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Microsoft May Delay Windows Vista Again

UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."

27 of 482 comments (clear)

  1. Well ... by vodkamattvt · · Score: 5, Funny

    I certainly didnt see this coming!

  2. Suggested new Name by Vyvyan+Basterd · · Score: 5, Funny

    MS/Hurd

    1. Re:Suggested new Name by Eudial · · Score: 5, Funny

      How about "Windows Forever"? Sounds more poetic.

      --
      GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
    2. Re:Suggested new Name by EnsilZah · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, since the first letter in the acronym doesn't have any meaning anyway, i think MS/Turd would be more apropriate.

  3. Vista Slogan by frosty_tsm · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We won't be releasing it any time soon, but please enjoy the view."

  4. What's the hold-up? by RLiegh · · Score: 5, Funny

    Haven't they finished taking out everything that makes it different from XP yet?!??!?

  5. a distant view by SimonInOz · · Score: 5, Funny

    vista (vs't) pronunciation
    n.

    1. A distant view or prospect, especially one seen through an opening, as between rows of buildings or trees.

    Hmm ... "distant" ...

    --
    "Cats like plain crisps"
  6. Fixing non-problems by reldruH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If this is actually the case, I think Microsoft deserves what's coming to them. The only reason they still have so much market share is because of inertia, but if they can't actually ship a product (even at the already delayed date) they deserve the mass defections that hopefully will be coming. They've dropped a ton of features, they can't ship on time, even Joe six pack will at some point realize that this isn't the company that should be in control of his computer. Like it or not, people aren't going to switch to Linux or OSS because it might be better or because open source is a better sofware development model. They're going to switch because they're having a problem. Nobody's going to go out of their way to fix a problem they don't have. Luckily for us, MS is doing a great job creating those problems.

    --
    I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
    1. Re:Fixing non-problems by powerlord · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The biggest problem MS has been creating by delaying LongHo... I mean Vista isn't just in dropped features.

      Its also in licensing. When MS switched to their new licensing model they promised all their big customers that it would pay since MS SQL server would be out soon, along with a new version of Windows, so it made sense to go for the licensing.

      After the delay MS SQL 2005 experianced, and this, I'll be real surprised if people are willing to believe them again.

      It sounds almost like a Nigerian 419 scam:
      Yeah ... just pay us this big stack of cash and you're entitled to all the versions and updates we produce in the next two years.

      [3 years go by] ... Oh ... were you expecting something?

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  7. Re:Some "Analysis" by kie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    not to worry, at this rate it WILL be perfectly timed for the holiday period...
    xmas 2007.

    --
    living the dream
  8. Cue MS trolls by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "It's not THAT late."

    "Still better than Linux"

    "It's only because MS is so far ahead already; they feel no need to rush their product out the door."

    "This time they'll get the security issues right."

    "Damned if they do, damned if they don't. You Linux advocates complain no matter what; admit that this way they'll avoid the bugs!"

    "It's Windows! It's the biggest project anywhere! 3 million lines of code! And it's Vista, the biggest upgrade yet! What's a few months between friends? Vista is WAY bigger than any Linux distribution!"

    "Microsoft has to be enterprise ready. Linux is for dweebs and nerds. Of course Windows has a longer release cycle; that's 'cause its better"

    "It's not fair; if MS didn't have to deal with all these vindictive, nerdy hackers, Windows wouldn't take so long to develop. Imagine if Apple or Linux had to deal with these black hat hackers."

    "We're MS. The Volume Goes to 11 Here."

    Did I miss any?

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
    1. Re:Cue MS trolls by sharkey · · Score: 5, Funny
      "Vista ain't done, 'til Boot Camp don't run."

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  9. Re:Brilliant! by Daltorak · · Score: 5, Interesting


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windo ws_Vista ... read the whole thing (yes, it's long and wordy), and then explain to me how Monad and WinFS are collectively better than the hundreds of improvements listed there. Be sure you understand what Vista *is*, as opposed to what it *isn't*.

  10. Re:Some "Analysis" by MouseR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of big company IT departments make major OS/hardware/infrastructure updates/changes during that period to minimize downtime. They benefit from most employees being on vacation/leave during the same period.

    Also, lots of machines with pre-installed OSes are sold during that period, as gifts. Same goes for box upgrades.

  11. And here's a suggested screenshot by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Funny
    1. Re:And here's a suggested screenshot by moosesocks · · Score: 5, Funny

      Slashdot.... the only place where it is necessary to use the Coral cache to display a blank GIF so that the host server doesn't go down in flames....

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  12. More imporantly by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is gartner reporting; This is the same group that in 1999 reported that Linux/OSS would penetrate into the server market at most 1% and into the web server market at only 5% by 2004 (5 years). Sadly, Linux was already beating those numbers at that time.

    Generally, Gartner ( and IDC and a few others ) are some of the worse are guessing what the future holds. In fact, I would suggest that their incompetence is so bad, that I would guess that they get at most 25% correct; which means, that most companies would be better off betting against them.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  13. Rush job? by fortunato · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally I don't understand why anyone would even consider touching this before its been out for at least a few months if not a year. It's quite apparent they are trying to rush this thing out the door. I'll be highly surprised if it isn't one huge bug infested mess. I certainly wouldn't want to depend on it for anything.

  14. Give it up... by tymbow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm a bit of a Microsoft fanboy but personally I think they should just give up on Vista. It's a trainwreck of a project and I can see another Windows ME in the making. I can't see many compelling reasons to deploy this in an existing environment. It's (for the most part) just a Windows XP clone with a few new features with a pretty UI and steep hardware requirements.

    Microsoft should take all the half decent features out of Vista, back port them to Windows XP and call it Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Windows XP R2 then site down and have a good long think before they try this again.

    It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up. If we can get Windows applications running under Linux with WINE, then surely Microsoft can get Windows applications running under some new operating system thus satisfying the backwards compatibility requirements. There are far too many issues with Windows appearing that are grounded in its architecture such as reduced privileges which is difficult to make work because Windows is not truly multi-user etc. etc. etc.

    Give it up, start again and do it properly.

    1. Re:Give it up... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Informative

      "It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up"

      Actually that was the problem.

      MS did decide to rewrite alot of it from scratch and then the performance and compatibility were not what Microsoft hoped for.

      So they decided to use the XP code base and go back to square one and rewrite %60 of the code that was fresh. I knew it would be remade in 6 months! 60%?? Try a year, maybe 18 months? That is just huge.

      For more info you can do a google search and slashdot covered it a month or two ago?

      No wonder Elchin was fired. To me I would have just used the new code and not reverted back. Get the thing out the door!

      So in other words it will use new security techniques on old code that dates back from Windows95 and NT3.1.

    2. Re:Give it up... by Matthias+Wiesmann · · Score: 5, Insightful
      It's about time Microsoft seriously thought about re-architecting their operating system from the ground up.
      I suspect that this is what they have been doing, and the reason they are late. The main issue of WINE and I suspect of any reasonably clean re-implementation of the Windows API will run into the same issues: emulating bugs and un-documented behavior. Rewriting a clean version is only half of the game, the other is to tell developers to stop using system X call and that behaviour Y will not be supported anymore. Either that, or your code needs to reproduce the undocumented behaviour which is difficult and will result in not so clean code.

      Apple did clean up its API by moving from the classic Mac OS Toolbox to the Carbon API which is basically a cleaned up version of the former. The transition took time, and old programs had to run in a emulated version of the previous OS. It is also interesting that Apple chose this approach after the let's rewrite the OS from the group up, plan failed.

      Following such path would be, I suspect, quite painful for Microsoft:

      • The move to OS X brought Mac users a lot of new features (basically many advantages of Unix), the advantages of Vista are not so clear, especially now that many features have been cut out.
      • The number of Windows applications is much larger, this means more program using strange calls, and more users and programmers complaining that their application does not run on the new OS.
      • I suspect that games would be particularly affected, support for games has always been an important factor for the acceptance of Microsoft operating systems.
      • Microsoft has many low-level API like DirectX that Apple did not have to worry about
      • If Microsoft succeeds and most applications start to rely on a cleaned up API, this API will be much more easy to reverse-engineer by projects like WINE.
  15. Death by Contract by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is this, a game console? What does Microsoft care if it slips for the Holiday season?

    All sorts of juicy Software Assurance Program subscriptions expire this year. Years ago, Microsoft managed to sucker companies into paying a large lump sum for all the Windows updates over the next six years - including Vista!

    If companies get nothing at all for the duration of the contract, I think you'll see a lot of lawsuits and I know you'll see a lot of dropped "assurance" subscriptions.

    Microsoft is delivering vista to companies even if it has to come in a box with crayon on the disc in place of a label.

    Now you also know why the consumer release is later, because this release is just to meet obligations and in no way will be ready for primetime for you or I.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  16. Re:This is getting old by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 5, Informative

    don't know what you think the Mac OS X specs are, but my wife is running Tiger (OS X 10.4.x) on a 5 year old 400MHz G4 laptop quite happily. 'Will run on 800MHz' sounds a bit stiff. Although it is relegated to a music server, I also have a 400MHz G3 laptop happily running Tiger with 512MB RAM.


    What happened to the argument that G4mhz didn't equal Intel mhz?

    We are running Vista on 400mhz systems with 128mb of RAM. (Systems slower than a G4 400mhz. PERIOD.

    As for RAM, the more the better no matter what OS. Vista will run on lower than the 512mb of RAM MS recommends. Apple recommends 256mb for the current version of OSX, but the next version Apple has stated will also recommend 512mb of RAM. Even in your post you note you are running OSX on a G3, but state you are using 512mb of RAM.

    RAM is cheap, it should not freak people out to see a 512mb recommended anymore.

    Vista technically would run on a 1995 Pentium Processor, but who would want to run any OS on such an old processor, even if Vista's legacy compatibility goes back that far.

    Also I'm not sure how you got OSX 'Tiger' to run a G3, unless you know of a trick I don't know of. I didn't think it would install, nor function properly without the altivec extensions.

    This is kind of a silly debate. I'm not knocking OSX, it REALLY wasn't my point. I was just giving an example that Vista doesn't have that high of tech requirements, truly...

    Take Care.

  17. Tell me again, what's coming in Vista? by dtjohnson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Windows 95 brought TCP/IP and a web browser. Windows 98 brought USB and FAT32. Windows 2K/XP brought multi-user and NTFS. Quick, in 30 seconds or less, what is Vista is going to have that's interesting? I predict it will a draconian DRM thingy to go with some product activation scheme even more onerous that WinXP. Yeah, that's got me excited...not.

  18. Re:If anyone actually expected MS to be on time... by Moofie · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Because if waiting a few more months means getting what's the most up-to-date"

    You're new to this whole computer buying thing, aren't you?

    --
    Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  19. Re:This is getting old by madgamer · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We are running Vista on 400mhz systems with 128mb of RAM. (Systems slower than a G4 400mhz. PERIOD.

    that's great. so ship it.

  20. Simple: It *DOESNT WORK* by scsirob · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, seriously. I'm testing it and it simply doesn't work very well for me. Not on my reasonable high-end system with reasonably standard components. It's unstable, lacks many drivers and hangs quite frequently. The system keeps prompting me for drivers for 'unknown devices' with no obvious way to turn it off. The GUI has so many changes that it's essentially a steep learning curve. Nothing is simple anymore.

    The UAP 'feature' is very annoying, and dialogs fall all over eachother trying to warn you for yet another dangerous action that some piece of software is attempting to run.

    My opinion: Back to the drawing board.

    (System: Antec case, Asus A8N-SLI Premium, AMD64X2 3800+, 2GB Kingston RAM, ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB, 2x Maxtor 250GB SATA RAID-1, Maxtor 80GB PATA)

    --
    To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB