff out, Like EAX and Direct Sound 3d/2d, everyone just gets pissed.
They used to put a gun to developers head to use these APIs, and now they deprecate them. Lame, untenable, expensive and wrong.
Why should WINE be more compatible with legacy stuff than microsoft’s new OS?
Ah yes typical hyperbole of ‘everyone just ges pissed’ – who is this ‘everyone’? when I look through the complaints; sure, people are pissed off about an application not working, but the number one complain *I* have seen from people is the crap performance then followed by crap hardware support and the lack of delivery of all the promises that were hyped up for 5 years!
There is a fine line between supporting software that is 3 years old (from 2005) and expecting Microsoft so support applications from Windows 3.1 as some people expect.
Oh, and I always love when people ćompare’ Windows with wine – it exposes the individuals complete lack of understanding of software development – it truly does. Unless you have a clue in that area, please, don’t voice your opinion – its frustrating having to read such nonsense.
++
I’d also add Paul Lutus’ solution: force programmers to *use* the software they write.
One thing MicroSoft won’t improve in Windows 7 is the DRM situation. It will be MORE infected than Vista. The MPAA/Content providers are doing everything they can to lock down their content, regardless of our fair use rights. I refuse to use itunes for the same reason. If I pay for something or have legal rights to do something I WILL NOT let someone else tell me I can’t.
When did you encounter DRM, if I might ask?
Cry wolf all you want, but it’s going to get you nowhere. Once DRM finally really starts impeding upon people’s usage of computers, no one will believe you.
When i tried to play an HD-DVD on my DVI-but-non-HDMI TFT. When i wanted to use my Hardware accelerated 3D Soundcard on Vista.
In the last few years, i often said if Microsoft would push any further i would make a switch no matter how painful it might be. Vista finally made me do it.
Screenshots or it didn’t happen.
You cannot play HD-DVDs on ANY player on a non HDMI TFT and not get degraded quality. Why should windows be different?
Can you imagine playing a game like Starcraft using some advanced touchscreen technology. “I’ll grab this group of units here and make them go here,” all with some simple hand gestures
Wow, completely wrong topic. Meant to post as a response to the “Age of Mouse” article.
Vista is so overrated that no amount of bashing could could reveal Vista’s true value.
The only date I want to hear from MSFT is Windows XP Service Pack 4.
If they dont announce that, I think we may have a permanent parting of ways.
All aboard the FAILBOAT, Windows Vista, SP1+.