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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?"
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.
... because vista is actually fine
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
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.
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?
If Microsoft skips a decent beta then either they don't put much value on beta testing anymore, or they are so eager to leave the Vista debacle behind that they are willing to put a RTM (Release To Manufacturing) sticker on beta-quality code.
This will make all Microsoft users beta testers, and Win7 SP1 will be the real release version
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
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.
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
Vista was the beta.
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.
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
Windows 7 is likely more aimed at XP users and people considering the unreasonably expensive switch to Mac.
I don't think it's really aiming to be the next big upgrade for Vista users, although I believe it will be anyway.
If you want to consider Windows 7 a SP, that's not a bad call, since it's built on Vista's backend directly. It's really an overhauled and re-imagined userland which really does warrant a version change. It doesn't act like prior Windows so it is fair to call it a new system, for user's sake.
I've been using the Beta for a while and it isn't a beta like say... an Ubuntu beta. This is a beta of a quality the open source world cannot obtain. We call this a release in linuxland. For this reason, I don't think there's anything strange about them aiming for a single RC.
Alternatively, this could easily be a case of an upgraded installer/software update tool rendering it unnecessary to separate RC releases. They might just upgrade the RC if they need another one.
I think the marketing angle on this is that Windows 7 is correct by design. Besides, Apple releases new versions of OS X that are basically service packs at full price all the time, and they don't even have large public betas. Consider that Microsoft has a far larger and more effective QA system internally than Apple. They CAN release like this-- they've got an army of internal testers aside from the millions of beta testers out there.
They can basically replace an unpopular product and hope to get some bump in marketshare out of it?
Vista is the "New Coke" to XP's Coca-Cola, and 7 is "Coca-Cola Classic."
Maybe I'm just jaded/cynical, but isn't this a bit too convenient? MS goes from taking 6+ years developing a bloated, buggy, annoying OS to releasing a suspiciously stable, fast and well-supported OS in less than 2?
I've been using Windows 7 on my Thinkpad for the last three weeks or so, and I've got a laundry list of bugs, issues and comments, and ironically one of the things that's broken in the beta release is the fucking "send feedback" feature.
I signed up for Microsoft Connect, and I still don't see any obvious way to submit bug reports. Maybe I have to be using IE or something.
And it's not like I haven't gotten Windows Updates in those three weeks. I think they don't really want any actual feedback. They're getting positive notes from the media, and Windows 7 will undoubtedly be far less reviled than Vista deservedly is, but the public beta has been out for a while; it's not like they could escape the fact that no one can send them bug reports.
I really think the fact that the "Send Feedback" button that's on every single open window in Windows 7 beta does not actually allow feedback to be sent is a deliberate move on the part of Microsoft.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
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.
The timing of Windows 7's release being sped up may not help it.
Look at the economy in most countries right now. Many people have either lost their jobs or are fearful for their security. Most firms need maximum productivity with minimum overheads to survive the storm.
Could there be a worse time to launch a new product? Especially when said product is a dubious, at best, improvement on XP. As a home user, and not a gamer, I see no reason whatsoever to switch from XP. For business users, I'm thinking it must be corporate suicide to introduce a new operating system that adds little extra features, and yet has such a different interface that it will require some extra training, and a noticeable decrease in productivity. Never mind the additional cost of licensing and installation.
I simply do not understand how they can possibly think Windows 7 will be successful.
I'm not one to fuss much about UI design ... but there are still parts of the OS where they simply split apart a window with tabs in it, didn't even bother removing the tabs, and dumped it into it's own window.
So, you aren't one to fuss about UI design, but you will fuss over a minor cosmetic defect? Also, you borked the link. Here is one that works, and after looking at it, it looks fine, despite being exactly what you describe. With all of the problems with Windows, and even GNU/Linux and software in general, including genuine UI problems (UAC), a minor cosmetic defect is nothing to fuss about.
Working link to minor cosmetic defect
Thats because Windows 7 == Vista with some bloat removed.
UAT's a breeze when your codebase is shrinking.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
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.
No one installs and uses "Linux," they install an operating system that happens to use the Linux kernel's functionality
You have officially won the "semantics of the year" award!!
I'm a big tall mofo.
Yes, different developers use "beta" and "RC" in different ways. With Microsoft, these terms have always been defined by marketdroids, not by engineers.
If Microsoft is only planning one beta and one RC, the most likely reason is that the company feels a need to rush this product to market with barely any of the pre-release hype that was done from Win95 and WinNT onward, through the multiple reviews of betas and RCs that Microsoft so lovingly nurtured in those halcyon days when it could dictate a schedule to its markets.
Those days are over. Their image is being battered by the Vista fiasco. Linux, especially the *buntus, are beginning to upstage them on the desktop. Several alternatives to MS Office have now become viable and are already stealing some niche markets. And Exchange Server is beginning to look a little shaky: there are other alternatives now.
With Obama billions to be pumped into the economy in a very short time, there are a lot of businesses that will be looking at renovating their IT infrastructure in the next 12 -24 months, and if Microsoft has no viable products at the beginning of this period... Well, it would not be the first company that had a meteoric rise, and ballistic crash.
Microsoft marketing needs to have Win7 in place, ready for purchase, in probably less than 3 months. It would be nice if Win7 actually worked, but that is secondary. Microsoft has enough ready cash on hand to smother any noise about performance concerns. It just needs to get the thing out there.
Apple makes a big deal (and charges more than $100) of each of their dot releases. OS 10.0, 10.1, etc. have been built on the same code base and have had minor (and some more-than minor) enhancements and tweaks. A couple of the OS X releases were really just service packs (or bug fixes) that shouldn't be called a new release or OS.
2008 is the server version of Vista and 2008 RC2 is the server version of Windows 7.
This still doesn't address the "why should I want Vista?" problem, which is that after 5+ years of service packs and patches, XP runs just fine for most people, and they don't feel the need to re-learn how to use an operating system (and get on the patch/sp/patch treadmill again) just because MS tells them they need a new one.
If your Engineering department is tasked to work on "Suckage prevention and remediation" instead of "Product improvement and useful feature additions," your company is going to be in the unenviable position of having to compete with previous versions of your own product, which is exactly where Microsoft is now.
Marketing can bang the drum and say "look how much better Win7 is than Vista!" But if Win7 isn't any better than WinXP, the market (or at least that section of it that has a choice) is simply going to ignore the new product and hang on to the old one.
I worked for a law firm up until recently, and it was only in the last year or so that they'd even begun to upgrade the machines to ones running Windows XP from Windows 2000. I would bet that they're still not finished that upgrade process. The in-house IT guy there has already said that they'd be upgrading to Vista over his cooling corpse. He's not likely to willingly upgrade to Win7 unless he's forced to by the boss, who is more likely to fight for a switch to macs than upgrade to a new version of windows. Granted, my tale is anecdotal and subject to the usual caveats, but I don't think I'm too far off base.
It's common opinion on slashdot that people will do as Emperor Ballmer commands, because they don't know any better, but that's not really true any more. Joe Enduser is leading the charge in the anti-Vista crusades, and Joe sees that the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes. Joe is not going to just swallow MS's marketing line, Joe has gotten skeptical, and with Jester Jobs' own marketing team telling him how much better his computing experience could be, Joe is considering his options, and they most likely don't include polished turds.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
"really is a huge step forward from Vista"
Or they have finally realised that to make Windows "seem" better it needs to be faster in its operation. A more responsive UI etc.. isn't "a huge step forward" ... Its a bloody simple concept that has been overlooked by Microsoft since they started making Windows. Finally they have got a kick up the ass over Vista and now they know they now actually have to make it look and operate more reponsively. So it is a Rebranding and Relaunching after (finally (starting to)) fix what was so badly broken in Vista.
There is definately a big PR campaign behind this over hyping of Windows 7. You are just blinded by the hype, "A huge step forward" my ass.
Still, the bigger they hype it up now, the bigger the fall they will suffer, when people realise it doesn't live up to the hype.
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.
Your summarisation of the changes is actually wrong, they did a lot more than just "disable a few processes on startup", the startup is one of the major changes to the kernel, it now uses a multi-threadded approach that can load several systems at the same time, as opposed to doing it linearly (And, for example, being forced to wait for a drive to spin up or whatever). That's just one example of what I'm referring to.
Secondly, you appear to have either contradicted yourself or proved my point, I'm not sure which:
Right - so which is it, are people being fooled, or is 7 actually a genuine step forward for Windows? On the one hand you're saying that Microsoft just paid everyone to give positive reviews, but with only a handful of exceptions, everyone I know that has actually TRIED the beta has been extremely impressed with it. I'm not talking about big fancy reviews on tech sites or whatever, I'm talking about a few friends, online buddies, forums, etc. The general consensus is that Windows 7 is good. That's what I'm referring to when I say it's unlikely Microsoft has "fooled" everyone.
But still, you claim they bought reviews (and you know, they may well have, I cant' say one way or the other) and that's the only reason there's so much positive feedback, but from my own experience, the positiveness has all been word of mouth and after the clusterfuck that was Vista, wouldn't it be really odd for everyone to suddenly say "errr...well actually, it IS quite good?". People were ready to jump on MS for Windows 7 being shit (And I believe you and a few other people here are those exact people), hell everyone likes to hate on the huge, evil, monolithic corporation, but as crazy as it may seem, they actually got a few things right with 7 and it easily stands apart from Vista.
But don't take my word for it, go ahead and install both Vista and 7 side by side and see what the difference is. Then install XP and see for yourself that 7 really is a worthwhile upgrade from it - and it's still in beta.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
XP -> Home version. Win2k3 -> XP server. Vista -> Home version. Win7 -> Vista server.
Er... what's Windows Server 2008? Chopped liver? Isn't that the server version of Vista? Or are you just commenting on an OS market you're entirely ignorant about?
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