Slashdot Mirror
Windows 7 in the Next Year?
Microsoft's efforts to get businesses to adopt Vista may come to a screeching halt now that Bill Gates has announced "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version", referring to Windows 7, the next expected version of the company's flagship desktop operating system.With a new version available soon, many organizations may decide to wait and see if they can avoid the pain of a Vista rollout altogether.
They may very well test it a bit longer and delay it a bit in the end just to make sure another vistaesque fiasco doesn't roll out.
Onda Technology Institute
Next year? they haven't even started beta yet have they?
they will release it, but it will just be a repackaged version of xp. They probably want to switch back to it without anyone really knowing. It like the "new coke"
But I doubt it'll be a whole new OS. I reckon they'll just change Vista enough so that it doesn't suck anymore. That, combined with a slightly different GUI, and they'll hope they have a successful OS on their hands.
Vista was released late 2006/early 2007. Windows has had 2-3 year release cycles for most of its life up to Vista (and if you want to count Server 2003, Vista isn't that far off). So end 2009 for the next release is pretty much in line with past releases.
Slashdot April Fool's post is four days late. Hahahaha. Not as funny as the ponies thing though.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Didn't we just read that they're breaking binary compatibility with Windows XP/Vista in 7? I laud them for doing this, but the idea that a modular, completely-rethought, bloat-free, and binary incompatible Windows is one year away strikes me as nothing short of absurd. The only cases I can see where both of these facts being correct is either that 7 has been in development for at least three years, or the new item is a steaming pile.
The more likely scenario is that we're being mislead (e.g., the inference that he's talking about Windows 7 is wrong, or that the previous article today regarding binary incompatibility is hogwash).
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
With WinXP Prof EOL this year June, what's the alternative to Vista?
At my last customer job, XP was still the set OS, with no Vista supported or even allowed. For the notebooks they buyed in Germany, the supplier still offered XP, but we had inquiries from South America, where the only OS available was Vista. I wonder what they will do, if the only notebooks available will no longer work with XP due to new hardware and no XP-drivers.
Microsoft has enough cash reserves to operate for at least a year without selling a single product. If they focused everything on developing Windows 7, then they might, just, have something in a year. Of course, they've been working on it for a while already. That said, they don't have a particularly good track record on delivering these kinds of things (OS's) in the timeframes they say...
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
I think the core of Amiga OS was written by one guy who locked himself in a dark room for a few days :P Can't remember the exact timeframe. Too many cooks spoil the broth and all that..
which is totally what she said
We've been studying Vista at work, and our decision for now (which holds through at least Sepember) is to stick with XP. All the new PCs have Vista installed, and we're downgrading them to XP before deployment to customer's desks. Thank goodness for Microsoft's advancements in deploying XP!
The short story - we certainly don't want 1/3rd XP, 1/3rd Vista, and 1/3rd Win7, and that's what it is looking like when we don our future-hats.
So we decided this week that we'll stay with XP for as long as we can, using the principle that it is less expensive to support XP today, and we have no idea where Vista and Win7 will be. And we'll still have plenty of time to upgrade across the board if MS sticks with their current XP sunset plan.
We'll only start deploying Vista when Microsoft gives us clarity on the Win7 timeline, or when we conclude that Vista support will be less expensive than XP to support, or when we feel that we need to start converting to meet Microsoft's XP retirement plans.
Breaking binary compatibility would make development considerably *easier*, not harder.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
This announcement is all about keeping up momentum and stopping people from looking elsewhere.
OF COURSE it won't be released next year, or even the year after. They'll want to "get it 100% right this time".
No sig today...
Dear Zo^H^HBill,
We're trying as fast as we can to reach that Earth planet we were talking about recently, but our board computer we upgraded to Windows Vista, crashed several times, which resulted our ship to be put for few years on Uranus orbit, so we won't be able to reach that Earth planet before the what earthlings call year 2011.
Thanks for understanding,
Forever yours,
Windows 7 overlords.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
Thanks for woefully misrepresenting the nature of Penn's "wait and see" suggestion regarding Vista SP1. Penn's IT org gives that advice regarding virtually every major OS update published by any vendor. In fact, Mac OS 10.5 is was also "wait and see"'d on first release for the exact same reasons. http://www.upenn.edu/computing/provider/docs/originalmacos105provider.html
Microsoft has enough cash reserves to operate for at least a year without selling a single product. If they focused everything on developing Windows 7, then they might, just, have something in a year.
That's about as likely as getting 9 women to have a baby in one month.
Yesterday article about binary incompatibility was just a troll and some fellow slashdotter already pointed to this:
http://blog.paulbetts.org/index.php/2008/04/04/dear-dev-corvin/
This is a short answer from MS employee. Can't be more clear, because entire article was complete bullshit.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
It has been said before, but this has cost them dear.
Our company (50 Mill turnover a year) used to be completely Microsoft all the way, including eOpen Office licenses etc and no Linux servers. Now we have rolled out a lot of linux backroom machines. Not because of cost, just because MS is becoming harder and harder to work with. Add to that the fact that i've become a very big supporter of OSS and the ethics of OSS.
Our next decision is not "do we upgrade to Vista +1" but "Which business linux distro best suits our requirements.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
What is more remarkable than the new version of windows that will be delivered next year is that it will be distributed NOT by boxes of CDs on shop shelves, NOT by pre-installation on hard disks of new machines and NOT EVEN by microsoft update. It will be hand delivered by monkeys flying out of my butt.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Sometimes you just need to flush the whole lot down the crapper and start with a clean sheet.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Wow. I guess we can just count Vista as stillborn at this point. Oh sure, there's no way 7 will be out next year (try late 2009, most likely late 2010). But Gates announcing 7 that quickly, it's like he was trying to put a stake through Vista's heart.
Hopefully they had a lot of reusable concepts and code that they can leverage. Otherwise, that's an awful waste of code and effort.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
Bill Gates: "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version".
Quoting the parent comment: "Next year? they haven't even started beta yet have they?"
You are forgetting what appears to be a core Microsoft philosophy: "The whole world is our beta tester."
The problem with Vista is that buyers are becoming technically knowledgeable enough that they don't want to be beta testers of a very unfinished product that requires them to buy more powerful hardware. Remember that Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released only 3 years ago. Before that was 3 years during which every Windows XP customer was a beta tester of a very unfinished product that didn't even handle USB very well.
Sometimes it seems to me that Microsoft is not primarily a software company that is abusive, but an abuse company that sells software as a method of delivering abuse.
Remember that a "new version" can be as little as moving the menus around and causing everyone a lot of annoyance, as Microsoft did with IE 7. There should be a song, "50 ways to abuse the customer."
The end comes soon, and Microsoft is trying to delay the end. With XP, most users have all the operating system they want. Except for the built-in susceptibility to malware, Windows XP is acceptable. Customers just want to do their work. They don't sit around all day dreaming about new features of an OS.
For most of Microsoft's customers, there is no need for change, especially when they realize that the Chief of Grief, software's Dr. Death, will quickly declare the death of that version, too, as it tried to do with Windows XP.
Another problem at Microsoft is apparently that the good people have left, and the people who remain are not knowledgeable enough to do the work. Microsoft's employees know the end is near, and the creative programmers have already left. Only those who just want a job remain.
This is simply the way MS operates. Windows 7 will be due out next year, for the next 3 years.
It'll be right around the corner, or almost to Beta for at least 2 years, only to have the whole thing scrapped because it's too hard to program anything not NT based.
Most likely this "Windows 7" is a marketing name for what's really planned as a 6.1 release (Vista being 6.0).
That or they're lying; Windows 7 being the next major refresh of Windows in maybe five years but they're wanting you to think about the neat cool stuff while they're actually just talking about a point release next year.
Or, since this is Slashdot, it's sensationalism.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
they will release it, but it will just be a repackaged version of xp. They probably want to switch back to it without anyone really knowing. It like the "new coke"
Brilliant actually. Lets see, you buy a PC at Best Buy and can only get Vista on it. So you go to another shop, and buy a copy of XP and install it. So far a double dip.
Now, next year you shell out more cash and will want to upgrade to Win7. The triple dip, Brilliant.
For printers and some other stuff I often try to avoid running the "installer from the CD", because that usually puts tons of useless crap into your computer.
I usually try to look for the Win2K/XP directory where the "real driver" is stored, and then point windows to it.
If XP gets the wrong driver and you want to rerecognize the stuff again, just go to control panel and delete the relevant "?" stuff in device manager (the question mark icon for the device indicates it's not properly installed etc).
Most times it's the manufacturers who mess things up.
That said, NEVER install hardware drivers from Windows Update.
Heh, I'm still waiting for the database-based filesystem they bragged so much about when they talked about... Longhorn.
Microsoft is desperate. They can't innovate, they're running out of ideas, and they can't find something so attractive to make users switch.
But here are a few ideas of mine that would make Windows a guaranteed success:
* Revamp the configuration. Slice the configuration for applications into different registries, but add a layer of compatibility. No more corrupted registry blues.
* Virtualize the registry so bad programs can modify hkeylocalmachine but it'll only affect them.
* In fact, virtualize the entire filesystem so a bad program can't screw up your install.
* Instead of babysitting the user with endless "Cancel Allow" dialogs, allow some programs (administrator-defined) to run as administrator (i.e. root) by adding a popup dialog to ask the password. Add the possibility of remembering the password FOR THIS SESSION ONLY.
With the above two measures, users can effectively install any software without worrying about viruses and all that.
* Speaking of filesystems, add native compatibility for ext2,ext3,ext4 (is it out yet?), reiserfs, jfs, xfs, etc. We live in an open world. Add compatibility or die.
* Make Windows non-primary-partition tolerant. Allow it to run in other partitions so it doesn't try to get hold of my entire hard disk.
* Make (or adopt) a decent partitioner that can resize partitions without requiring to buy third party products.
* Give up on the directx "intellectual property" stuff and release the code under a GPL-compatible license.
* Modify the kernel so it can run in Xen without CPU-virtualization extensions.
* Release the specs for developers to be able to make and use their own window managers (i.e.KDE, GNOME, etc) work with Windows.
* Separate the shell from terminals, so users can add their own scripting languages for shells. You know, like bash.
* Add the possibility of having virtual terminals so advanced users can just log in in text-mode.
* The same with hardware drivers.
* Get rid of all that Digital Rights Management crap and allow users to save videos and music in hi-res formats for backups. Windows media player shouldn't allow any copy-protection crap to execute and spy on them.
* Open-source network-based apps and provide official support a-la sourceforge for users to submit bugs and security vulnerabilities.
* Don't sell 7 different versions of the OS. Make the management and administration parts available on the darn CD / DVD.
* Here's an idea: Make (or use) a "/home" partition so users can put their configuration and files in a directory of their own, so advanced users can either boot Windows or Linux and still have their important documents unmodified.
* And please, for the love of everything good in the world, GET RID OF THAT ANTIPIRACY CRAP!!!
Registration, Genuine Advantage, it's driving everyone crazy. It's ironic, I bought a legitimate copy of Windows because I was afraid of Genuine Advantage. But it was the limit on the number of non-phone based activations that pushed me to the limit and made me switch to GNU/Linux. So yes, it's real, you ARE losing users because of the antipiracy measures! (Now that I think about it, can I get a refund on XP? It sucks).
Yes, many of the features I'm asking for are already present in Linux. So is that signing Microsoft's doom? No. Linux is free, so Microsoft doesn't lose anything by letting Linux and Windows coexist on the same machine. The key here is attracting users to KEEP Windows, not forcing them from using any other OS besides Windows.
See the difference?
Start innovating (or at least following the trends) and users will actually WANT to use Windows. Right now users see Windows as a necessary evil: They don't like it but they have to stick with it. Start offering them something MORE.
If Microsoft adopted the above ideas, I'm sure. I would LIKE to buy a copy. "Windows X. Compatible with everything".
Read this and tell me if you still think that.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
With BSD backend, I guess the development could progress that quickly and that would explain breaking the ABI rumor that I've heard.
Mac OSX is, for all intents and purposes, Linux-like. It includes a BSD-derived kernel, and I can use a lot of standard GNU tools, either direct from Apple or through MacPorts, Fink, etc. But for the sake of argument, lets go through the two definitions of Linux-like
So if your definition of Linux-like uses Linux as a kernel, then yes, OSX is Linux-like because it is basically BSD, which most people admit is Linux-like, as they are both Open Source kernels and Unix-like.
If your definition of Linux-like is using the 'GNU over Linux' definition, then the availability of the GNU tools, the X Windowing System being installed either by default or at least on the install disk, and the existence of tools like Fink and MacPorts seems to imply that, in fact, OSX is Linux-like.
As for the ability to run Windows apps natively, the existence of Parallels and VMWare seem to imply otherwise. Neither of them are emulation, just virtualization, so it would seem to me that they offer native execution of Windows Apps.
And I really hope you don't try to deny that OSX is a professional, commercial OS. Because I might have to laugh if you make that claim.
Just because you don't like the truth, does not make it false.
I think that this announcement is a way for MS to save face. People just aren't flocking to Vista in droves, in fact they aren't using Vista at all unless they are forced into it or are new to the world of computing. By announcing that Windows 7 will be out in a year they can avoid embarrassment by telling everyone that Vista adoption is slow because windows 7 is around the corner.
You just got to love the Mac OS X fans trying to blunt the fact that OS X is just as bad as Microsoft at being closed source and that Apple will sue out of existence anyone distributing it just like Microsoft. You see, that is the main "linux like" item you totally ignore. The fact that the license allows re-distribution in Linux is one of its strongest points. The fact that I can modify it to suit my needs instead of at the whim of some corporation is another.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
WinXP, at least, booted faster and closed faster and seemed *more* responsive to me using VMWare on top of Linux than running on the bare metal. Wish I'd tested that setup more thoroughly...
Office 2007 was 6 months late. And that's just for UI overhaul.
I definitely bet on Google.
/.ers higher in the thread). All this switch happened, because computer got commoditised. During the IBM era, you had to go to IBM to buy specific mainframes. At the end of IBM's kingship you could buy a PC from them, but also buy a PC-compatible from any other nameless vendor from around the world. Wherever you bought your hardware from, you could install your OS (...DOS from Microsoft...) on it. The fact that the hardware was from IBM became irrelevant, hardware didnt' matter anymore.
See everytime the previous evil empire falls and a new one emerge, we all see a shift in the paradigms f evil empires. It's not a coincidence that an "Evil" empire has become evil. It's because it has become quite efficient at the kind of abuse that are necessary to secure a position, in the "Evil Corp" world. And it won't be easy for a concurrent to replace it in the exact same position. Usually the concurrent replace them by making them irrelevant.
Usually, Evil Corps die in the way of obsolescence. Take the previous old evil empire : IBM.
IBM has achieved a huge monopoly in the market place based on the hardware they were selling.
And they got replaced by Microsoft, which is basically a software company (or an abuse company occasionally selling software as pointed by some
The current evil empire(tm) is a software empire. And they have built their empire on a ground of software monopoly. You have to buy your OS from them, there are the only one selling Windows. What makes Google the best candidate to be the "Next Evil Empire", is that there a good potential to shift paradigm and make the current software-based busyness model obsolete. Microsoft has a solid ground for a software monopoly, only as long as people need to buy their specific software.
Google isn't a company based around software. It's a company which uses standards instead. What they provide are information services : searches, mails, maps, whatever. And they are bloody good at it because they can leverage a decade long experience in data processing/clustering, a decade worth of data mining, tons of different kind of database that they can cross-reference, etc.
But also, all their application are built around standards : most of their service are web applications built around pretty plain standard-compliant HTML.
Whichever software you have installed on you PC doesn't matter anymore. It could be Windows, it could be Mac OS X, it could be one of the dozen nameless Linux-based distribution. As long as it can display HTML properly, it can work.
The same way Microsoft replaced IBM once the PC became a commodity, the same way Google and similar service providers will replace Microsoft once the OS becomes a commodity.
Also, what make specifically Google a potential Evil Corp among other factor, is that once in place they will be hard to compete against.
IBM secured their position because it was hard at that time for another company to come up with competing hardware.
Microsoft secured its position, because of vendor lock-in, no standard-compliance, being the target of most 3rd party applications, etc. : In the beginning some competitors could pull a competing OS, but it won't see adoption because it wouldn't be compatible with all the applications that the Microsoft users already had.
Google will probably secure its position because of the massive amount of experience and data they can leverage. To be performant as a service providing company, a company will probably need very efficient algorithms to process their data, and massive amount of data to process to provide services from. To take the example of websearches, Google have an important head start, because they have had 10 years to perfect their algos, they had 10 years to collect massive amount of data about all pages available on the web, and more i
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Why does everyone seem to think Microsoft introduced the various DRM components into Vista because Hollywood pointed a gun at their heads? Isn't it apparent to everyone that Microsoft is also becoming a purveyor of content as well as computer software (and a variety of other products, of course)? I wouldn't at all be surprised to see Microsoft buy a studio in the next decade assuming they could get it past the Antitrust Division.
Can you please tell me what colour socks you wear when you do all this? I've never found the colour that makes it behave...
Or maybe I'm paying off the wrong witchdoctor.
Okay, so the closed-source *UI* and *APPLICATIONS* are your problems, then. So comparing it to Linux is a specious argument; you should be comparing it to Gnome/KDE/XFCE, etc.
In terms of the Operating System, it is Open Source, and I actually *can* modify it from the kernel up. Google "gnome on Darwin" if you don't believe me.
Choosing to stick with the default closed source UI is my choice as a user; I have other options available to me. The Kernel itself is free-er than Linux; unless, of course, you don't think BSD is free.
And yes, parallels allows native execution.
Just because you don't like the truth, does not make it false.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
Windows 3.0, 95, ME, and Vista were terrible for users at first.
.DLLs, and trying to have a 32 bit codec process data over the 4GB mark would be a disaster. (This would also be why device drivers are locked down on 64 bit Vista; they would be easy to test on a 64 bit CPU with only 2-4 gigs of RAM, but would epic-fail after the 4GB mark, causing random crashes and corruption.
Windows 3.1, 98, XP, and whatever Win7 will be named are much better.
Windows 3.11, 98 OSR2, XP SP2, and Win7 + Whatever it's 2nd service release will be named are/will be good.
95/98 are version 4.XX, ME/XP is the 5.XX series (although ME reports itself as 4.9), Vista is 6.0; and "Win7" will probably effectivly be 6.XX, even if it reports as 7.0
Each new series introduces new APIs for Driver and Application developers; the later releases depricate old API's, while refining the newer ones, so the earlier releases of a series have buggy new APIs mixed with obsolete APIs.
As an example, Windows Media Player is still 32 bit on Vista 64 bit; I would guess that is because Codecs are in-process
Windows 7 will be released after application and driver developers have had time to get used to 64 bitness, along with IPv6, DirectX 10 (Which allows GPU preemtive multitasking.), etc. etc. it will be a lot more stable, and can reduce support for older APIs (from the 16 bit era, just as ME/XP dropped a lot of support for DOS applications); but I suspect a lot of unexpected things will be dropped to improve security (for example, in Vista, you can't drag-n-drop into a Command Prompt window, I read this was to prevent security issues)
So, Vista SP1 should fix the 'critical' problems with Vista; Win7 will correct some design flaws, and be more consistant, Win7 +Service packs will have both design fixes and then the critical fixes to those design changes... then everyone will absolutly hate Windows 8.
Right idea, but wrong year I think.
/.'er, but I am VERY happy with XP, and very happy to be looking at alternatives (Nix'es) to Vista because of how bad an experience that Vista has been. I think that 2008 - 2009 is the year that many folk, tech and regular alike, start to look elsewhere - BUT . . .
2008 will be the year that many people start to look for alternatives. Remember, this is Slashdot, tech savvy people who are very familiar with these issues, but who are but a small fraction of overall computer users. 2008 is the year that many regular folks start to question their OS. Remember, most "regular folks" get their Vista with a new computer. MS claims to have "sold" 100M or so copies of Vista. If true, they are sowing seeeds of destruction, because enough regular folk will start to see the limtations of this release and start to complain and look for alternatives. It happened to me - I'm a tech savvy
That alone won't drive Linux onto the desktop in great numbers. Too many regular folk with limited computing needs are / will be happy enough with Vista, or they won't know any different. Left to the desktop market itself, Windows will reign for a long time, no matter how bad it might be - BUT . . .
Linux will succeed on the desktop for the very same reason that Windows originally did: migration from the workplace.
Remember when PCs were nerdy things for the tech elite? Not that long ago. Two things changed that. One was the development of the Web, which brought "point-and-shoot" graphical commerce and communications onto the desktop. That is what suddenly drove everyone and their granny to get wired. By that time, many people were already very familiar and comfortable with PCs and Windows because they used them at work - they already knew how to use a PC, even if they had never bought one themselves. Dominance in business, as opposed to arts & graphics, is what let MS reign over Apple - Windows won the hearts and minds of regular folk because that is what they learned at work.
Linux will succeed on the desktop because the WORKPLACE hates Vista and is looking for Linux solutions. The more that "regular folk" employees use a new Linux system at work, they more that Linux will grow on them. Think of how easy it is for them to learn a new OS under these circumstances. They will use it because their employer decided on Linux. Like or not at first, they can learn it safely, non-threatening, non-anxiety provoking, since they need not worry about losing their own data, and the company IT will support their learning curve.
Once the workplace starts switching to Linux, people will start to learn it, and use it, and like it. When it then comes time to buy a new PC at home, and if they have had a bad MS-Windows experience, they may then have no hesitation to get what they already know and like from work. The more this happens, the more users will start seeking productivity apps, and this will drive third party app development, which in turns strengthens Linux's position, and the whole thing ramps up.
The average person will not get Linux on the desktop because they hate Vista - most have never heard of Linux yet. They will get Linux on the desktop because they had a good experience with it at work, and they now know how to use it.
I think that "2008 is the year of the Linux desktop" only in the sense that this is the year that the soil is tilled, and some of the seeds are planted. The growing season will come over the next 2-3 years. If MS flops with their latest promise of Win7, then Linux can expect a huge bumper crop by 2012-2014.