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More Indications Windows 7 Is Coming In 2009

An anonymous reader writes "Following on the news that Microsoft was going straight to a RC for Windows 7, the One Microsoft Way blog has put together some dates on the upcoming roadmap for Vista's successor. Microsoft has always said 'three years after the general availability of Windows Vista,' which was released on January 30, 2007, and that the release date was also dependent on quality. Internally though, Microsoft is saying other things. It looks like we'll see the RC coming in April, and a final RTM version before October 3. Yes, that means Redmond is currently hoping to get Windows 7 out the door in 2009."

7 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. Drivers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I recall correctly (rhetorical, I *do* recall correctly) the problem with Vista was *not* the OS itself, but driver support from Vendors.

    Even Nvidia were ironing out Video card bugs months past the release date. It took Creative almost 14 months to release a Vista Audigy driver. That's not even touching on people who had to purchase new Wifi cards because the likes of Netgear refused to even release *any* drivers for supporting 'old' hardware (801.22g is super old?).

    Unless Redmond is putting pressure back to hardware Vendors, regardless of the much impressed SDLC Microsoft are displaying, the OS will only an *end user* disappointment.

    1. Re:Drivers by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Informative

      Windows 7 uses the same driver model as Vista. So as long as companies have released Vista drivers (which many finally have over the past few years), then the hardware will work fine with Windows 7.

      --
      This guy's the limit!
  2. Re:Surprise to Anyone? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am enjoying the Windows 7 beta on my gaming desktop and netbook and look forward to *gasp* purchasing a copy to replace Windows XP.

    Clearest indication Windows 7 will be released soon?

    Astroturf levels go well past "histrionic".

    I'm also using the beta and will buy W7 to replace XP on my laptop. Why - it seems to run faster, especially when accessing shared drives.

    Of course, I run it on Fusion on my Mac (I need to run the Win versions of Office for work, and W7 so far appears to do that better than XP.

    Just because some has a reason to upgrade doesn't mean they're part of a astroturf campaign.

    Now, if Snow Leopard allows seamless connectivity with exchange and i can replicate Outlook's functionality on my MAC then I may just pop for the Mac version of Office.

    And yes, I run NeoOffice but it doesn't quite handle Office files properly in all cases so I can't rely on it for critical client work. I'd love an FOSS solution for Word/PowerPoint/Outlook/Excel/Visio; but everything I've tried is not quite there, yet.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  3. Re:Curious by Ash-Fox · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm curious why all these people who hated Vista are showering love on Windows 7.

    My major gripe with Vista was games performing poorly, having a few heavy processes caused the system to perform poorly, pretty much poor performance all around.

    On the same machine, where I had recently installed Vista. With the same drivers from Vista I install Windows 7, poof, problems gone away - I am certain it wasn't a driver issue.

    I'm a UNIX guy, and I don't consider myself a Microsoft hater per se, the visual changes in Windows 7 just look hideous. I try and keep my screen as clean as possible to cut down on the distractions (meaning my windows machine looks about the same now as it did in 1995), and by this benchmark, Windows 7 is even worse than Vista with all its worthless gizmos and gadgets and stuff like that.

    The taskbar? I just unpinned everything, set it to small and stuck what I regulary use in the bit that often shows recently, frequently used programs menu. Taskbar has more space now than ever before. More space than Win95 ever had.

    Is it really so hard to understand that I don't want shit moving around on my screen when I'm trying to think?

    No idea what you're talking about? If you're talking about graphics, like any modern *nix system's default setup (excluding OS X), you can disable effects if you don't like them.

    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  4. Re:Surprise to Anyone? by Jaknet · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why?

    What can justify the cost and performance hit of Windows 7? Yes, it is faster than Vista but it isn't faster than XP.

    Last time I checked, all games support Windows XP. Also, why on earth would someone want to BUY an OS without it being bought/bundled with a new PC?

    What features are there that are "must have" apart from the "ooh shiny" aspect?

    That's not to mention the inevitable problems of early adoption...

    How about being able to use all of the ram instead of being limited to only 3gb and also being able to use the 64 bit processor instead of being stuck with only a 32 bit OS on a 64 bit pc. Both of these situations mean that Windows 7 is actually faster than XP in some situations as being able to use all the memory and processor power not just part of it

    Just 2 thoughts that come to mind straight away.

    Shame XP64 never got fully completed. Still if it had then I guess Vista would have had even more problems getting any users.

  5. Re:Surprise to Anyone? by chill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Really? I just pulled it off my son's machine because it refused to install America's Army, except for an old version. Nor would it take the patches.

    On the plus side:

    It boots noticeably faster than XP on the same machine.
    It shuts down noticeably faster than XP on the same machine.
    The from-scratch install was as easier than any previous Windows install, and damn close to as easy as Kubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10.
    Aero *is* spiffy.
    It recognized all my RAM using the 64-bit version.
    The 32-bit compatibility on the 64-bit version was transparent.
    It picked up my WiFi-N/WPA-2 network early on in the install and used NTP to set the clock.

    On the down side, how hard is it for Microsoft to add some code to accommodate people who have their hardware clock set to UTC? I mean just put a damn check box there!

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  6. Re:Cue the "W7 == Vista SP3" posts by toddestan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Take a Windows XP machine & tell me what SP it's running without going to System Properties....just using it like grandma would. You probably won't be able to.

    I can tell you if it has SP2 on it just by watching it start up (SP2 dropped the "Professional" and "Home" branding on the boot screen).