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Microsoft Submits Windows 7 for Antitrust Review
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has submitted the follow-up to Windows Vista to the committee that oversees its US antitrust compliance, to ensure the operating system is meeting the terms of the company's agreement with the government. According to last week's status report on the US antitrust case, Microsoft "recently supplied" the Technical Committee (TC) with a build of the OS, code-named Windows 7, and the TC will "conduct middleware-related tests on future builds" of the software. The move was revealed in papers filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Those on the TC so far are the only ones privy to what the follow-up to Vista will look like, and Microsoft is mum on details of the software. But recent company moves and revelations hint at what can be expected from the software, which is due for release in late 2009 or early 2010. Lets hope Microsoft learns some lessons from the "Vista Capable" dilemma!!"
didn't we just have an article nearly exactly like this a few days ago?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Apparently they don't send it to Academy members...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
...each copy with secret water marks throughout the software, traceable back to the folks that signed the NDA that promised the left AND right nut should they spill the beans.
ya, can't imagine how that doesn't happen more often.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The problem with saying hardware is 'vista capable' is that its not entirely clear what they mean. I have it on good authority that a room-full of MS lawyers have come up with a new term for selling hardware that the newest version of Windows may or may not run on:
"Supports windows 7" means that if you put the software box on top of the hardware, the hardware will not physically crumble to the ground.
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http://vancouvercondo.info
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Did we care then?
As usual, M$'s software lags hardware by five to seven years. Expect a continued messy transition to 64 bit computing that will favor Intel, the other monopoly laggart.
This is a lot like the transition from 95 to XP. How many times did Bill Gates declare the "death of DOS" or "16 bit computing"? The messy steps between included 98, NT, ME and W2K. It took that long to marginalize competing software vendors but the real cost should be measured in intentionally wasted hardware. Non free and free software competitors continued to produce technically superior software such as DRDOS, Lotus, Word Perfect, OS/2, BeOS and Apple, of course. The competitors all won the race to 32 bits by years but M$ used it's market position to shove them all aside. This is the lesson they thought they learned then.
Free software has handed M$ it's ass for 64 bit software and architecture independence. Almost as soon as there were 64 bit platforms GNU/Linux and BSD were running on it, Alpha, AMD, Intel, Sun and more exotic stuff. Lesser computers are also working. Thanks to the fantastic work of GNU it's just a compiler switch.
The problem for M$ is that we have all learned the same lesson and are sick of it. People are not going to just go along with things. They are not going to throw their hardware out again for another buggy version of Windows. Free software works all of it better now, so Windows 7 is just as dead in the water as Vista was. The industry is losing money, and their trust in M$ is gone.
No calls now, I'm
I didn't think anything could hold together in the pure evil emanating from Windows CDs...
Windows XP was released Q4 2001,
Windows Vista was released Q1 2007,
Windows 7 is scheduled for Q4 2009,
Windows 8 is scheduled for Q1 2011,
Windows 9 is scheduled for Q4 2011,
Windows 10 is scheduled for Q1 2012.
Windows 11 and 12 are scheduled for Q2 2012,
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You're wrong about world perfect- MS Office has always been the premiere office suite. Have you seen Office 08? I don't get why Sarah Connor was trying to destroy The Turk-- it's obvious that Skynet won't start from a chess AI, it'll start when Microsoft adds just one too many features to Office and Visual Studio, and they become self-aware. The VS2008 installer is frankly terrifying with all the features flicking by in the installer animation, some of them are so insane and impressive.
Think about it... If Vista proves Microsoft can't control the market, and force people to buy it, problems solved!
A big part of antitrust is windows overrides default browsers and such, and forces it's own bundled applications on the user by making it difficult to discover how to make your software run well on the OS when it's not clearly documented (secret hooks only available to MS).
If windows media player is able to achieve better performance through some type of black magic that other media players don't have access to, how will this be tested on a pre-release secret platform? Same with browsers, office suites, or any other MS application.
Have these copies been distributed with the complete source code so secrets can be uncovered? Even if that was the case, who would pay for the man hours to sift through millions of lines of code? Even with a full source code audit, the released binaries could be completely different anyhow.
I think the only solution to restore fair competition is massive fines that go directly to marketing and development of competing platforms. Paying consumers who have been locked into the MS trap still leaves them trapped.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
From the business pages of the Wall Street Journal, it appears that many countries in the EU are ditching Microsoft and going with Linux.
So one wonders if this will all become moot at some point, as the invisible hand of the marketplace chooses a wiser solution.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Dilemma. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I would love to have a copy of Windows 7.
So, back when Windows had lame numbered version numbers (Win95, NT 4.0) it had jazzy codenames like Chicago, Cairo and whatnot. Now, that the official releases have jazzy official names (Vista, XP, whatnot) codenames have turned into... WINDOWS 7? so what gives?
So why worry about Windows 7 now? It's years away - and it'll be essentially stillborn when it finally does arrive. By then, other better alternatives will be readily available for a far, far lower price.
Free software may have had 64-bit versions - but was there any advantage over the 32 bit versions? Negligible in most cases. 32-bit software reworked to run on x64 isn't exactly cutting edge. Then once you had a x64 OS, you just ran 32-bit apps on it in compatibility mode.
No, in the real world people count on their Windows apps to run their daily business. In your dream world, who is creating the everyday business apps to compete with the Windows counterparts that run nearly every business in the US?
So that's it? All that to-do about Vista and how it's the Next Big Thing and it's slated to be replaced by "Windows 7" inside of a year and some change from now? That'll mean that Windows Vista was in production longer than it will be in service.
So now the US government is reduced to doing testing and QA for Microsoft!
What exactly does this discussion have to do with the "Vista Capable" debacle?
Sure, Vista is a slow, bloated operating system that offers very few tangible improvements over its predecessor.
However, the "Vista Capable" debacle grew out of the fact that Microsoft's marketing droids decided to vastly overstate Vista's ability to run over slow hardware.
Had Microsoft been a bit more conservative with their estimates (subtly admitting that their operating system is a cow), there never would have been a legal issue. Vista on its own isn't a great product, although its faults do not constitute a breach of the law (had the product been absurdly unstable or insecure, that might have been the case, although by most accounts, Vista either holds the line or improves over XP in these regards).
TFA discusses the possible engineering & design decisions that are being put into Windows 7 as new features. Odds are that many of these features haven't even been coded. Likewise, given that the design document has *just* been finalized, I can't imagine that the marketing guys have had much (if any) time to figure out how to spin the new product.
Here's a hint: Look at the features that were dropped from Vista (some of them were actually quite innovative).
Personally, I hope that Windows 7 is a decent, solid operating system, and corrects for Vista's faults. Microsoft has had a tendency to appropriately compensate if one of their products flops. NT4 spawned into a beautiful desktop-ready os with the release of Win2k, and after destroying all evidence that Windows Me! ever existed, Microsoft launched XP, which is arguably the most successful desktop operating system to date.
Also, Apple needs a kick in the pants. They're getting complacent, and the Quality Control on the last few releases of OS X have been abysmal by their former standards.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
WTF are you talking about, your post is full of non-sequiters.
>>Expect a continued messy transition to 64 bit computing that will favor Intel, the other monopoly laggart.
Vista and XP both shipped with 64 bit versions, specifically x86-64, which was developed originally by.....drumroll.....AMD! How exactly is ignoring IA64 for x86-64 favoring Intel?
>>Some nonsense about 32 bit computing
Windows 95 was 32 bit software. Maybe you mean using a protected memory model and pre-emptive multitasking(which is an operating system concept and has nothing to do with application software). Even Mac OS 9 didn't have this, and WinNT(which predates it by several years) did!
>>Free software has handed M$ it's ass for 64 bit software and architecture independence.
Guess what! Windows runs on more than x86: IA64, DEC Alpha and x86-64 come to mind as current and past platforms.
I think your point is that people don't have an incentive to buy a new computer or upgrade their operating system. You really need new killer apps to drive an upgrade cycle; lacking that, why should people upgrade?
> Plus, who the fsck actually wants to run Windows 7 anyway? I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, just like I never tried any betas of Vista..
I need some new coasters...
You lost me at Lotus being superior software.
It's a nice manifesto, but it's more about how you'd like the world to be than how it actually is or will be anytime soon.
Yes, God forbid a company should reform its bad behavior and be better corporate citizens. Can't have that, can we?
TFA quotes an analyst who thinks it'll be built on Server 2008 with a significantly pared down UI. That's actually very good news - the MinWin kernel may be nothing new to Unix users but it's a very welcome break from the bloat of Vista.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
Something similar would actually have been a useful certification for furniture likely to support an X-Box.
I also have good feelings about Windows 7. Vista had really good features but failed in lot of ways for me. I really feel that Microsoft recognizes Vista's faults, listened to the real critics of it and this will show as such in the new version.
This is not a sarcastic statement.
~ Ron Fitzgerald
With Microsoft having been chosen as the exclusive Homeland Security contractor, what is the point of this pretense over antitrust? Even before this absurd contract, it was cogently pointed out (by Ralph Nader and Jamie Love; see: http://www.linux.com/feature/23279) that the government shouldn't be putting its eggs and our tax dollars in the Microsoft basket. Now, of course, Washington is in bed with the devil. And it's pretty hard to tell the devil he's not a good lay.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/64bit.html
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/apples_mac_os_x_leopard_is_64_bit_done_right_unlike_vista/
For as much Windows and Microsoft bashing that goes on in this community, it sure is funny to see how eager people are to get their hands on their latest beta.
"Microsoft Beta" is a double negative, but I wouldn't count on the end result being positive...
Well, certain organisations have always had access to Windows source code (educational institutions, governments) on a "look, but don't touch" basis - after signing massive NDAs. So really, if it were going to happen, it would have happened already (more than once)
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Hey, could you email with the name of the medication you're taking? I'd like to give it a try. It seems to work a lot better than the stuff my therapist gives me.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
it's obvious that Skynet won't start from a chess AI, it'll start when Microsoft adds just one too many features to Office and Visual Studio, and they become self-aware.
No, no Skynet risk from Office or Visual Studio.
If they every become self-aware they will surely commit suicide.
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...and I'm sure I'm going to have half of slashdot jumping down my throat, calling me a Microsoft Sympathiser for saying this, but...
...shit like third parties having their way with Windows is probably a very big reason why Vista isn't as great as it could be. The media companies stuck their big noses in, and we got Protected Media Pathway or whatever it's called... I can't copy files around my computer without Windows having to check for copy protection or whatever it's doing, and the antitrust-friendly "Default Programs" thing has somehow managed to make it harder to set file associations than before.
The thing with Vista is; what it does well, it's really really good at. Windows Explorer finally does what I want it to do, and the audio mixing panel is a boon from the gods... it's just that all this is overshadowed by the stuff it doesn't do well, which is arguably not entirely Microsoft's fault.
I'd like to see what Vista would have been like if everybody kept their noses out of it during development.
You mean, the way they did with XP? And 2000?
I haven't installed Vista, but XP did still have tons of Microsoft propaganda -- I mean, informative tips -- while you waited, telling you all the great things about the OS you're installing. So let me guess: You feel that Windows 7 will be "faster, more secure, more fun," etc? You know, the way XP was?
And this is a sarcastic statement!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Is this the kind of machine you need to run Vista decently ?
On that kind of hardware I could install Kubuntu then Asterisk and build a PBX for an office of at least 300 agents, put a TV card in and install MythTV so I can watch shows on MY schedule, configure Samba to act as the domain controller with roaming profiles for the agent's desktop machines (if they are running Windows), serve the agent's web-based CRM with Apache/PHP/MySQL, put in a second nic and configure it as a gateway/firewall/email-virus-scanner/etc and many other services that could be needed by the company that don't come to mind because I'm at my first coffee.
And if my only job is to administer that server, I would also install my favorite games on it because most of my time will be passed playing them since it will be stable.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
Windows ME was perhaps the worst version of windows to be release. They followed it up with XP which is possibly the best.
Lots of people are hoping that Vista was just a stopgap and windows 7 will have all the cool stuff promised (virtual registry, WinFS and other stuff I'm sure other people can remember)