Windows 8 Will Run On All Current PC Hardware

Stoobalou writes "Microsoft exec Tami Reller told attendees at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 taking place in Los Angeles yesterday that any PC capable of running Windows 7 today would be capable of running Windows 8 when it is released, towards the end of the year."

Comments

Re:Windows 8

[Skarecrow77]

Traditionally, MS has released a new retail OS every year to two years. the huge gap between XP and Vista was the oddity, not the rule.

Windows 3.0 was 1990
3.1 was 1992
3.11 and NT 3.1 were both in 1993
NT 3.5 was 1994
95 was... 1995.
NT 4.0 was 1996
98 was 1998
98se was 1999
ME and 2000 were both in 2000
XP was 2001 ...
Vista was 2006
Windows 7 was 2009

seems to me that they're right on schedule for windows 8.

Re:Windows 8

[TWX]

But back then there were two separate product lines:

Windows 3.0 1990
Windows 3.1/3.11 1992-1993
Windows 95 1995
Windows 98 1998
Windows ME 2000
Windows XP 2001
Windows Vista 2006
Windows 7 2009

Windows NT 3.1 1992
Windows NT 3.5 1994
Windows NT 4.0 1996
Windows 2000 2000
Windows XP 2001
Windows Vista 2006
Windows 7 2009

The other consideration is the relationship between the OSes in these channels. Windows 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11 are substantially similar, and Windows NT 3.1 and 3.5 are as well, sort of blending into 4.0. Windows 95, 98, and ME were also similar enough to be the same product family with incremental changes. Windows 2000 and XP are the same product family. Windows Vista and 7 are the same family.

I'm probably going to skip 8. I've got too many XP-running computers to upgrade, and Microsoft's three-seat volume packs for home users bring the cost down to between $35 and $50 a PC for Win7 Home Premium (depending on the vendor and any deals at the time) makes it easy to justify buying two or three sets of three, and the benefits in the UI scaling, newer APIs for newer programs, and better multicore support seem worthwhile. It also was eight years from the release of XP to the release of 7, so there's probably been some actual real improvement there, even with the new bugs. 8, coming this quickly on the heels of 7, is probably going to only screw up the UI again, without having any real reason under the hood to compel me to change. I figure if I go to 7, I can probably wait to upgrade OSes until 2017 or so before it becomes a real issue.