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.

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

[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.

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.

astalavista

[Inigo Soto]

Will this be their *cough* registration site?

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...

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.

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.

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 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: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;
}