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Windows 7 To Skip Straight To a Release Candidate
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?"
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
There's been a speculation on the Mini-Microsoft blog about layoffs hitting the Windows team after 7 ships. This could partly explain why only 1400 of the 5000 announced layoffs were said to have been notified immediately.
Someone posted a comment to the effect that, being self-interested, people the Windows dev team should react by dragging out the process as long as possible, hopefully not shipping until the economy starts recovering.
or is this O/S only meant for "ordinary people" who have neither the ability to discern quality product, nor the option of choosing anything else (linux aside, but that's a different topic)
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
They can basically replace an unpopular product and hope to get some bump in marketshare out of it?
Call me paranoid, though I am concerned, a feeling like I/We are walking or rushing into fog. I cannot shake the feeling that there is something not right with this Windows 7 hype and a rush to release. Has anyone done thorough security tests on Windows 7? I mean yeah Vista is rough around the edges, and enough hater history to keep it in check, but does releasing Windows 7 really put M$ back on track? I have my doubts about all this Windows 7 hype. Like maybe some nasty surprise comes up after everyone jumps on the bandwagon. Something very strange is being built up here. Or maybe its just I'll never leave my WinXP, except for my Linux. Seriously though.
How many betas does a service pack need?
If anyone has any doubt that Windows 7 is just Vista rebranded, read here:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/windows_7_vista.html
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Funny you should mention "desperation"; it was the first word which sprang to my mind when I saw the headline too.
MSFT claims that the reason it's 6.1 is because applications broke:
Apparently you are doubly an idiot. One for thinking that screen means Win7 is Vista 2.0 and two for thinking that makes you "mean" and not a moron.
Coming up with an entirely new OS name is disingenuous.
To me there was a significant step in going from Windows 95 to Windows 2000. Then another big step from 2000 to XP and another big step from XP to Vista. I consider going to Windows 7 the same as upgrading Windows 98 to Windows Millennium Edition, catchy but insignificant except maybe for marketing. Corporations with very limited IT budgets are not going to move to Windows 7 any time soon.
Yet I think they should have done better.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Well I've used XP XP/SP2/Sp3 XP64 Vista32 Vista64 SP1 and I'm currently running Vista64 SP2-Beta alongside a Win7-64 version and can state they appear the same. So based on your statement
Windows 7 is NOT Vista SP2
is in correct based on my experience using both of them.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
'The problem with Vista -now- really is primarily PR.'
That and the buggy security model, incompatible major software issues, numerous issues with network printing, and the fact that even on 'suitable hardware' it is outperformed by its predecessor in almost all areas. And lets not forget the marketing screwup of releasing it in 200 flavors when two confused the userbase.
Vista still remains a downgrade from XP with no clear advantages (except video previews on the taskbar... ooo... ahhh...) and plenty of shortcomings.
'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.'
The public doesn't know. The public won't even know after having Vista on their computer for a few years. Their techs know, and the techs have tried vista and have found it lacking compared with XP. The service pack didn't even fix much of anything, it actually just added a new array of problems.
I'm speaking as a technician who has been running vista for the past few months just in case I didn't give it enough of a chance the first time I loaded it. The first time I ran the system for about a week before declaring it to be of alpha quality. That is bad, MS usually releases with beta quality.
Here bloody fucking here. Vista has codepaths in it which can be traced back to the Windows NT Alpha implementation. I found that out the hard way when I tried to get Windows to behave timewise on a multi-booting system.
After dicking around with a registry setting and encountering all kinds of weird timewarps I finally found this little gem:
And this semi-implemented known bad behaviour has persisted through win2k (nt 5), winxp (nt 5.1) and vista (nt 6). Wanna bet Winblows 7 will still have the same flakey code path, the same semi-implemented flag?
And people wonder why I don't trust Microsoftware.
Heh, I remember that time. Way back in the days of 'What? It installed perfectly the first time? Take it out and try again, something went wrong and you just missed it.'. Ah, those were the days, back when a real geek could chant the ones and zeros at about the same speed the modem sent them. Linux and even Windows has come a long way since then. Honestly, my true biggest complaint about windows is that MS keeps trying to lock the user/owner out of the system. More and more you use it only at their sufferance and if you don't like it, too bad. MS could serve the masses and the geeks, but they chooses only to serve the masses and put quite a bit of effort into locking the geeks out. You can do more with a Vista system from the computer next to it then you can at it's keyboard. The local user is the one they want to control and limit, while the remote user is unbothered by much of the security. Yes, this is because the remote user hacked in to the backdoors MS has left for them selves and the police, but still, many of the attacks can only be used remotely and fail if used locally. That seems rather odd to me. It reminds me of an other bit of humor from back in the day 'Root is a security risk, we need to remove that account'. Seems MS is working on it.
Question reality.
I took the plunge the day before yesterday and it is indeed different. I put it on two machines, one a low end 32bit and one a higher end 64bit machine. I've been using Vista for about a year and Server 2008 for about the same period of time.
Windows 7 looks and feels like Vista with a mildly snazzed up taskbar, but without most of the annoyances of Vista. Aside from the taskbar and a toned down UAC, it feels exactly like what I would expect a slimmed down version of 2008 to feel like. Everything I like about Windows 7 could have been done with Vista and the taskbar improvements.
Still, I do think they are at least as different as Windows 95 and Windows 98 were. I can't get the LAN to work on the 64bit install, though I can assign an IP to the adapter. I can't get our primary software package (and the reason I'm testing) to work on either one. The system locks occasionally on both, probably due to the same testing. IE8 is kludgy and, where I've been able to test it, doesn't perform as well as either IE7 or Firefox 3. My yardstick of major differences is based on how many things are broken, and if the beta is a fair representation, then I'd say it does indeed deserve to be classified as a new version of Windows.
I think most of the testers are using software and hardware recommended and better tested by Microsoft than our typical system, but I cannot believe how different my experience has been from the typical media publications. I believe it is precisely because most of the reviews are Microsoft friendly rather than workplace critical.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
M$ astroturfers.
Right, because /. is FULL of those. As made apparent by the overwhelming bias of opinion in Microsoft's favour.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
There are good car analogies?