Windows Archive

Hot on the heels of our previous story outlining the fiasco that Vista's release has been, TechRepublic's Jason Hiner predicts that Microsoft is aware of its blunder and will respond by making a release of Windows 7 ahead of schedule (primarily by overhauling Vista and calling it Windows 7, it seems) in order to encourage its enterprise clients to upgrade directly from XP to Windows 7.

Everyone's been talking for what feels like an eternity about Vista being a major blunder, and everyone has their theories as to why it happened. So why would John C. Dvorak be any different? He's got 11 reasons why the OS was destined to flop.

When Vista was released, and the first reviews started to trickle in, it became apparent that Vista was a massive release - not only in terms of money spent on it by Microsoft and the amount of promotion, but also the operating system itself. It was huge, and it felt as such too. Despite what many have been saying the past year, Vista is, in fact, much more than just XP with a new theme. Basically every framework and feature has been rewritten, lots of new ones have been added, and, according to some, the process of modularisation has started with Vista (and Server 2008). It may come as no surprise that all these changes resulted in a whole boatload of bugs and breakage, which led many people to conclude that Vista was simply not as "done" as it should have been when released. Steve Ballmer confirmed these sentiments in a speech at Microsoft's Most Valuable Professionals conference in Seattle.

"If there's ever been an operating system that could use some slimming down, it's Windows Vista. Enter vLite, a donation-supported software tool by Dino Nuhagic that lets you create a Vista installation DVD that leaves out drivers and programs you don't want, installs Vista so that it begins with settings and options that you do want, and lets you install Vista without responding to any prompts. It does this by automating procedures that are thoroughly documented by Microsoft , but which normally require hours of work modifying installation files by hand. I used vLite to create a slimmed-down automated Vista installation DVD that let me get a new system up and running faster and more efficiently than the DVD that I bought from Microsoft. As long as you make these changes only to your own copy of Vista, and you don't distribute the resulting DVD, this seems to be a perfectly legal way of automating changes that Microsoft supports anyway."

"In a session at the Gartner Emerging Trends conference today, analysts Neil MacDonald and Michael Silver identified many reasons that Windows (and thus Microsoft) are in trouble. Microsoft's operating system development times are too long and they deliver limited innovation; their OSs provide an inconsistent experience between platforms, with significant compatibility issues; and other vendors are out-innovating Microsoft. That gives enterprises unpredictable releases with limited value, management costs that are too high, and new releases that break too many applications and take too long to test and adopt. With end users bringing their own software solutions into the office... Well, it's just a heck of a sad story for Microsoft."

"Reading the mainstream media this weekend, you'd believe that Bill Gates announced that Windows 7 will be released to retail in 2009. The only problem is, he didn't say anything of the sort. What Gates said merely confirmed what we've all known all along: that Windows 7 is being developed on a three-year timeframe."

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said on Friday he expected the new version of Windows operating software, code-named Windows 7, to be released "sometime in the next year or so". The software giant has been aiming to issue more regular updates of the operating system software that powers the majority of the world's personal computers. Nevertheless, Gates' comments suggested that a successor to the Vista program might be released sooner than was generally expected.

Microsoft will shutter its Windows XP line June 30, as planned, ceasing sales of Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home to retailers and direct OEMs, Microsoft confirmed to eWEEK April 3. The statement from Redmond executives ends weeks of speculation that Microsoft would extend the life of the operating system as users turn up their nose at Vista, the operating system meant to supplant XP, and OEMs argue lighter versions of desktops and notebooks don't have the juice to run Vista.

Nvidia was cited as causing nearly 30 percent of early Vista crashes, while Microsoft itself was to blame for nearly 18 percent. Intel and ATI each accounted for about 9 percent of crashes, according to the documents in the Windows Vista Capable lawsuit.

Despite reports that Windows XP Service Pack SP3 would hit Release to Manufacturing soon after the RTW of Vista SP1, Microsoft has released yet another build of the next (and possibly last) service pack for its most popular operating system. The build, dubbed 'Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 Refresh' (not to be confused with SP3 RC2), does not contain many changes. According to Microsoft Technet, "Beyond fixes for common Windows Update issues and the inclusion of support for HD Audio, there are no substantial differences between this beta release (build 5508) and XP SP3 RC2 (build 3311)."

"I have a confession to make, I used Windows Millennium Edition and I liked it. That doesn't stop me making fun of it however. At a time where there was still a separation between consumer and enterprise operating systems, Windows ME was at the top of its class. What a lot of people forget or don't even recognize to begin with is that Windows ME is actually a rather innovative and forward-looking operating system. Instead, almost everyone focuses on its reliability problems which can be largely attributed to the flaky and inherently unstable Win9x kernel."

"Perhaps it's a sign of how desperate some sites are to get linked by the big aggregators, or perhaps it's a sign of how disappointed people are with Windows Vista - or both - but the endless stories about Windows 7's 'official launch' are silly and (more importantly) quite misleading."

If you are sticking with XP - and plenty of us are - and you're planning to miss the upgrade to Vista read this article on the Australian PC World. It looks at big questions like: will Windows XP still be properly supported by Microsoft and, as a primary development target, by third parties? Is there something we've missed, some hidden gotcha that's going to trip us up?

"The court-mandated committee overseeing Microsoft's compliance with a federal antitrust settlement has commenced reviews on the company's next major operating system to ensure it meets the settlement's terms. The so-called Technical Committee recently received a build of Windows 7 from Microsoft and is checking it for any features that might violate the agreement. Presumably, most heavily under scrutiny is whether the OS causes host computers to favor Microsoft applications over third-party software - a practice the federal government cited in its original complaint against the company."