Next Version of Windows? Call it '7'

CNet has the news that Microsoft is currently aiming to release the next version of the Windows operating system in about three years. Previously known as Vienna, the OS is now simply known internally as '7'. After achieving a quality product, the article states, Microsoft's big goal with 7 is to recapture a regular release schedule for their operating system product. From the article: "Like Vista, Windows 7 will ship in consumer and business versions, and in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The company also confirmed that it is considering a subscription model to complement Windows, but did not provide specifics or a time frame. Next up on Microsoft's agenda is Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, which is expected before year's end. The discussion of Windows' future isn't surprising, given that Microsoft has been criticized by business customers for delays related to Vista. Many business customers pay for Microsoft's software under a license agreement called Software Assurance."

Comments

History lesson

[jmorris42]

> Kind of like Windows 3.1 being 16bit when it wouldn't run on anything older than a 386 (32bit) anyway.

From your profile it is clear you are too young to remember it first hand so I'll educate instead of flaming ya. :)

Recall that there were versions of Windows prior to Windows 3.1, the first clue to which should have been the version number. Moving to Win32 was a major upheaval in the software world, keeping compatibility with Win16 and more importantly, DOS were the major selling features of Windows 3.1. By 3.1 a lot of major software was running in Windows 16-bit AND business depended on a lot of DOS code, home users depended on DOS for the majority of games, etc. Heck, most of the software people were actually running on WinNT was 16-bit code. And most games were DOS based well into the Win95/Win98 era. It wasn't until XP was looming and game makers saw sticking with DOS as a death sentence that they drank the DirectX Kool-Aid for any project not depending on 3D.

And there were a LOT of 286 based machines not only in the installed base but still being sold. For example on the day Win3.1 shipped I was working at a Radio Shack in the D/FW area and the only 386 class machine in the store was the SCO Xenix box in the stockroom running the store. To buy a 386 class machine from Tandy you had to go to a Business Computer Center.

Re:Didn't we just leave this party?

[Master of Transhuman]

"It seems Microsoft is realizing the flaws in its own development model and is trying to fix it"

Did you read the issues around Vista that were posted on Microsoft employee blogs by Microsoft employees?

And this was AFTER Jim Allchin told Gates the thing would never be done if they didn't change their methods.

So they changed their methods.

And what happened was that an incredibly broken testing system was put in place which was so badly broken that it delayed Vista release for months, while the development managers certified test builds as "Approved" even when they failed numerous - possibly even ALL - tests.

The problem with Microsoft is their PEOPLE - not their system. Their corporate culture is broken - and broken beyond repair as long as Gates and Ballmer are running the show. The stockholders should be in revolt - if they knew anything about the company.

The bottom line is that Vista has twice the code in it that Linux does - and does not do twice as much (unless you count the ridiculous DRM checking mechanisms, I suppose.) There's no way one company can develop a system with even more code in it and come up with something that works. I doubt it's even feasible for the Linux community unless the industry comes up with better development and testing methods. When Linux hits the amount of lines of code in Vista, it will be BETTER than Vista - but even I doubt whether it will be adequately reliable for normal use.

The problem is that the industry - especially Microsoft (and with an even worse attitude) - is pushing the limits of the current software development technology. The result is what we see everywhere: "Nothing works and nobody cares."

Re:What Microsoft needs to do

[FlyingGuy]

Well other then Losing Ballmer they need to do a few things and your right one is to just throw the shit away and start fresh.

But the problem is far beyond backward compatibility.

First of all they have to pick a model on which to base this From Scratch new operating system. Now when it comes to this it is not as wide open as one would think. First of all they have to have a hardware platform on which to build. The current hardware world is basically divided between Intel Processors & Chipsets and IBM processors and chipsets. AMD's are clones of Intel processors with some interesting modes. So where to you choose to host this thing? If you go with Intel do you collaborate with them on an entirely new instruction set and design? Do you go with IMB and the PowerPC line and it's successors such as Cell Technology? If you are going to push out something totally new then these are questions you have to ask. Even Microsoft with all their money and clout has to have a partnership with the hardware producers.

In this theoretical new hardware environment what do we do? Do we come up with an entirely new bus? I mean please, anything to replace the PCI bus. And what about external communication? Do we still keep forging along with USB? Embrace FireWire? Do we go back to having dedicated interfaces for things like Keyboards and Mice?

Personally I think something like a fiber-optic switch being the heart of a "computer" and things like Processors, Ram, Storage Devices, et all each having a fiber connection. If you need more of anything you just plug it into a port of the fiber switch and off you go.

The problem with that brilliant idea is that you only switch so fast from fiber to electrical signals and back so fast. Thats one of the problems with digital is the switching and the converting, which is one of the reasons IMO why we are still stuck with things like PCI, it may suck, but it has 32 or more discrete pathways that carry all the various signals, in parallel to the various main components.

Parallelism was what made SCSI so superior to IDE or MFM along with the fact that it has its one on-board processing and command set. However along with all that came the problems of clocking and this that and the other. SAS will push the speed up, put at some point there is a limit as to how fast you can signal before it just becomes a radio transmitter and the physical layer will become to cumbersome with all the shielding and the power consumption since the faster you signal the more it just like DC to the copper.

Processor speed is starting to approach the end of its limit and its time to start looking for better ways to line instructions up across a broad front and process them at once and resolve the dependencies accordingly which brings us right back to software.

Can software, an OS, solve some of these problems? yes but not alone. To re-invent an entirely new OS will take years unless you want it to be a re-hash of the Unix model which is what, like it or not, everything out there is based upon. It will take bold new thinking in both the hardware and software fields to bring us the truly next generation of computers. Some of the people at Microsoft, IBM, Novell, The Linux community are capable of some bold steps but the the companies themselves as entities are not IMO capable. In the hay day of advancement we had places like PARC, AT&T Labs, MIT, UC Berkeley, The Government ( indirectly through grants ), and a few others doing PURE research and that was where all the great advances really came from. If we are to do so again, those places must be renewed, funded and staffed with people with imagination and the drive to take any direction that shows promise and do the basic research.

The last thing that has to happen to get all these great labs back in top shape is patent reform. These days research is often scuttled because some MBA or Lawyer cannot see the road to lock this in so lots of money can be made.

meanwhile, out in the world

[MrKaos]

A friend of mine, I'd call her a "average computer user", was asking me (she knew I worked in IT) why power users (her mum in this case) even bothered upgrading windows? I was thinking of my answer (cpu capacity, memory capacity - access to better resources, upgraded software etc), when she said...

"My mum upgraded and it's exactly the same, except now it's got 'rounded corners', big deal it's the same thing except the 'corners are round'!!!"

I was quietly suprised, but she went on..

"My mum has gone throught the same hassle everytime she decides to upgrade her computer, she spends a whole lot of money, a whole lot of time and in the end the result is the same thing, except 'the corners are rounder'".

That is the perspective of a average computer user with no technical interest, I simply agreed with her and said I had noticed pretty much the same thing.

For as long as I can remember M$ have underdelivered. I don't even support windows users anymore, it's simply not worth the effort, if I fix it, it will break again subject to the three R's of windows;

Reboot the machine.

Reload the application.

Reinstall the Operating System.

I can charge them for it, but I usually just make suggestions on how to fix it so they have to go through the hassle themselves, after all it was their choice.

Nowadays, I just give people a Ubuntu live install to try, I tell them it will probably be a bit slow running of the CD or DVD and to focus on the way it works rather than the speed. I think that, despite the fragmentation in the Linux distribution's, I continue to notice a trend of installing more Linux, either Fedora or Ubuntu. This year I've actually had people asking me for linux installs, I haven't had any of these lay-users wanting to go back to windows even though I give them the option to. In reality, I think it comes down to this,

You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

I don't think this simple peice of wisdom factors into M$'s business plan.