Vista successor scheduled for a H2 2009 release?

[Mem]

Link.

While it has generally been believed that Windows 7 was scheduled for a 2010 debut, Microsoft has revised the roadmap and apparently moved up the release date by a few months: A recently distributed roadmap of the OS lists a release to manufacturing in H2 2009. Microsoft declined to comment on this date.

The current M1 drop is available to Microsoft partners in English only and has shipped in x86 and x64 versions. An interesting feature that has been highlighted by Microsoft is the ability of the M1 software to handle a heterogeneous graphics system consisting of multiple graphics cards from different vendors. A new version of the Media center is already integrated in this software, but supports PC speakers only at this time.

If Microsoft will be able to keep the H2 2009 RTM (and most likely) release date in place, the company will have two busy. The M2 code drop is currently scheduled for April/May 2008, M3 will follow in the third quarter. The dates for the first Beta and the release candidate are still listed as ?To be determined? but it doesn?t take much to see that the first beta versions could become available a year from now.

Personally I feel Microsoft should take their time with the next OS,Vista is only a year old and we are still waiting for Official SP1,then you have those that are happy with WinXP ,another OS released so early will only confuse a lot of users out there.

 

[M0R0NI]

I agree and some time on an OS without problems would be appreciated also.

 

[Aberforth]

if the new OS does something good then it must be released, just patching an existing OS isn't going to solve problems. Quality seriously degrades as technology grows, due to the competition- companies (especially new ones) tend to release products without much weight on innovation. Windows vienna is supposed to be advanced where it is believed that the core of the kernel occupies only 25 mb memory, so it seems rock-solid but one can never know. What am really worried about is Microsoft's habit of using old techniques within the OS architecture, I know a transition to a new one is gradual but there isn't any sign of it.

Some Problematic Areas: What we need

File System: A big performance hit is due to the File System, we need a DB file system with a mini db server running in the background. Microsoft's WinFS was a failure, it wasn't that reliable or fast.

DLL hell: One of the worst problems in Windows is DLL's getting replaced by older ones resulting in failure or degradation of the OS behaviour. This problem can be solved by applying virtualization techniques for legacy components and new programmatic design for accessing various Windows internals.


Signed Information: Ways to authenticate information through a generic signed procedure to combat viruses, ID theft, piracy and other issues.

Code Optimization: The overall code must be optimized to take real advantage of the hardware resources rather than abusing it's power.

and more...
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following are some of the new Features in Windows 7 (only a tiny bit) found on the net. I am not sure about it's reliability.

246472 Basic download manager for Internet Explorer
246644 Image (ISO, BIN) support in Windows
248426 Family license
246465 Multi-session Remote Desktop
246493 IE7 should include a session restore feature
247399 Allow other Windows PCs to act as Media Center Extenders
246638 Allow Reordering Taskbar (Application) Buttons
246650 Extended Windows Update to cover 3rd party application updates and 3rd party driver updates
246656 Virtual Desktop Feature
246703 No dialog should take keyboard focus away from what you are doing
249765 Freely Open-Up UXTheme.dll allowing users to apply their own Visual Styles to Windows
247679 Windows should allow deactivation on non OEM machines
244352 Record live tv when you rewind
247237 Built-in Codec Manager
246702 Multiple taskbars for mult-monitor
276001 Include Pinball into next version of Windows
247201 Need Tweak-UI power tool for next version of Windows
246494 Implement Vector GUI in the next version of Windows
247209 Patch operating system without having to reboot
246508 Add Folder Size to data displayed in Windows Explorer
247021 Live CD or DVD to boot from to recover from a crash or virus that would allow to transfer files
244119 Allow users to customize indexing more effectively
246502 Disallow removable (usb/firewire) drives to default to next available drive letter when the letter is already used by other network drives
246777 Windows Mail should be minimizable to the system tray
247215 User needs simple way to indentify and obtain driver for UNKNOWN devices displayed in device manager
263788 Windows Internet Explorer: Add ?Undo close tab? option (as in Firefox)
246515 Windows Backup should have more file choice options and should allow user to back-up specific files he selects
247584 Command Prompt should be improved
246674 Integrated Anti-Virus
246575 Built-in spell checker for Internet Explorer
246534 More desktop themes should be offered in the default installation of the next version of Windows
246591 IE direct file download - do not download to temp folder
246706 Allow different background pictures per monitor
247380 Apply the Aero UX guidelines consistently throughout Windows
267872 Allow windows user to submit feedback on installations from Windows Update
270404 Internet Explorer MUST have inline find
247161 Add a feature to parental control letting you choose how much time children can connect, not only when.
270643 Updated, powerful Partition Manager built into Windows
246790 Low Disk Space Warning should have individual settings for each partition
247130 Create a new user type for Child with a protected desktop controlled by parent.
246752 Windows Media Extenders should be able to play DivX and Xvid files
246496 Add a message to the ?Computer Locked? screen
244127 UAC Badge on all icons that will require UAC prompt
246844 Support Boot from EFI ( Extended Firmware Interface ) or UEFI
246920 Screen resolution saved in profile
247239 Replace error ID number with plain language explanation
248520 Add An Icon To Programs Running With Elevated Rights
------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Snapster]

I don't think we'll see it so soon, Vista isn't a complete failure like some of the people spreading fud will make you believe. Sure it's had some teething problems but so did XP and in fact XP had more problems than Vista. Part of the problems is that XP is very very reliable now it has matured, and also Vista doesn't offer much more to the user over XP that they can physically see, even if it has plenty of better features under the hood.

Microsoft promised so much and delivered so little in terms of features, and a complete re-write mid life-cycle more or less killed the ambitions of some of the features, even early demo's of longhorn had cooler stuff working like the music and artwork animations. Another problem Microsoft has is trying to support people who insist on running legacy programs and systems. An idea that could make sense is to branch off Windows server 2008 and leave this as the last version to support such legacy needs, and promote a brand new managed O/S with new features and concentrate on that, maybe something continued from MinWin.

 

[Nothinman]

Do we need another OS so early?

For a desktop OS? Sure. Most Linux distros that target desktops have ~6 month release cycles so that the new stuff can be pushed out as quickly as possible. Release early and release often. Server systems are different and need longer support cycles but MS has always supported their software for crazy amounts of time so I doubt that's an issue.

Of course Linux has an advantage in that you can upgrade for free no one's worried about the monetary cost of upgrading. But that's MS' problem to deal with.

if the new OS does something good then it must be released, just patching an existing OS isn't going to solve problems.

Um, Windows 7 won't be a rewrite. It'll be a patched version of Vista which is a patched version of XP which is a patched version of Win2K which is a patched version of NT 4. Sure MS may kill some parts and either just drop them or rewrite them but there's no reason why they couldn't release the same product as a set of patches on top of the previous release.

File System: A big performance hit is due to the File System, we need a DB file system with a mini db server running in the background. Microsoft's WinFS was a failure, it wasn't that reliable or fast.

The filesystem isn't that much of a hindrence, especially compared to the speed of the drives from which they're being accessed. There will always be something better or faster but I don't think a real database is the answer, if anything it'll make things worse because of the added complication and overhead.

DLL hell: One of the worst problems in Windows is DLL's getting replaced by older ones resulting in failure or degradation of the OS behaviour. This problem can be solved by applying virtualization techniques for legacy components and new programmatic design for accessing various Windows internals.

This could be easily fixed by forcing all software packages to conform to a common package format, i.e. like how just about every Linux distribution handles it.

Code Optimization: The overall code must be optimized to take real advantage of the hardware resources rather than abusing it's power.

The opposite will probably happen. More things will be ported to managed code so that optimization can happen in the .Net runtime and not in each app itself.

 

[nerp]

246644 Image (ISO, BIN) support in Windows
246650 Extended Windows Update to cover 3rd party application updates and 3rd party driver updates
247399 Allow other Windows PCs to act as Media Center Extenders
246703 No dialog should take keyboard focus away from what you are doing
249765 Freely Open-Up UXTheme.dll allowing users to apply their own Visual Styles to Windows
247237 Built-in Codec Manager
247215 User needs simple way to indentify and obtain driver for UNKNOWN devices displayed in device manager
246752 Windows Media Extenders should be able to play DivX and Xvid files

Those are some pretty serious reasons to switch to the next windows version beyond Vista for me.

But based on past experiences, I really don't think this 2009 date we're hearing is going to stick.

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

The filesystem isn't that much of a hindrence, especially compared to the speed of the drives from which they're being accessed. There will always be something better or faster but I don't think a real database is the answer, if anything it'll make things worse because of the added complication and overhead.

The fact that features like Readyboost and Superfetch exists is due the way Windows handles the disc- a very old method, if the future is not disc then using same approach to handle files is going to create major performance issues. With a DB filesystem everything becomes standard like registry, files and security layers, it can also be accessed using managed code. I am sure if properly implemented it leaves a smaller footprint than the existing methods, it also solves the problem of file fragmentation. In future the size of a memory is going to get bigger so there will be no point in using pagefiles or other crude methods, like we can use memory stack to cache data before commiting onto the disc . But it's hard to recover lost data from the db so they must find a way around it.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: Mem
Personally I feel Microsoft should take their time with the next OS,Vista is only a year old and we are still waiting for Official SP1,then you have those that are happy with WinXP ,another OS released so early will only confuse a lot of users out there.

So, 3 years between the Vista and Windows 7 releases. What's unusual about that. Looking at the history of Consumer Windows Releases in past:

Windows 1.01 Nov 1985
Windows 2.03 November 1987
Windows 3.0 May 1990
Windows 3.1 March 1992
Windows 95 in August 1995
Windows 98 in June 1998
Windows ME in September 2000
Windows XP in Oct 2001

The current schedule is in line with historic releases. XP to Vista was not normal for MS. Of course, we're also assuming that Windows 7 will ship on time. Given how late Vista was, is that a realistic assumption?

 

[BeauJangles]

I'd really like to see Microsoft play with the GUI a bit. The start menu was a decent idea, but it has outlived its usefulness.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
I'd really like to see Microsoft play with the GUI a bit. The start menu was a decent idea, but it has outlived its usefulness.

It would be interesting. The task bar concept works pretty well though. I'm always open to seeing new concepts though. One thing I like about the Vista UI is the search feature. I use it rather than navigating the start menu. Expanding on what they did under vista could be interesting.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
I'd really like to see Microsoft play with the GUI a bit. The start menu was a decent idea, but it has outlived its usefulness.

It would be interesting. The task bar concept works pretty well though. I'm always open to seeing new concepts though. One thing I like about the Vista UI is the search feature. I use it rather than navigating the start menu. Expanding on what they did under vista could be interesting.

The task bar is great, they shouldn't get rid of it. I'd be interested in seeing some sort of navigation startin from the left side of the screen. You'd have folders like "John's Documents", "Computer", "Programs", "Frequently used programs", "Search", "System" or whatever. By clicking on them, they'd expand outwards across the screen. You'd be able to add your own folders and, of course, hotkey to all the items.

I think navigating like that would be intuitive, fast, and sexy. I'd like to see the engineers responsible for the Xbox 'blade' interface take a whack at an OS GUI. The Xbox, in general, represents the future Microsoft needs to work towards.

 

[Nothinman]

The fact that features like Readyboost and Superfetch exists is due the way Windows handles the disc- a very old method, if the future is not disc then using same approach to handle files is going to create major performance issues.

No, the fact that they exist just means that disk access is very slow. It means nothing about the filesystem on top of the disk.

With a DB filesystem everything becomes standard like registry, files and security layers, it can also be accessed using managed code.

The registry is far from standardized, there's a few standard areas where people have to put things to register properly but the rest of it's is virtually random with developers naming keys whatever they want with whatever data formats in them that they want. Even MS puts binary blobs of data throughout the registry for no good reason.

There's nothing stopping you from accessing filesystems from managed code now. And if you think adding a database engine and managed code runtime will make things faster you're very confused.

I am sure if properly implemented it leaves a smaller footprint than the existing methods, it also solves the problem of file fragmentation.

I highly doubt it. The total code size of the filesytems module on my Linux system here is 6.3M. The XFS module by itself is less than 600K. And since the data still has to exist somewhere on disk there will have to be some form of layout manager so creating, deleting files in the database will still cause fragmentation. If databases were immune to that then they wouldn't need things like the PostgreSQL vacuum function.

In future the size of a memory is going to get bigger so there will be no point in using pagefiles or other crude methods,

That's assuming that your working set grows much slower than the available hardware which is usually the exact opposite of what really happens.

like we can use memory stack to cache data before commiting onto the disc . But it's hard to recover lost data from the db so they must find a way around it.

We already do that and it's difficult to recover data from most current filesystems. That problem won't change, just the format on disk will shuffle it around a bit.

I'd be interested in seeing some sort of navigation startin from the left side of the screen. You'd have folders like "John's Documents", "Computer", "Programs", "Frequently used programs", "Search", "System" or whatever. By clicking on them, they'd expand outwards across the screen. You'd be able to add your own folders and, of course, hotkey to all the items.

Why not just move the start bar to the left side of the screen and setup your quick launch with all of those items?

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

The fact that features like Readyboost and Superfetch exists is due the way Windows handles the disc- a very old method, if the future is not disc then using same approach to handle files is going to create major performance issues.

No, the fact that they exist just means that disk access is very slow. It means nothing about the filesystem on top of the disk.

With a DB filesystem everything becomes standard like registry, files and security layers, it can also be accessed using managed code.

The registry is far from standardized, there's a few standard areas where people have to put things to register properly but the rest of it's is virtually random with developers naming keys whatever they want with whatever data formats in them that they want. Even MS puts binary blobs of data throughout the registry for no good reason.

There's nothing stopping you from accessing filesystems from managed code now. And if you think adding a database engine and managed code runtime will make things faster you're very confused.

I am sure if properly implemented it leaves a smaller footprint than the existing methods, it also solves the problem of file fragmentation.

I highly doubt it. The total code size of the filesytems module on my Linux system here is 6.3M. The XFS module by itself is less than 600K. And since the data still has to exist somewhere on disk there will have to be some form of layout manager so creating, deleting files in the database will still cause fragmentation. If databases were immune to that then they wouldn't need things like the PostgreSQL vacuum function.

In future the size of a memory is going to get bigger so there will be no point in using pagefiles or other crude methods,

That's assuming that your working set grows much slower than the available hardware which is usually the exact opposite of what really happens.

like we can use memory stack to cache data before commiting onto the disc . But it's hard to recover lost data from the db so they must find a way around it.

We already do that and it's difficult to recover data from most current filesystems. That problem won't change, just the format on disk will shuffle it around a bit.

I'd be interested in seeing some sort of navigation startin from the left side of the screen. You'd have folders like "John's Documents", "Computer", "Programs", "Frequently used programs", "Search", "System" or whatever. By clicking on them, they'd expand outwards across the screen. You'd be able to add your own folders and, of course, hotkey to all the items.

Why not just move the start bar to the left side of the screen and setup your quick launch with all of those items?

Windows is nice because it affords flexibility, but I'm talking about making something that works better than the current system and "sexifies" windows quite a bit. Microsoft could shut up a lot of Mac's ridiculous advertising if they invested a little more flash (which could be turned off, of course) into the OS itself.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart

Originally posted by: Mem
Personally I feel Microsoft should take their time with the next OS,Vista is only a year old and we are still waiting for Official SP1,then you have those that are happy with WinXP ,another OS released so early will only confuse a lot of users out there.

So, 3 years between the Vista and Windows 7 releases. What's unusual about that. Looking at the history of Consumer Windows Releases in past:

Windows 1.01 Nov 1985
Windows 2.03 November 1987
Windows 3.0 May 1990
Windows 3.1 March 1992
Windows 95 in August 1995
Windows 98 in June 1998
Windows ME in September 2000
Windows XP in Oct 2001

The current schedule is in line with historic releases. XP to Vista was not normal for MS. Of course, we're also assuming that Windows 7 will ship on time. Given how late Vista was, is that a realistic assumption?

I'll be very surprised if we see Windows 7 before 2010,yep the gap between XP and Vista was big for Microsoft.
It'll be interesting to see how well it sells.

 

[Nothinman]

Microsoft could shut up a lot of Mac's ridiculous advertising if they invested a little more flash (which could be turned off, of course) into the OS itself.

See I always thought the opposite, that MS puts too much effort into flash and that Apple's more conservative with what they do.

 

[stash]

DLL hell? Did I wake up in 1998 instead of 2008 this morning?

 

[lxskllr]

I like the extended release schedule also. I think 5 years is a good spread between O/Ss. That gives MS time to work the bugs out of the older O/S, and use extra care with the new O/S. That didn't quite work out with Vista, but I think it would have with better project management.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I like the extended release schedule also. I think 5 years is a good spread between O/Ss. That gives MS time to work the bugs out of the older O/S, and use extra care with the new O/S. That didn't quite work out with Vista, but I think it would have with better project management.

I prefer a 5 year spread too,I might skip Windows 7 and wait for Windows 8.

I hear Windows 8 will be 64 bit only,Windows 7 is supposed to be the last 32 bit offering from Microsoft unless they change their minds again.

 

[QuixoticOne]

Well I think they certainly NEED a MUCH BETTER OS than their current offerings for
desktop / workstation uses (I won't even START on SERVER issues).

On the other hand their current offerings SUCK SO BADLY (e.g. VISTA) that it's questionable that
they have the competence / capacity to do the radical improvement / reengineering needed in
a reasonable span of time.

The hardware capabilities are VERY far ahead of the OS's ability to take advantage of them now, and
that gap will be 3x worse by the time the next generation OS can be out even if that's 2 years from
now.

If it is going to take more like 5-7 years to do it with quality they might as well as well start from
scratch and just plan to run today's legacy applications under an VM / emulated / sandbox / something.

What are the basic functions of an OS?

Control / manage the system memory / hardware. : FAIL;
they didn't even get 64 bit working for the MAINSTREAM users with VISTA 64 or XP64; 64 bit PCs
have been the STANDARD CPUs for like 6 years now for anyone who's built a relatively "modern" /
"full featured" desktop. Beyond pervasive 64 bit, they'll have to start intelligently using memory,
manage things like sleep / hibernate better, do MUCH BETTER than the pathetic
readyboost / superfetch type stuff. We're looking at potentially common RAM capacities of 32GB+ and
solid state disk capacities into the terabyte level for a next generation OS.

Control / manage storage: FAIL
The average new affordable commodity disk drive today is bumping around the 500GB-1TB mark,
and clearly it'll be able to be 2TB+ per drive including extensive hybrid / SSD options too if
technology progresses as we may expect within a couple of years. So people will need to be
managing on the order of 2TB-10TB data stores just on their personal PCs.
This is just PHENOMENALLY overwhelmingly transcendentally beyond ANY
BACKUP, SEARCH, DATA ORGANIZATION, SECURITY technologies that exist in any
desktop/workstation OS from Microsoft, and certainly also beyond the capacity of any
APPLICATION INTERFACE they've provided to let people USE their data.
Currently XP / VISTA FAILS MISERABLY beyond around a 128 character path name for
a file, backups start not working, copies mysteriously fail on those parts of the data, applications
can't open the files, applications don't even DISPLAY the path/filename properly etc.
How much worse would it be when one has 10x the amount of storage as today's typical amount?
The very linear concept of a tree structured filesystem is wholly inadequate for that capacity
of general purpose storage for a workstation. You're not going to often care about what the
file NAME or even PATH is, you're going to care about the CONTENT and its metadata,
WHO made it, what's the TITLE, what's the SUBJECT, what's the DATE, what's the VERSION,
is there an UPDATE, WHEN you need to respond to it, WHEN you want to watch it (e.g. multimedia),
WHAT it relates informationally to, etc. Using your own 'disk drive' will be more like surfing the
internet, using WikiPedia, using TIVO / DVR, etc. You've got to be able to
NAVIGATE TO WHAT you want, download / install it as needed, have organization / backup be
essentially automatic, FIND content, and ACCESS it topically, relationally.
One should essentially have the possibility to NEVER *LOSE DATA*, and NEVER NEED to
ERASE DATA once you've got it unless you go out of your way to block / reject / purge it.
WINFS was SUPPOSED to be a step in VISTA to start using file metadata, search more
intelligently to organize, access, manage, categorize, annotate your data. They couldn't
manage even to do its limited functions in all the years of development and instead canceled
the feature. Even in its "wish-list" form it would bave been inadequate for today's needs, and
exremely so for the future, but would still have been orders of magnitude better than the
present almost useless status quo. You could *literally* almost spend the rest of your natural LIFETIME
just LOOKING for information on a 2TB data store filled with things like texts, emails, web-pages, etc.
given poor organizational / metadata / search / database tools. It's GOT to be MUCH more automated.
It was easier to use the paper card catalog in a library 40 years ago than to find a PDF / Word processor
document / hypertext document you're looking for on your OWN COMPUTER today. Pathetic.

Security, stability? Come on, it has to be basically intrinsically correct and robust. There's
just NO EXCUSE for things like buffer overflow / data type overflow security / reliability problems
to continue to exist in 2008, certainly not in 2010. It should just NOT be possible to have ordinary
input data corrupt the functionality of the whole system. It should just NOT be possible to have
data, once stored, be corrupted or deleted / modified without the user's intention. Can you
IMAGINE losing 10TB of data? EVERY photograph your family has EVER taken, all the
baby pictures, school graduations, birthdays, memories with deceased relatives, etc?
EVERY music/movie you "own" since it seems like physical media "copies" of these things will
be getting rarer and rarer. EVERY email, EVERY document? It doesn't matter if your hard
drive crashes and needs to be replaced, it doesn't matter if there's a fire, it doesn't matter
if you download malicious "end user" programs, that's the kind of data preservation DESIGN
we'll need IMHO going on into the next generations of computing. Seamless backups, restores,
merges, re-organizations, indexing, searching, sharing, ubiquitous access locally, over the
internet, wireless, to portable devices, whatever. Use ECC, use RAID technologies, use
distrubuted filesystem technologies, use encryption, etc. Just as you can surf your favorite
web sites and not be aftaid you'll accidentally DELETE them or CORRUPT them if YOUR computer
gets a virus or your browser flakes out, you should have the same confidence that you can always
navigate / find / access your content regareless of hardware failures, upgrades, replacements,
software glitches, etc. It's not beyond current software or hardware techologies to accomplish
these things, but the architecture by which we use these things must fundamentally
evolve in a quantum leap NOW.

Communications / Accessability / Ubiquity? As has been long said, "the netqwork is the computer".
Even the *INTERNET* is pathetically bad at actually efficiently helping people find and
access information. Google? Give me a break, it's a pathetic hack. It's time for the SEMANTIC
WEB, it's time that tools in the OS, in Office Suites, in publishing tools, etc. start to work with the
SEMANTIC content of and metadata ABOUT information. Looking for a recipe for chocolate cake?
OK, that should be able to be found without resort to string searching terabytes of unformatted
data looking for keywords. Microsoft controls a lot of the OS marker, and has controlled a lot of
the office document editing / authoring market for years. In a next generation OS / office application /
authoring / workflow type system they'll have to provide itegrated AI as well as UI architecture
so that informational resources are efficiently tagged / codified from the start. Don't build
pathetic parsing searches into the OS except as a last resort, get things right from the start,
natural language processing, semantic extraction / indexing, speech recognition, handwriting
recognition, library science, etc. Ok, paper-clip, puppy, Google, tell ME what informational
resources on the NET or locally or in the library exist that relate to what projects I'm working on.
No, I don't want to click 13000 times for the next 20 results, I want it all in a database,
I want all my files in a database, I want all my projects, workflows, requirements, interests, studies
in a database. Make it semantic. Make it correlative. Make it language neutral as much as possible.
Ok, so I've got basically a supercomputer of 20 years ago on my desk and most e-storage capacity
than a typical city library has book-space for. Hello, Rosetta stone, show me what I've been
missing in Mandarin, Greek, Gaelic, search, translate, correlate, heck teach me new
languages, new fields of study. MIT's had a lot of its courseware online free for years,
I don't want next-generation paperclip / search doggie to teach me how to FIND the
PRINT MENU in WORD, I want it to teach me russian and topology with the assistance
of 3D models / CAD / computer algebra in my DX12 GPU, my 16-Core 100 GFLOP CPU, my
32GB memory, and my 32 channel XXX-Fi surround sound system and new 3D holo-projector.
Ok, maybe that's asking a lot, but a man's reach should always exceed his grasp; the
hardware technologies are either here or soon to be so, and the software's certainly the same.
Why am I being inconvenienced about not even being able to burn a DVD in VISTA 64
(a problem that ought to have been solved like 15 years ago), when THESE are the kinds
of challenges OS, APPLICATION designers should have ALREADY been tackling and
will certailnly NEED to do so ASAP?

Running an OS like VISTA on a computer 5 years from now will be like booting DOS on your
current quad-core 8GB RAM / 500 GB disk system... yeah you CAN OF COURSE do all that
petty stuff, but, really, it's all like BELOW your dignity / usefulness to even WANT to micro-manage
anything at the level of a mere text mode program, 8.3 tree filesystem, trivial utilities / programs, etc.

Ask not what you can do ON your computer, ask what your computer can do FOR YOU!

Don't DESIGN your OS / major Application Suite for *yesterday's hardware*
design it for something more like HAL-9000, THEN add in some simplification layers
to help adapt the few areas where the software / hardware is lacking in the next 10 years
until we're fully there on the SW/HW front.

Because at the current rate I'm betting they'll still be fighting about BLU-RAY vs HD-DVD
(i.e WHO THE HECK CARES, it's like arguing about PUCHED CARD vs PAPER TAPE
for your next VISTA laptop) when things like quantum computing, DNA computing,
holographic storage, etc. all come to practical fruition, very possibly within the next 5-15 years.

Even without those technologies at the very LEAST MOORE'S LAW will give us like 10x improvement
over current supercomputer node level technology by then just using traditional
multi-core designs.

Don't FRET about the UI RIBBON GUI design for OFFICE 2009 because you should really be
working on AI PERSONAL SECRETARY 2010 that's like at least MAX-Headroom if not quite HAL yet.

The true value of a next generation OS / Application design isn't going to be in throw-away
non-reusable CODE, it's going to be in the TIMELESSLY VALUABLE *enduring human
knowledge / heuristics / "real world" data* they put in it. A dewey decimal paper catalog
index interface to a decently stocked LIBRARY is a lot more useful of an information
RESOURCE than VISTA 2.0 on a personal supercomputer if its main benefits are
a prettier GUI, more DRM, and 3D video games. Add in content that's about REAL
information, REAL world concerns, then it becomes a useful TOOL.
e.g. google earth / world wind / GIS vs. a paper map.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

I hope they can either create rules or implement something so applications are self contained like in OS X and leave little to no footprint. I hate how apps sprinkle their software all over the place.

 

[n7]

The sooner, the better.

I can't wait to hear the wailing & screaming of n00bs who didn't like Vista doing the same thing for Windows 7.

I wouldn't count on seeing the retail release before 2010 TBH though, since delays wouldn't surprise me.
January 2010, exactly 3 years after Vista would make sense, but only time will tell.

I like what they did with Vista, but they can do a lot better, so again, bring it on! 😀

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[Bateluer]

I haven't had any problems with Vista, but I think 2 or 3 years between major OS releases is too quick, especially at the price MS likes to charge for their products.

 

[VirtualLarry]

246502 Disallow removable (usb/firewire) drives to default to next available drive letter when the letter is already used by other network drives

Finally! They're planning on fixing this bug.

Any reason why they can't just release a patch for XP? Surely it must be possible to test a drive letter to see if it's in use already.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Griffinhart

Originally posted by: Mem
Personally I feel Microsoft should take their time with the next OS,Vista is only a year old and we are still waiting for Official SP1,then you have those that are happy with WinXP ,another OS released so early will only confuse a lot of users out there.

So, 3 years between the Vista and Windows 7 releases. What's unusual about that. Looking at the history of Consumer Windows Releases in past:

Windows 1.01 Nov 1985
Windows 2.03 November 1987
Windows 3.0 May 1990
Windows 3.1 March 1992
Windows 95 in August 1995
Windows 98 in June 1998
Windows ME in September 2000
Windows XP in Oct 2001

The current schedule is in line with historic releases. XP to Vista was not normal for MS. Of course, we're also assuming that Windows 7 will ship on time. Given how late Vista was, is that a realistic assumption?

I'll be very surprised if we see Windows 7 before 2010,yep the gap between XP and Vista was big for Microsoft.
It'll be interesting to see how well it sells.

It seems like the XP/Vista gap is going to be the new norm and not the exception. Windows up to XP was undergoing a rapid evolution, new hardware came out that allowed for new features and the modern GUI was still getting hammered out. Then Microsoft came out with XP, it used a modern kernel brought Windows up to par in terms of multitasking and stability, and the core was flexible enough to support a great deal of future hardware. How do you improve on that? That's one of the problems Microsoft had with Vista.

Microsoft finally hit all of the low-hanging fruit with XP, there wasn't a lot wrong with it. I just don't see the kind of rapid pace Microsoft had up to XP resuming, Windows is mature and doesn't need to be updated so often.