Vista Gets Official Release Dates

SlinkySausage writes "Five years, three months and five days after Windows XP made its debut, Microsoft will usher its next-generation OS onto the stage. Microsoft has set November 30 as the release date for Vista (and Office 2007) to business customers and January 30, 2007 as the date for the official launch to consumers and The World At Large."

Comments

I've been running it for years!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

But I liked it better when they called it OS X!

J/K, I'm not gay.

535?

[PHAEDRU5]

Surely there's a numbering system where this reads "666".

Christmas Shopping!

[NineNine]

Just in time for Christmas Shopping Season! I'm getting everybody in my family a shiny new End User License Agreement (EULA)! I can't wait for Christmas morning around the tree, when we all get to click "Accept" together! Now, that's what I call quality family time.

Re:Christmas Shopping!

[Sparr0]

Everyone knows you are supposed to let the cat click Accept, just in case some crazy judge somewhere rules click-through licenses binding some day.

Why is the delay such a big deal?

[wizrd_nml]

Let me say up front I consider myself computer savvy but definitely not a programmer or an expert. My question to everyone is, why is everyone so upset about how long it's taking for Windows Vista to come out?

As far as I can see, Windows XP, with patches, a firewall and Firefox seems to be working fine. I don't feel the need to upgrade as soon as Vista comes out.

They're late on the deadline they originally set for themselves. But I don't see anyone else losing any sleep over it.

Re:Why is the delay such a big deal?

[suv4x4]

My question to everyone is, why is everyone so upset about how long it's taking for Windows Vista to come out?

The logic is simple. Slashdotters, and a lot news/blog sites just become artificially "upset" at everything Microsoft does. So don't be surprised.

Vista delayed? OMG we're upset!
Vista release dates announced? OMG we're upset!
Microsoft patents something? OMG we're upset!
Microsoft opens the patent of something? OMG we're upset!

Basically never mind what Microsoft does, is quickly wrapped in conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios, and frequently the logic is so weak, that the whole thing reads better as light attempts at sarcasm.

Re:Why is the delay such a big deal?

[baadger]

SP2 was a gigantic jump in terms of security, but it was a far cry from a "new OS" by respectable standards (Maybe by Microsoft's). The problem with Microsoft is they don't seem to take the time to make any *non-essential* improvements to their OS's once they're out the door. IE7, and perhaps WMP 10, surely must be the only things MS has ever released to improve the user experience in XP and they only exist because of Vista.

Sure, fancy new apps and UI's should be saved for new versions (like Vista), they have a business to run after all, but what about improvements to CPU scheduling or memory management?

Linux (2.6.18) performs *much* better under load than my XP x64 installation which is always swapping out when it doesn't need to (When *I* notice a performance hit when I have free RAM going to me that means the algorithm obviously isn't right for desktop use) and grinds to a massive halt under heavy CPU load. When I copy a large file from one disk to another in Windows I may as well just go make a brew because the XP shell itself becomes as slow as frozen tar. Linux remains interactive even under 100% cpu load or when moving large files around across disks.

Anyone who tells me that XP have made improvements in this area has to be joking. Sure they may have put in some tweaks here and there, but it's marginal if anything and not on par with other OS's in 2006.

IMHO Microsoft should release two versions of their "Service Pack"'s, one purely a security response roll-up *plus updates to improve to underlying architecture (kernel updates)* and the other a bundle of applications and UI/user experience enhancements like we're getting in Vista. People could pay for the latter. Then they should release these upgrades incrementally every year *on the dot* and do away with the stupid 5 year life cycle. Yes this is like Apple does it and it does it better better. As someone who's never used or bought a Mac in my life, I still think Microsoft need to take a page out of Apple's book and adopt some of their practices.

Vista will be the same old flawed release, it'll be glitchy until service pack 1 and Microsoft will never release anything other than essential security updates for it through Windows Update. The Ultimate Extras thing will be a joke because noone will use it after shelling out hundred's of dollars already.

All I'm saying is Microsoft need to wake the fuck up and realise people don't want to run Windows Update and see 60 obscure looking boring security updates and hundreds of meg to download. They want to see "Update: Improvements to the look and feel of IE7", "Update: Improvement to desktop responsiveness under load" and "Update: Improve ease of use of ripping music with WMP" and i'm sure if people saw these updates flow out of Redmond on a reliable basis they would be willing to pay for them on a yearly subscription basis if it was fairly priced.

Breaking news

[ameyer17]

Unseasonably cold temperatures predicted for November 30th in Hell.

Can't Wait for Apple

[Killer Eye]

Somehow, I see this going a little like Apple's surprise price reduction for the iPod just before the Zune came along: Microsoft employees scrambling to hack some last-minute changes into their strategy after hearing what Apple is doing.

So imagine MacWorld just before this January 30 Vista release. Jobs has already shown he's not too afraid to take a stab at Redmond. We all expect some surprise Leopard features that speak for themselves, but expect some intentional jabs as well. Maybe even a TV commercial campaign to steal thunder from the TV campaign Microsoft is sure to launch (because they always do).

Personally, I predict the real show-stopper will be a surprise price reduction from Apple. Seriously, if they knocked Leopard *down* to $99 or something, Microsoft would be looking really bad.

oh my

[chowdy]

Repent the end is extremely fucking nigh

Re:better than linux

[Jekler]

I'm going to take a 6 month sabbatical to meditate on your words. There's just something deeply compelling about what you have to say that fills me with a sense of longing for a truer understanding of this wacky universe of ours.

Thank you fellow scholar. You have changed me.

5 years, 3 months, 5 days... Yet still...

[Beren]

...manage to beat Duke Nukem Forever.

According to this page, DNF has been in (in)active development for over 8 years...

Re:aka Corporate version

[Overly Critical Guy]

The reason for this is that Microsoft wants to pretend it's shipping Vista in 2006, but no enterprise customers are going to install a brand new OS without months of testing. Microsoft knows this, so they're releasing to those customers, celebrating the faux RTM, then spending the next couple of months actually bugfixing and polishing Vista and "really" releasing next year on January 30.

Don't let them fool you--Vista is being released on January 30th, 2007.

Because it is a big deal, IMHO.

[ichigo 2.0]

I'm looking forward to DX10, lower CPU usage (because the UI is run on the GPU), the ability to prioritize I/O (no more 10 fps in games if you move big files around on your computer at the same time), SMB 2.0 (transfers should survive now if the network is disconnected for a moment), virtualized registry (programs run in their own little world = less fudging around with regedit to clean up broken stuff), improved windows APIs (this is mostly for us programmers), improved audio system (ability to mute/adjust sound per application instead), multitasking of GPUs, general bugfixes and improved stability. This was just off the top of my head.

A better question would be why some people (excluding mac & linux users :) are not looking forward to Vista? Aside from the DRM (which will be promptly cracked), that is.