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Windows 7 To Skip Straight To a Release Candidate

Posted by Soulskill on from the iteration-is-for-wimps dept.

b8fait writes "The head of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows development confirmed that Windows 7 will take the unusual path of moving straight from a single beta, which was launched earlier this month, to a release candidate. Sinofsky fleshed out the plan today and hinted that just as there would be no Beta 2, the company would also not provide a RC2 build. In other words, there may be only one released build of Windows 7 before it ships, possibly much sooner than even some of the most aggressive rumors about Windows 7. How much different can Windows 7 really be with such a shortened beta cycle?"

19 of 856 comments (clear)

  1. This seems abrupt by rbanzai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For what is touted as a major OS release I really can't believe that a single beta can get the job done. Either they are rushing it, or it's really just a minor change to Vista.

    1. Re:This seems abrupt by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How many betas does a service pack need?

    2. Re:This seems abrupt by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a difference with the Linux kernel developers though. The kernel itself isn't released to "end users" in the same way Windows is released to their "end users."

      Distributions take a specific kernel they want to release... test it, package it and release it to actual end users. If there's a problem with some functionality beyond the kernel level, its the job of THOSE developers to make sure its working with the new kernel and notify the kernel developers if work needs to be done.

      This is what most people don't understand about linux. No one installs and uses "Linux," they install an operating system that happens to use the Linux kernel's functionality. "Using Linux" is a misnomer when its used in the same context as "uses Windows."

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    3. Re:This seems abrupt by jandrese · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is it supposed to be surprising that they didn't rewrite their entire codebase for every new OS release?!? Obviously Windows 7 is going to be built on top of the Vista codebase, that's how almost every software release works. Usually if a company decides to rewrite a program from the ground up (see: Adobe from time to time), the rewritten version is less featureful, less stable, and takes much longer to come out than the previous version.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    4. Re:This seems abrupt by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think they might be missing the point, though.

      In my opinion they are right.

      The problem with Vista -now- really is primarily PR.

      The launch kinks have mostly been worked out.
      The driver situation has significantly improved.
      And the price of 'suitable hardware' has continued its downward trend.

      The only major obstacle in the face of Microsoft really is public perception that "Vista sucks"; and most of the people who think it sucks haven't even tried it, and won't.

    5. Re:This seems abrupt by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That screenshot comes from documentation, which is often one of the last things to be updated. I don't really think that's all that surprising.

      In a related example, the "Create New Shortcut" (or something) screen in Windows 98 still showed a miniature screenshot of the Windows 95 Start menu (including the words "Windows 95") on the side. Does that mean Windows 98 was just Windows 95 rebranded? No, but it's hardly surprising that they are based on the same code.

      --
      R.Mo
    6. Re:This seems abrupt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yet Vista wasn't a rewritten version.

    7. Re:This seems abrupt by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think that beyond the PR problem of "Vista sucks," there's yet another problem of "why should I want Vista?"

      Maybe that can be solved with PR too, but it's not entirely a PR problem.

    8. Re:This seems abrupt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem isn't that Windows 7 is based on Vista, of course it is. The point is that all Windows 7 seems to be is Vista 1.1. Coming up with an entirely new OS name is disingenuous. It would be the same if Apple came out with yet another X.something release and called it "OS XI". If they are not releasing a new OS then they shouldn't be pretending that they are.

      Sure, this is just nit-picking. It's not as if MS product names have ever really said much about what the product actually is. It is still annoying though.

    9. Re:This seems abrupt by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      First of all, I'm pretty sure the post you're replying to was tongue-in-cheek.

      Secondly, I'm guessing that the Windows 7 kernel has also been solidly finished for quite some time; few, if any, of the new features added to Windows 7 require kernel support.

      Thirdly, Linux needs to get the goddamned semantics down already! Someone comes in, "I tried Linux and my printer didn't work" then the reply is, "Linux is a kernel!!! It doesn't do printers!" Well, ok, then CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE. (Actually, I half-think the current confusing naming is on purpose, so there's always an 'out' to people who complain about Linux GUI problems.)

      --
      Comment of the year
    10. Re:This seems abrupt by gad_zuki! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >Win7 kernel feels like it's about 90% the same as Vista

      How the heck do you know how a kernel feels? Is this slashdot or the Sylvia Brown psychic detective forums?

  2. I like the way they think by jollyreaper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Vista was shoved out the door too early without enough time to season. So for their second whack at it, which they've conveniently renamed to disguise the fact that it's a second whack, they're shoving it out the door too early without enough time to season. Consistency is a good thing but not when you're doing it wrong.

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    1. Re:I like the way they think by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bulk that up a bit and you could get work for the Register.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  3. Marketing play by homb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows 7 is mostly a marketing play. It should have been Vista SP2 with the usual bunch of very useful cleanups, accelerations and simplifications (i.e. what Vista should have been).
    However, the name Vista is now such a disaster that they had to change the name.

  4. Release Candidate? by Karljohan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I always thought that "Release Candidate" was english, meaning that it is a candidate for release? How can they then know how many such candidates that will fail to be release quality before hand?

  5. Not very by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not very different. Face it, Windows 7 is simply Windows Vista SP3. Microsoft just can't call it that because of the bad reputation Vista gained thanks to MS's mishandling and misapprehension of what users actually want. What we're seeing isn't a shortened beta cycle for Windows 7, it's a longer-than-usual testing/beta cycle for a service pack.

  6. Snow Leopard by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course they're trying to rush the release of Windows 7, Mac OS X "Snow Leopard" is right around the corner.

    I guess that Apple ad about Microsoft putting all their money into marketing instead of R&D was closer to truth than some people would like to believe.

  7. Re:Windows 7... Is it really that much better? by Caboosian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm using the Windows 7 Beta right now, and previously I've been using Windows Vista.

    Is it really that much better? Here are the points I can think of it being better than Vista:

    * Faster on Less Hardware - They did make it work better on older slower hardware with less memory. * Less Annoying User Account Control - It doesn't freak out every time I want to run a program from the desktop. This should be included into Vista with a service pack, imho. * New Starbar - I like it. Good Job Microsoft. But is it worth the upgrade?

    Other than these things... why would anybody upgrade?

    Oh... yeah, that's right... Everybody says it's "So much better." Right.

    --Pathway

    What has every new edition of Windows been other than a slightly better UI coupled with more support for more hardware? I mean, 2 out of 3 of your points are about UI, and from what I've been able to tell (also currently running the beta) it makes a fairly large difference. Finding windows/using more windows at once isn't a problem with the new taskbar, and as you said, it is slightly leaner than Vista was.

    So why would anybody upgrade? Because the only real reason people ever upgraded their (Windows) OS was security (adjustable UAC helps with that tremendously) and UI. So, yeah, it really is "So much better" to those who don't realize how minimal of a change this is. In fact, its still "So much better" for those who do know how minimal the change is. Hell, I was an XP holdout til the beta. I even have an XP partition on my drive, which I've used all of three times. The UI in 7 just keeps driving me back towards it, and I feel that's the same reason people will upgrade.

    That's not to say that Vista couldn't be essentially 7 - in fact, with a simple service pack, it really would be just a slightly beefier version - but since that won't happen, expect people to flock to 7.

    The UI is the frontend to the entire OS. Even minimal changes, especially good, solid minimal changes (e.g., the taskbar), make a huge difference in the overall "feel" of the OS. Furthermore, they help increase the usability of the OS - and coupled with running faster, these two seemingly small changes can really help increase productivity on the OS.

    So, sure, aside from all these things... why would anybody upgrade? Because only an idiot would discount these things.

  8. 7 to Vista is as SE to 98 by Yaddoshi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows 7 is to Windows Vista as Windows 98 SE is to Windows 98.

    Microsoft is good at selling a repaired version of the original software at full price. I don't know any other business that can successfully release a broken product and then charge their customers full price for what essentially amounts to a product upgrade. Only lawyers get more money for less.