Longhorn's Offical Name is Windows Vista

UnkleAsdf writes "The folks at Redmond have long pointed to the user interface of the next generation Windows release as one of its major selling points. Now, it appears Microsoft has chosen an official name for Longhorn with just that in mind. Enter: Windows Vista. Microsoft is expected to make an official announcement early Friday morning." From the article: "Microsoft has also registered domains to go along with the newly christened Windows, including windowsvista.com. The domains were registered in late March, indicating the company made the decision even before WinHEC gave developers their first taste of Longhorn in over a year."

Comments

Name confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Asta lavista, Alta Vista. You have fewer lawyers.

Re:Name confusion?

[ramunas]

We Latvians are extatic about the name: Vista in latvian means hen :)))

Re:Name confusion?

[michelcultivo]

I see a lot of troubles with Brazilian Portuguese:
Vista = Wear something
Vista = Eyes
Vista = Pay with Money

Re:Name confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Micro$oft was talking about the latter.

Re:Name confusion?

[pilgrim23]

I had my money on "Windows Copeland"...

If this OS is a vista...

[m93]

then the view thus far is crappy.

Chicken

[Letaals]

Windows Vista in latvian would be Windows Chicken, now that is very lucky for us latvians.. "I hate chicken!"

Re:Chicken

[haeger]

Honda did something similar in Europe. They were going to name a car Honda Fitta which would be unfortunate since "Fitta" means "Cunt" in swedish.

They managed to get a slogan too. "Small on the outside but large once you get in".
Needless to say the Honda manager in Sweden wasn't very amused when the papers called him and asked about this.

Oh, they rebranded it. Now it's called Honda Jazz.

.haeger

Re:Chicken

[Himring]

I went to a restaurant and I ordered a chicken sandwich, but I don't think the waitress heard me 'cause she asked how I'd like my eggs. So I tried answering her anyways. "INCUBATED! Then hatched, then raised, then beheaded, then plucked, then cut up, then put onto a grill, then put onto a bun. Damn, it's gonna take a while. I don't have the time. Scrambled! -Mitch Hedberg

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedberg

Rest in peace Mitch....

Re:Chicken

[div_2n]

For all sorts of poor name choices, check out:

http://www.i18nguy.com/translations.html

I am sure someone will mention the Chevy Nova legend, but that's just what it is--a legend.

According to Dictionary.com

[jpiggot]

Vista is -- "A distant view or prospect"

Which only makes sense, because I'm sure it'll be delayed...ooooh...me thinky long time.

One of?

[PeteDotNu]

"The folks at Redmond have long pointed to the user interface of the next generation Windows release as one of its major selling points."

There seem to be a few surplus characters in that sentence. The words "one of" and that final "s" seem to have been typed by accident.

Re:One of?

[Jondor]

Or windows "look don't touch"..

Why not just issue a theme?

[soops1966]

Instead of all this R&D why don't they release a bew theme for XP. Save a lot of messing around.

Could have new widgets that ate memory, CPU, disk space and to phone home.

Cheaper and faster than how they're doing it now.

Re:Version?

[logik3x]

5.2 = windows server 2003 Windows Vista will be 6.0

Obviously..

[joshsnow]

..they dared not name it after a year. That would have been like 3drealms naming Duke Nukem 1998 instead of Duke Nukem forever.

Re:Obviously..

[KiloByte]

Right. Instead of missing your deadlines, you can give yourself some safety space.
Like, Chessmaster 2000 was released in 1986, 3000 in 1991. The latest dated version is 9000 -- this means, they still have 7995 years until their next deadline. I believe they have a fair chance of making it.

Registration

[leonmergen]

The domains were registered in late March, indicating the company made the decision even before WinHEC gave developers their first taste of Longhorn in over a year.

And why is that, exactly? Couldn't it be that they made up many names, selected, say, 10, and registered the domain names to prevent leaking of the name and it being registered by someone else ?

Sounds like a very small price for such a big risk, so I don't see any reason why registration in March should indicate that they actually decided to go with that name at that date...

Define: Vista

[hcob$]

The view you see outside your office window while your computer switches from Blue Screen of Death to Red Screen of Death, reboots, crashes, pours water on itself, ignites and then explodes.

Oh, and then customer service asks if you have plugged in your computer.

Arnold..

[curtisk]

..can make some good scratch since it appears his political career seems to have limited duration.

{Commercial starts}IT group all a scramble, looks like a technical World War 3, motorcycle boots stomp into the frame, pan up to Arnie's mug...." Windows Vista, Baby!" holding CD at arms length. Looks of salvation on the faces of IT techs.

LOL what am I saying?

Yuck Yuck

[soma_0806]

With a name like Longhorn, they were kind of asking to be re-"branded"

astalavista

[Inigo Soto]

Will this be their *cough* registration site?

Sucks to be this company...

[logik3x]

http://www.vistawindows.com.au/

Whew!

[XxtraLarGe]

I was worried they were going to pull one-upsmanship on Apple and name it Windows "Liger", (which is bred for its skills in magic).

Other Rejected Names

[WombatControl]

After dumpster diving outside Redmond, I managed to come up with this list of alternate names compiled by Microsoft's marketing team:

• New Windows
• Windows Edsel
• Windows Nova (with an extra push for sales in Latin America)
• Microsoft Bob 2.0
• Windows: Ishtar Edition
• Windows: Enterprise
• Windowfalls (To be paired with a quirky yet brilliant drama/comedy on the Fox network)
• Windows Episode II: Attack of the Clones
• Windows XP 2: Electric Bugaloo

For the launch of Windows 95, Microsoft used The Rolling Stones, for Windows XP it was Jay Leno. For the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft will use a celebrity guest that represents the future of the product: Microsoft is considering David Caruso, Shelley Long, John Travolta, or Kevin Costner...

Re:Running out of ti.. names.

[bjomo]

Yeah, they already used up the good ones like Windows XP, Windows 2000, and the most fabulous of all Windows 3.1. What dolt modded the parent insightful?

New Name for Windows Explorer

[dsginter]

Vista Cruiser!

Where's the real news?

[Aminion]

So the future Windows will be called Vista. But where is the news that really matters?

I want to know what happened to WinFS, Avalon, Indigo and all the other revolutionary tech that Long... Vista supposedly would offer. How much has been cut and how much does Vista really differ from XP? How much will Vista cost?

Somehow, Vista doesn't seem to be, as Bill Gates once said, the the most important release since Windows 95. Let's hope Vista is more than a new color scheme and fancy GUI components.

Re:Where's the real news?

[Dunbal]

Let's hope Vista is more than a new color scheme and fancy GUI components.

I am sure it will contain a whole new way for anyone to see and share your files...

They are lucky

[MarkByers]

Oh I think they will make a deal with Microsoft. If they agree to change their name, they'll probably even get a free X-Box, and maybe a couple of games.

No numbers this time?

[Dachannien]

I guess Windows 2012 just doesn't have that "ring" to it.

Re:Running out of ti.. names.

[cybersaga]

Windows Vista, that doesn't sound quite right. I think they're running out of names.

Since they've been using the name 'Windows' for the past 20 years, I wonder why it took you this long to figure that out.

Now for the lawsuits

[zymurgy_cat]

And in related news, Microsoft announced it was suing the following cites/towns/counties for trademark infringement:

Vista, CA
Vista, MO
Vista, FL
Vista, IA
Vista, MN
Vista, MT
Vista, NM
Vista, NV
Vista, NY

6.0?

[Vo0k]

Remove a few more features you had announced and it will be more like 5.2.0.1-rc1

better name in light of the terrorist attacks...

[TEMM]

Windows Freedom, oh the irony.

6 degrees of Windows...

[sczimme]

then the view thus far is crappy.

1) Longhorn has been changed to Vista.

2) Vista means 'view'.

3) It's still a long way off - and it was called Longhorn, so we wouldn't be out of line calling it 'Long View'.

4) 'Long View' is a song by the band Green Day.

5) Green Day released an album called 'Dookie'.

6) Dookie is a slang term for feces (i.e. crap).

Hey, you're right!

Re:6 degrees of Windows...

[chjmiller]

and green day was on carson daly for the same show as Kyra Sedgwick who is married to kevin bacon. i did it!

Re:6 degrees of Windows...

[frodo from middle ea]

I have a shorted route...

Vista, in Sanskrit means crap.

Re:6 degrees of Windows...

[KH]

I didn't know Sanskrit was such a popular language. But (deliberate) ignorance is pretty saddening. I'm a Sanskritist.

First of all, "vista" actually exists in Sanskrit. Citing from Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictonary: vista m. (ifc. f. aa) a partic. weight of gold (= 80 Raktikaas or a Karsha of 16 Maashas, about half an ounce troy), Praayashc.

Also, some misconceptions with regard to Sanskrit:

1) Sanskrit is a South Asian language, not Southeast Asian. (Parts of Southeast Asian cultures used Sanskrit in times, such as in Cambodia, Indonesia. In that regard, Sanskrit was known among East Asian cultures via Buddhism.)

2) Sanskrit is a language, Devanagari is a script (as another poster points out). Sanskrit can be transcribed in many scripts. In fact, many many South Asian scripts were traditionally used to write down Sanskrit.

3) Another post about the word "vistara" is pretty much correct. But note that many of them are the same word declined differently. The ablative case (vistarata.h/vistaraat) and the instrumental case (vistare.na) are the most often used.

I guess the parent poster wanted to be just funny. So, the parent post should be modded accordingly.

That..doesn't make sense

[Marc2k]

Windows Vista will likely be shortened to:

Windows VI

Why...on earth would anyone shorten Windows Vista to Windows VI? Your logic is blowing my mind. ..but besides that, everyone knows that the REAL power is in Windows EMACS; heck, it's so bloated, it's almost a full operating system!

Re:Running out of ti.. names.

[khazad]

On family trips my dad's joke was to point out any nice looking scenery and say "what a nice vista."

Oh, he was a funny one.

Re:Vista is a rewrite from the ground up (right?),

[saider]

Windows source code

int main( int argc, char * argv[] )
{
float value;

// splashscreen("Windows 3.1");
// splashscreen("Windows 95");
// splashscreen("Windows Me");
// splashscreen("Windows 2000");
// splashscreen("Windows XP");
splashscreen("Windows Vista");
grindHarddrive();
showDestop(DISABLE_CURSOR);
wait(20000);
showDesktop(ENABLE_CURSOR);

while( rand() > 0.9 )
{
doWork();
}

bluescreen(geterror(rand());
return 0;
}

Re:Mod me up bitches

[tsa]

Fantastic picture on this web site! Is it there yet? Nope, I still can't see it. Not even on the horizon...

Re:Mod me up bitches

[kisielk]

Heh, looks like the two people are standing on a cliff edge ready to jump.. "farewell cruel world!" ;)