The writing is on the wall. Despite a major push to sell the much-maligned Windows Vista, customers aren't buying. Nearly two years after Vista's release, Windows XP remains the standard desktop OS in business, and Microsoft has extended its availability three times (currently to August 2009) due to customer demand. Microsoft itself forecasts just 2 percent growth in Vista sales in early 2009, after lackluster sales in 2008. And that's after forcing customers to buy Vista to get XP "downgrades."So all eyes were on Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles last week as Microsoft finally took the wrap off Windows 7, the successor to Vista due in early 2010. But early reaction is that Windows 7 is just a cleaned-up Vista. It's essentially the same kernel and the same OS, with a couple new technologies thrown in, such as the Surface-based multitouch capabilities and the ability for developers to ribbon-bar-enable their own apps for better consistency with Microsoft's new UI approach (one that people either seem to love or hate). "It's not anything radical," says Neil MacDonald, a Gartner analyst who follows Microsoft. "It's a polished version of Vista."
Just like if you don't want to use an 'o' an apostrophe or capital letters, don't.
Exactly.
Yeah, right, like they don't know why. It's simple. It's a TOTOAL POS!!
These same people you're talking about are the same brain dead people that think Firefox is so great just becuase everyone else says it is. People have lost the ability to think for themselves anymore.
Include some sort of old Windows emulation mode, and start a program whereby consumers and businesses can be more comfortably transitioned over to the new environment. Have this in place for a year or two, buttressed by an effective (for once) marketing campaign to get everyone excited.
Perhaps Windows 7 will finally do away with compatibility issues, UI problems, speed problems. The easiest answer (but perhaps not easiest in practice) is to adopt a closed system like Apple has, whereby you control the whole widget. Obviously, the likelihood of this ever happening is virtually nil. It can be done, though.
There really is no way to get away from the problems caused by an OS having to be everything to everyone - it's the Banana-Boat Syndrome. With it comes all the challenges of compatibility, drivers, etc. The reality is that the problems and challenges will always be there with Windows. It's simply the way MS' licensing works. The challenge is to manage these problems effectively. I'm not sure that it's been done very effectively up until this point. Starting from scratch might at least breathe new life into MS and give them a chance to sit down with their partners and hammer out a new paradigm whereby ease of use - at least out of the box - would more closely approach that of its competitors.
You're right, because the DOJ and the EU courts would have no issue with Microsoft doing the things apple does would they? Come on they can't even add media player, but you think they can offer a completely closed system?
And as for ease of use - seriously OSX is no better then Vista for ease of use. I don't get this statement, 8 years ago it was absolutely true.
And as for coding being easier, you are joking right? Anyone can pick up WSH and start writing goofy scripts, graduate into VB Net and start coding. Everyone I know who has started to code for any Apple OS has quit because it is has been harder.
Second, If I remember properly, Vista was a re-write of the windows kernal, UI, and such. Look how well drastic changes go over in this industry before you make assumptions. Apple has done nothing drastic in quite some time but release service packs to OSX that add or change features. Perhaps if Microsoft followed their strategy and released XP 2, then we wouldn't have this mess, but we also would not have a good amount of the new features that come in Vista.
Third, Windows 7 is going to be a simply polished version of Vista. However, that seems to be exactly what we need. I mean, whats really wrong with Windows in a basic sense? In my opinion, not too much. Whatever people griped about in Vista will be addressed in 7 if it has not already been taken care of by SP1 and soon SP2. Speed, bloat, UAC, compatilibilty, consistancy, and even some innovation with the new taskbar are being addressed and corrected and yet people complain and complain and complain. Personally I despise OSX, but not for the reasons you might think. I do not think it is a bad OS and I do not think people shouldn't use it. I just personally like Windows better. I love Vista and I'm really excited for 7.
Finally, what is this "Windows is a dead end" stuff? As far as I can tell, Windows is still the most used operating system throughout the world and it looks like it will continue that way for years and years. Perhaps one could consider Vista a flop, but it is nothing more than a bad step on a very long road. People make mistakes, they hopefully learn from them and use that experience for future projects. One bad version of the OS will not derail Windows, look at ME, XP came after it and still sells amazing. Vista may be dying already, but 7 looks to be the XP of the future.
Definitely nothing wrong with that imo!
Thats because they just whine about how bad Vista without EVER actually using it. Ask any bastards who keeps screaming " Vista sucks ! " whether he actually used it before. You will feel like putting him in a washing machine cause he will say no.
What is it about Vista that needs help? How did Windows 7 "work better" exactly? Did it perform better? Seem snappier to you? Could you be more specific?
Other than driver issues (which were almost *entirely* the fault of the IHVs, not Microsoft), the biggest complaint (largely quibbling by quislings) with Vista was about UAC (as I said, quibbling by quislings; if you knew the source of the code that caused the prompt to appear in the first place, click Continue and move on). In what way is UAC really any different than the similar method required by Linux and OS X before anything gets installed? Or is all the griping really over a quite necessary, from a security standpoint, change in the validation process of software installation in Windows? In other words, is the quibbling by the quislings because they can't simply run software installs like so many lemmings anymore; they instead have to actually think before installing that software as to whether or not they can actually trust it?
Yup, much like XP is a "cleaned up" version of Windows NT. We've known Windows 7 would be based on Vista for a long time so this isn't a shock to anyone except InfoWorld.
At least, based on current reports, Windows 7 is quite an improvement and will be what Vista should have been. To what extent these improvements will be truly felt by users remains to be seen.
MS have always had lots of research projects going - but they're well forked off the main dev tree and unlikely (in current form anyway) to hit the desktop market anytime soon. The fact that nonone else has managed to commercially implement such a beast is rather significant don't you think?
MinWin is not a layer on the existing kernel. MinWin IS the kernel. MinWin has no dependencies outside itself, meaning it can run on its own (which has already been shown earlier this year). If it were a layer, it would have to depend on something else, which like I just said, it doesn't.
Yes, the original Vista kernel is still there, at least some parts of it. But they are outside MinWin kernel.
Yes, the original Vista kernel is still there, at least some parts of it. But they are outside MinWin kernel.
I'm sorry, but this just isn't true. There have been plenty of posts and articles clarifying this point.
See:
http://shippingseven.blogspot.com/2008/05/...act-minwin.html
and
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/05/30/v...ve-minwinquot-2
MinWin was a tech demonstration of how they are revamping internal development at Microsoft. The Kernel is still the Kernel. And MS already stated on numerous occasions that Windows 7 is going to have kernel-level compatibility with Vista.
The NT kernel hasn't been revolutionized. Microsoft would be retarded to try to fix something that isn't broken.
Too true - the NT kernel is actually very good (as compared to other modern OS' kernels) but people have a problem working out what the distinction between that and the rest of the OS actually is.
Yes, the original Vista kernel is still there, at least some parts of it. But they are outside MinWin kernel.
I'm sorry, but this just isn't true. There have been plenty of posts and articles clarifying this point.
See:
http://shippingseven.blogspot.com/2008/05/...act-minwin.html
and
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/05/30/v...ve-minwinquot-2
MinWin was a tech demonstration of how they are revamping internal development at Microsoft. The Kernel is still the Kernel. And MS already stated on numerous occasions that Windows 7 is going to have kernel-level compatibility with Vista.
The NT kernel hasn't been revolutionized. Microsoft would be retarded to try to fix something that isn't broken.
Way to link to articles from May 2008. Here are 2 fresh ones for you from a couple of days ago.
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/...side-Windows-7/
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/robert/ma...nd-for-all.aspx
The kernel is changing. But it's changing in a way that it still allows compatibility.
Last edited by Andre on 05 Nov 2008 - 20:17
/me stops reading.
/me stops reading.
Me too. Stop with this crap already.
OK, it might not be just a new dock, but you get my point. Like the first poster said; "If you dont like it dont buy it."
All that was originally suggested is that Windows should be rewritten. Something entirely new that is not NT code, not Win 2003 code, not XP code, etc. Something that will really address the whole issue of drivers, compatibility, etc. Much, much easier said than done, however.
Maybe Windows 7 has enough improvements and is streamlined enough to be as good as Vista was intended to be. So far, I must say, I like the look and function of the new taskbar. That in itself seems pretty major.
LOL. That's all you ask?...
It's already done - Vista kernel and up.
I'm actually looking forward to Windows 7, with people saying it has improved performance, finally!
Windows Vista isn't as bad off as the tin-foil hatted media would have us believe. And it's disappointing to see Neowin contributing to this nonsense.
As for those calling for a re-write - that's what you got with Vista, that's why it took so long. They abandoned patching the aging XP codebase (that's what stalled the project) and started over, kernel up. Sure, the template still derived from the NT line but that's why we had such radical change (under the covers) much like Windows 2000 was to NT 4. Of course, this caused a lot of driver issues (again, like Windows 2000) because of the new driver model (for example) which in turn jaded the view of the new OS by end users. XP was (and is) a more complete version of Windows 2000 (in fact, much of the feature set was originally planned for Windows 2000) and the same is true for Windows 7 over Vista. That said, expect lots of good stuff aside from speed improvements
I'm a dev, writing desktop apps for Vista with Win 7 in mind. I've got the PDC build and it's darn good
MS have changed a lot in the past few years - I wouldn't underestimate how deep that change goes either, some of the stuff they're pushing out really is very good and the sheer breadth of their technologies and tools make Windows a very appealing platform to someone like me.
Windows 3.1 requires the following minimum configuration:
MS-DOS 3.1 or higher (5.0 preferred)
80286 processor or better
640 kB plus 256 kB extended memory (1024 kB extended memory preferred; 2048 kB for 80386)
Hard disk with 6 MB free (10 MB preferred)
EGA, VGA, XGA, 8514/A, Hercules, Super VGA or better (colour VGA preferred)
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device is optional but highly recommended
Modem and multimedia devices are optional
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