Windows 7 won't be released in 2009 after all
Comment Not started yet but it's already delayed
THE RUMOURS that Microsoft might release Windows 7 as early as 2009 are apparently false.
In an email to WinVistaClub, the Vole reportedly stated that Windows 7 is still in the planning stage and will take approximately three years to develop.
About three years to develop. Hmm. So, what with its planning - which is not yet completed, it seems - plus internal testing and pre-release user testing, that means that the new, hopefully vastly improved Windows 7 won't appear until at least 2011, at the earliest.
If Windows 7 development goes anything like Microsoft's development of Vista did, we can expect a couple of years of developmental delays culminating in the eventual abandonment of many projectedly great and wonderful, even dazzling new vapourware capabilities and features.
We'll guess that Windows 7 won't be generally available in final form until about 2012 or thereabouts, maybe 2013.
The Vole might even manage to slap lots of Vista's desktop eye-candy on top of XP in the interim. That's about the only way it will get "Vista" onto most desktops.
Microsoft really ought to give up on trying to redevelop its proprietary hairball of an operating system all over again from the ground up already and just port Office to Linux. It already has Office running under a Unix system, under OS/X.
There's more here. µ
Comments
Windows 7 won't be released in 2009 after all
Bzzzt... sorry, but it's a bit further down the track than the "planning" stages.That's not to say 2009 is a safe bet, in fact I'd guess highly unlikely, but they are definitely already working on it.
Sites such as Microsoft's own Channel9 have forums where MS employees contribute, and although they are very much in a "we can't talk about it yet" mode, it's very easy to tell that work has already begun.
Exactly
I wouldn't be surprised to see MS start to cave in and throw some of Vista's "features" on top of XP. If MS can get even as little as a Vista theme out to the masses (as an XP "update"), then that will ease the transition to Vista for 99% of users.Most people only care about how a computer looks - which icon to click to get to their e-mail, how to print, etc. If MS can get XP users used to the Vista look, then it's much easier to get them to switch to Vista (or at least stay with Vista when it comes bundled with their PC).
The good ole days
I remember the good old days ... back when everyone complained at how Microsoft made us buy a new OS every 2 years, how dare they!XP came out, and everyone hated it for it's bugs, it's vulnerabilities, its bloat, its fluffy but useless new features, how it broke hardware compatibility, especially for old printers and scanners.
Everyone thought the new fangled interface was just a crappy tweak of the old interface.
But, times have changed. Now its the 5 year OS cycle we all demanded, the current OS is far less vulnerable than XP was in it's first year but everyone complains about the same issues ... yawwnnn.
Just give it another year or two, and watch how the media crumbles into submission like they did for XP.
For the love of vole
Please try to talk some sense into M$.Unlike other times, can we convince them to test their new super soar away OS BEFORE they decide its the best thing since laser hair removal?
I wouldn't be surprised if...
Microsoft did a 'Windows NT redux'.Strip everything away from Windows, rediscover the wonders of a micro-kernel OS, apply a liberal helping of virtual machines and apply security and encryption at the kernel level.
Then put back only what is really needed. run everything except the OS kernel inside VMs. Use the virtual machines to buffer the OS against applications, the 'Net and users.
Instead of trying to somehow replicate Windows as it is now. Microsoft should build Windows the way it needs to be built and use VMs to provide secure application execution, game compatibility and backwards compatibility. Just as they did with NT, the OS must have it's own 'native' mode which new applications would use, but again this ought to be a virtual environment to keep that firewall between applications and the OS.
I would think that designing new Windows in this way, MS could achieve greater reliability, efficiency and an earlier release date. It might not be the ambitious be all and end all of operating systems that vista wants to be. But, since Vista is as popular as a fart in a space suit, perhaps it's time for Microsoft to re-evaluate it's strategy and bring some of it's goals back down to earth?
Sega did it...
If Sega can stop making consoles and just make great games for all consoles not just Sega's, then Microsoft should do the same and just give up on making crappy bloated OSes and focus on their flagship software.Make Office run on the same toaster as NetBSD!
Wait, what the hell am I smoking?
Windows 7 ?????
should it not be called Wndows 8....lets see we had 3.1....95.....98......2000......ME.....XP....Vista...oops forgot....NT.....so why Not call it Windows 9...unless the realized ME and Vista were and are junk and they are not laying claim to those 2 and are trying hard to forget them.......WinFS
Will they promise WinFS again?Development
Planning is part of the development cycle, and it's been going for at least a year.http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/feb07/02-13NextVerson.mspx
2009... yeah right
Even if it was released in December 2009, that's less than two years. It will take at least one year to go through all the testing phases.That means Windows "7" has to be feature-complete by the end of 2008. That was never going to happen; it hasn't even been "feature-defined" at this point. I predict 2012 (five years after Vista's release).
The only way Microsoft could release a product called "Windows 7" in 2009 is to re-package Windows XP Service Pack 3 and call it Windows 7.
Then immediately start working on something significant and radically improved to replace both Windows XP (7) and Windows Vista. Hey, that's essentially what Apple did with Mac OS 8.x and 9.x (which could easily have been called System 7.7 and 7.8) while it prepared the entirely different Unix-based Mac OS X.
Look where Apple is now with its OS, compared to Windows.