So far, Microsoft has been very tight-lipped about Windows 7, carefully trying to prevent another Longhorn PR disaster where the company promised the heavens and more for Longhorn, but in the end ditched Longhorn to make way for Vista. Chris Flores (Windows Client Communications Team) as well as Steven Sinofsky, has broken the silence a little bit to talk about Windows 7. In addition, it is believed Windows 7 will make its first official debut at the D6 All Things Digital conference today, during a keynote held by Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.First of all, Flores confirmed Microsoft has indeed taken a different approach to promoting the next release of Windows. “We know that when we talk about our plans for the next release of Windows, people take action. As a result, we can significantly impact our partners and our customers if we broadly share information that later changes,” he explains, “With Windows 7, we’re trying to more carefully plan how we share information with our customers and partners. This means sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience.
More interesting are the rather clear goals Flores puts forth for Windows 7:
The long-term architectural investments we introduced in Windows Vista and then refined for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 will carry forward in Windows 7. Windows Vista established a very solid foundation, particularly on subsystems such as graphics, audio, and storage. Windows Server 2008 was built on that foundation and Windows 7 will be as well. Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista.
Apparently, Windows 7 will focus on performance – not a bad idea seeing the lukewarm reception Vista has gotten was mostly based on its demanding requirements.
In fact, one of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7.
Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s Windows chief, also broke the silence today in an interview with CNet’s Ina Fried. He reiterated the three year time frame, where Windows 7 is scheduled for release three years after Windows Vista. Sinofsky also confirmed what Flores had to say: driver and programs that work on Vista will also work on Windows 7. “We’re very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they’ll work the same. We’re going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model.” He added that Windows Server 2008’s kernel is an evolution of Vista’s kernel, and Windows 7’s kernel will be an evolution of the Server 2008 kernel.
Ina Fried posed some interesting questions to Sinofsky, one of which is about backwards compatibility. Many people, including myself, have argued for an Apple-like approach: move backwards compatibility into a virtual machine. Sinofsky dismissed the idea of looking at backwards compatibility as a burden or challenge:
All of those IHVs and ISVs. I look at them as the key asset to the Windows and PC ecosystem. So, I don’t at all look at them like a compatibility burden or challenge, to use the words that you used, but I look at it as well, that’s the big asset that customers look to when they buy into a Windows PC. They say, hey, if I bought this printer five years ago, I want to keep using it, and I want to keep using it as part of my PC network. If I have this other piece of hardware, I want to keep using it. We do have to get better at the work that we’ve done, and, in fact, sometimes we make very, very substantial changes that are really multiyear bets.
Lastly, IStartedSomething claims that during the Ballmer-Gates keynote speech at the D6 conference today, Windows 7 will make its first public appearance. “Whether or not we’ll actually see a live build of Windows 7 or purely a technology demo of a specific feature remains a mystery, but it’s sure exciting,” the website states. In light of the rather tight-lipped approach both Sinofsky and Flores have just taken, I’m not sure whether this claim holds any water – but who knows. Be sure to keep an eye on the D6 website.
Perhaps it’s because Windows 7 is not even alpha yet. Just wait until it matures a bit and then you’ll have all sorts of microsoft managers telling how they have a zillion of new features while in reality those haven’t even reached the planning stage.
Having seen, frankly, the mess that was and is, Vista, Microsoft should realise they need to do something drastic. Sure, a new kernel will kill the backwards compatibility market, but if XP were to live on longer that wouldn’t matter.
The truth stands that developing for Windows is a pain, including .net. The underlying APIs are nasty, nothing is simple, and doing anything complex is frustrating. With Windows 7 Microsoft could have brought the aging Windows out of the dark ages and provided themselves with a decent OS for years to come.
As it is, this post is being written from GNU/Linux. I jumped ship a while ago. As are more and more developers.
Edited 2008-05-27 15:57 UTC
The truth stands that developing for Windows is a pain, including .net.
Well.. the truth is in the eye of the beholder.
So, no, developing for Win is not really painful, in my experience.
Edited 2008-05-27 16:08 UTC
It depends on what you do. For a while I was working on simulators and there were things that made Windows (Win32) something more of a challenge than Unix. However, I would say plugging away in .NET is no more of a headache than plugging away in Java (they’re much more similar than dissimilar). What does make it suck is the registry. Especially when you have to go in there and edit the registry, or you’re coding against the registry. It’s always in the back of your mind that this is the one time where your ‘harmless’ registry edit goes foul and you have no current image of your hard disk.
I think that, in reality, registry editing is no less dangerous than running ‘sudo’ commands in Linux. Sure, the registry is complex, and the Microsoft overengineered solutions to simple problems tend to muddy the waters some-what, but really, editing the registry is pretty trivial.
The point isn’t that editing the registry is complex, the point is that it is a single point of failure for the whole OS!
I have a colleague of mine who was had to reinstall the whole OS because of a registry corruption, (the socalled ‘backup’ of the registry didn’t work either).
So the GP is right: each time you edit the registry, there is a possibility to hose the whole OS which is an awful design..
System restore would have bailed your colleague out of his bind. Sure it might have taken him a bit farther back than he wanted to go, but it still would have been better than nothing. System restore is an often overlooked godsend and has saved my ass on more than one occasion.
I’ve done registry restores a bajillion times. Worked splendidly for the most part.
//I have a colleague of mine who was had to reinstall the whole OS because of a registry corruption, (the socalled ‘backup’ of the registry didn’t work either).//
Well, then, either your colleague is a complete dipshit, or he has crap-ass hardware and/or computing habits.
I’ve done registry backups/restores several times. Worked like a charm.
I would a have to disagre. Everytime you use sudo you are running as if you are the admin. So it is more like clicking OK or when UAC comes up, or just using your computer in an pre-Vista Windows OS. The Registry on the other hand is a binary mess that while changing it you can hose your system.
In the same way that ‘sudo rm -rf /’ can hose your system, deleting the CLSID folder of the registry can hose your system.
Granted but it is still not the same. I wasn’t saying you are wrong I was saying your analogy is flawed.
But don’t need to use the registry as long as you don’t depend on other existing program. You can always use the configuration files.
The underlying data format of the NT registry is a journalled, clustered, transactional store. It’s no riskier to make an edit than a text file on your hard drive.
Well…while programming for Unix/Linux is relatively painless, so can programming for Windows assuming you use the right API set.
For example, programming for Win32 is quite nice and easy compared to programming for MFC. Sure MFC makes some things (dialogs) quick and easy to do, but it also throws a ton of gunk in too. CString is just horrendous compared to std::string – especially when trying to track down information on CString and see _which_ CString implementation the software is actually using (since CString itself is really just a template of multiple templates).
Sure, Win32 may require a little more hard-lifting than MFC; but overall it really is easy to use and painless.
Now, COM, ATL, etc…I won’t even go there.
This is true, apologies.
Well.. the truth is in the eye of the beholder.
So, no, developing for Win is not really painful, in my experience.
Then you are a ugly&stupid and also a masochist.
As it is, this post is being written from GNU/Linux. I jumped ship a while ago. As are more and more developers.
You had no need to mention this we figured that out before the end of your opening sentence.
To be honest I had much more to add but decided in the interest of decency to censor myself.
This looks like more of the same Microsoft flash and glamor painted over a sub par foundation that’s bloated, buggy, and doomed to collapse under the strain of many more new “features.” Mix in a bit of propaganda and blatant FUD to mar the more innovating competition and you have Windows 7. Congratulations Microsoft, can’t wait!!!
Rather than evolving Vista, it might have been a good time to really re-think and re-plan the windows kernel. For all those needing backwards compatibility, they could provide a virtual machine/hypervisor to run Vista. Given the sour press they could have taken the hint and really pushed the edges of the envelope. Instead they’re going to deliver the same, day old bread. Of course, in the interim, they are probably going to promise dozens of innovative ideas which they will drop once they realize the turd they’re polishing won’t support it.
That makes me think it’s time to reconsider how I look at Windows. Normally, you think of Windows as an O/S that runs on hardware which is essentially fungible. Given the Vista headaches, it might be time to look at Windows (7) as a product that you will buy with hardware from a quality vendor. In other words, forget about upgrades, just buy a new machine. That is, wait on each windows ‘upgrade’ until it’s time to buy a new computer and just buy a complete working package instead of ‘rolling out’ (in a corporate environment) or upgrading (in a home environment).
“Redo Windows kernel”. WTF? I am seeing this for the n-th time in this and other threads and I still do not understand. NT kernel is one of the best available. Do you suggest Microsoft should make something even more better?
I agree that graphical (explorer) shell could be improved. But IMHO it *WAS* improved quite a bit in Vista when compared to XP.
I am a very satisfied user of Vista x64 and in my opinion there is no better desktop operating system (yes, including Mac). If your hardware is not suitable to run Vista, you should use XP or linux, but Vista provides many benefits compared to them. Yes, it runs slow on ancient machines with <2GB RAM and Vista is not meant to run on them. But it does so much more than XP and is much more convenient.
My only negative aspect of Vista is its compatibility with older games because they do not get updates like other software. But I blame makers of these games and not Microsoft. If they were coded correctly they would run faultlessly on Vista just like many other older games do… And I notice that problems mostly arise from various crappy copy “protection” systems which try to install own drivers and other sh*t.
Interestingly however, my copy of GNU/Linux runs about 10 times faster and uses oh about 1/4 of the RAM that Vista does on this machine.
The WinNT kernel was good, when new, but since has aged badly and some rather horrendous faults were allowed to be replicated again and again. In comparison to the Linux kernel for example there are arguments both ways – but personally I think Linux has far more room for future growth and improvement, the cruft in WinNT is somewhat more entrenched.
I was at one point an MS user also.
Okay, you’re clueless. What’s not working with the Windows kernel is that it does require massive amounts of memory to run the basic O/S. In fact, a recent posting (can’t find it right now) about an Intel engineer that benchmarked various tasks under different versions of Windows and Office found they were slower on Vista (on modern hardware) than on Windows 2000 on old hardware. That’s right. You’re upgrading to Vista to actually run slower on brand-spanking new hardware.
Windows suffers from another problem, which is 20+ years of cruft. Last time I was coding on Windows there were 3 different C API’s for memory management. Only one was current but all three were supported so code going back to Windows 3.1 had a shot of running. It’s time Microsoft dumped some of those API’s the way Apple did with the Carbon migration prior to OS X. Why dump those old API’s? Because they lock in old, out-dated concepts and practices, which can interfere with new kernel development. Even if they’re just wrappers around the new API’s, they should go the way of the do-do.
As recently as early releases of XP there are way too many reports of user programs causing kernel crashes. (And no, I’m not talking about buggy device drivers). These are instances of user programs passing bad parameters back to the Win32 functions causing Windows to BSOD. That should happen 0 times.
I’ve written software on Windows at various stages in my career since Windows NT 4 so that people can run businesses and make money. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of writing OCX and Active X controls, COM+ components, all the way through .NET GUI’s. What was modern in the Windows NT 4 sense (circa 1997) is now no longer modern. It needs a facelift. It needs a cleanup. It needs to live well in a reasonable environment. It needs that because otherwise it becomes increasingly a dead weight instead of a useful tool.
Windows is not the best kernel available by any stretch of the imagination. For one thing, it lacks real time capabilities (which Windows CE ironically provides). The thread scheduler is counter intuitive. The filesystem is slow (especially over network shares). The part I especially love is the random waiting while network browsing returns information about computers, printers and networks. Windows isn’t evil. It does need work. It would be nice to see Microsoft stop dicking around with Yahoo or Zune and focus on it’s core competency, Operating Systems before it begins to look like it’s core incompetency.
Edited 2008-05-27 17:50 UTC
The “cruft” guarantees Windows the largest market share. Because so many applications and drivers run on Windows, people use it. Because so many people use it, applications and drivers will almost always target Windows.
Not just on the desktop but in support of things like cash registers, auto diagnostics, programming LMRs (radios), medical systems, … These systems evolve slower than the desktop and there are far more of these than desktops. Their equipment investment is in decades. You just can’t kick all those important users in the nuts and say “upgrade every business process end-to-end every few years to support our new OS.” These customers just won’t upgrade. MS doesn’t get revenue if users don’t upgrade. Therefore the “cruft.”
RToS – Windows isn’t running your brakes. RToSes have a different application and philosophy than GP OSes like Windows or Linux. That’s why Windows CE and RTLinux are real-time and not the main desktop or server OSes.
Actually real time behaviors are becoming important for things outside the traditional RTOS. For example, it’s can be used in simulations and games to make for a more responsive, more realistic experience. In the financial community soft real time behaviors are becoming part of trading systems. In addition, as embedded systems just become more like little (SoC) versions of desktop systems, a stripped down desktop version of the O/S is nice to use because it simplifies development. I just pointed out real time scheduling as one thing the standard Windows kernel lacks that’s available in a number of other kernels. For example, both Linux and Solaris come with real time schedulers (not just a special RTLinux).
But I don’t see your connection between the OS that’s in your cash register and your desktop OS and why you’d have to upgrade your cash register or your business processes if you upgrade your desktop. For example, say your cash register runs Windows CE, or your service station pump head runs Windows XP embedded, it has nothing to do with your desktop OS. What’s more, if you do build a medical imager with Windows XP embedded, you probably will not ever upgrade it to Windows Vista, anyway. You don’t need to keep the entire kernel the same to provide for backwards compatibility. As many people have pointed out, you can run the legacy Windows version in a virtual machine. That gives you the freedom to build a solid, next generation kernel while satisfying your user needs to run old code. Their current strategy ties them to old code while constraining their ability to modernize their key product.
There are two ways of looking at the present Windows situation. The first is the odd/even phenomena. Windows 3.1 – successful. Windows 3.5.1 Not so. Windows NT 4 – successful. Windows 2000 not so. Windows XP successful. Windows Vista not so. That may mean they get all their ducks in a row and Windows 7 continues the pattern by being successful. The pessimists (of which I am a part) look and see real issues with where Windows is and where it’s headed. Microsoft could turn into the GM of operating systems, producing generations of mediocre products, slowly loosing just a little bit of market share every year. That kind of slow grind to mediocrity will be very expensive for end users.
Edited 2008-05-27 20:26 UTC
besides missing a few no name windows editions like 95, 98, 98-2nd and ME your odd/even theory just may be true.
if they work on the 2008 kernel then 7 should turn out to be a great OS. whether it’s worth paying money for is another story, but 2008 ran better for me as a vm on vista ultimate than vista itself.
personally I would much prefer to see a x64 only edition which came with vm of a vista x86 basic edition.
But I don’t see your connection between the OS that’s in your cash register and your desktop OS and why you’d have to upgrade your cash register or your business processes if you upgrade your desktop.
Your overall point is true, but you’re missing a few things. All these systems run on conventional, if modified desktop OSes. I was surpirsed to see a Wal-Mart register reboot with Windows. Working Air Traffic, most run Windows. A few years ago, I programmed LMR radios. These used a regular laptop with a serial port and 16-bit DOS app to reprogram the radios. We could get around the DOS mode, but more importantly, serial ports became harder to find and serial-USB adapters don’t always work out depending on the app. Our paging system was the same way. Once manufacturer EoL was reached, we would have to upgrade the rack of paging servers to a whole new system or make our own systems if something failed. Making our own was cheaper, but not always possible.
For many businesses, esp small technical ones, it gets hard to keep up with the technological pace. You spend thousands of dollars on test equipment and the PCs used to interface/ manage them are past EoL. Then the current PCs need modding or you have to buy all new test equipment. Schools and small businesses are always cash strapped.
Many enterprises use in-house apps. If the OS changes, then the business has to either rewrite the app or not upgrade their system.
Virtualization is not a panacea as users of OS X Classic Mode know well enough. Windows does pretty good supporting 16-bit apps, but it’s not all roses there either.
This isn’t a missed opportunity. The opportunity to “pull an OSX” was before they released Vista. But they did, so now it would make no (business) sense to start from scratch and break compatibility.
“We’re very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they’ll work the same. We’re going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model.”
Doesn’t anyone else see why this is a great business move for them?? Vista adoption is slow, drivers have been lacking, people are still developing for XP, etc…So, you say, “Everything that will work on Vista will work perfectly on Windows 7”, and now companies see a better reason to develop applications, and more importantly drivers, for Windows Vista. Kill the, “we’ll just hold out for Windows 7” mentality, and in the process, give people a big motivation to adopt Vista.
And lets face it folks, no matter what they say, Windows 7 will NOT be out in early 2010 or whatever pipe dream they are pushing now.
@phoehne: I’m a long-time Windows user and still think it’s the best desktop OS (i actually like Vista) … but you make some great points.
If UltraEdit ran natively in Linux … then I’d seriously consider making the swtich.
Edited 2008-05-29 20:41 UTC
I still cannot decide if this is a joke post or not. I mean, it makes me chuckle, but I just can’t tell if you are serious or not.
Do you really think the bad image that Vista has is everyone else’s fault and not Microsoft?
Do you really think the bad image that Vista has is everyone else’s fault and not Microsoft?
Bad Image? well, I had a bad imagen of Windows Vista too till I actually started using it, and I can tell you that rocks.
I have had Vista Home Ultimate for about 5 months now. I cannot stand it. I have been a Windows user since 3.11 and this version has frustrated me to no end. I decided to give Ubuntu a try and within 30 days I do all my personal computing in *buntu now. Unfortunately I still have the Vista on a small partition on my laptop for school and work.
I think we will just have to disagree on this. I find it to be a POS.
Specifically, what do you hate about Vista? And, I assume you did a clean install of Vista when you started out, of course.
1. Speed. Everything from boot, launching applications, to file operations over my home network. OpenSUSE and Ubuntu (multi-boot system) have absolutely no problem with this.
2. Hardware requirements. They are ridiculous. Yes I know you are probably tired of hearing it, but it is true. Everyone knows it.
3. Cost. Jesus, are people really paying that for a copy of WIndows? There is no reason for it. And don’t start with the TCO. That is crap. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
4. DRM/Content Protection/Protected Video Path. I just don’t like it.
5. Copy Protection. Man I am sick of being treated like a criminal. The “we don’t trust you, but we still want you to buy… RENT our operating system” mentality sickens me. I don’t know, maybe I have just been spoiled by the fact that I can give away as many copies of almost any Linux/BSD distribution I want or reinstall it as many times as I want and never enter in a serial number, or register it, or activate, or anything.
6. Your mouse has moved, you must reboot to accept these changes” Seriously, if I update my mouse driver, why do I need to reboot the whole OS? Every time I boot into Vista, I have to reboot after applying the updates. The whole update-reboot-rinse-repeat process is annoying.
7. Lack of basic features (window management is really lacking), mindlessly rearanged options and configuration dialogs, changed layouts of the file manager… I could do this for days man.
Oh, I did not have a “fresh” installation. My laptop was molested by the distributor who infected it with malware, adware, trialware and every crapplication you could thing of. Yes, it was an OEM installation where I had to lose 3 hours of my like and 3 DVD’s to make my own “restoration disc’s” Luckily there is PC Decrapifier. http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
Here is my laptop:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:FQ9mzABmSfgJ:www.bestbuy.com/s…
But hey, if it works for you, that’s great. It just does not work for me. Vista is what prompted me to try Linux. I cannot thank Microsoft enough for that.
Edited 2008-05-30 01:34 UTC
“if they were coded correctly”? So Vista almost completely hosed backwards compatibility with Windows XP, and you blame the developers of older games who had no way of foreseeing what Microsoft were going to do in the future?
Actually, there is no need to wait at all. Better OS’s that enables you to do more things with your hardware are already out there.
In fact, you are better of buying second hand quality hardware running BSD/Linux or getting a Mac than spending money on new hardware running volitile bloatware.
My name is jens and Im a Mac-head / BSD user.
XNU ( MacOSX Kernel ), the BSD kernels get new features every year or two. And Linus adds insane amounts of new stuff to his kernel ( like _millions_ lines of code in a matter of a few months ) Linux will be realtime and have new ZFS like filesystems in 3 years and God only knows what else.
How is MS going to compete???
Dont worry…
There are a lot of novell’s and sco’s to get some charity still
Think of it this way. According to Moore’s law, in 3 years computers will be 4 times as fast. If they don’t do much to make Windows 7 more ‘resource sensitive’ than Vista, it will appear quite zippy on those new machines.
You may want to read up on Moore’s law, because your representation is wrong. It’s about doubling transistor count every 2 years. And that tells you nothing about performance increases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
The single biggest thing that MS has going for it is its huge install base. So, in a sense, the playing field has less to do with whatever random features that Linus or anybody else adds to Linux but, rather, about how well MS maintains backward compatibility while simltaneously moving the ball forward. With that kind of lock-in, MS almost can’t fail. I realize that it’s going to come as a shock to many of you, but Vista is steadily gaining market share. Within a couple years, it will account for over 50% of the market.
Edited 2008-05-27 23:15 UTC
Now, this is a surprise. All those features that were cut and cut and cut are going into Windows 7.
I know that some people are interested in backward compatibility, as their developer is still creating DOS-mode applications. (I wouldn’t doubt they’re still 8086 real mode, also.)
It would be nice if Microsoft finally did something good, as they’re not quite as in control as they were after Win95 became entrenched. If not, the future should be quite interesting without their dominance or arrogance but I don’t want any other operating system dominant, either.
In fact, one of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7.
Let me put it like this: the bad performance of Vista is what is making me NOT use it (because otherwise I really like it)…so I guess Windows 7 is a NO GO for me as well. I thought Windows 7 was suppose to “fix” Vista, but lets face it: the performance has been subject to A LOT of controversy…so I guess its time to look at the alternatives…
Edited 2008-05-27 16:30 UTC
The context was that you won’t need to update your drivers, and that’s awesome, not like linux, when every minimal change screw your drivers.
Edited 2008-05-27 17:46 UTC
I use Linux, I keep my drivers and everything up to date, and not once have I ever been left out in the cold with screwed drivers. And before anyone claims it’s because I’m a power user, I’m not. I’m a GUI junkie, and while I don’t fear the command line, I avoid it where possible. Clicking four things is easier than typing four lines.
Either a liar or a fool would attribute Windows Vista’s problems to “public relations.”
… for Vista.
Windows most of the time did improvement evolution.
Windows 95 is a Windows 3.1 with extended model as DOS4GW, and ported a part of Win32 API from NT3.5
The same remains with Windows NT which is based on OS/2 foundation.
Changing the drivers sounds great and flourish, but is the same as they did with Windows 98 compared with Windows 95. Windows 98 added USB support (that can be installed separately in Windows 95 by the mainboard drivers), support for AGP cards (the nVidia or other drivers should use Windows 95 OSR2 to make it work not as a PCI card), but the improvements were really small.
Why Windows 98 was a bigger success than 95, and makes a lot of users to use it? Firstly cause was Windows 95, so everyone likes Windows 95 and it’s applications can enjoy it more. What offers more? Polish and more things in the same package. All can be installed afterwards as from Windows 95 (excluding DirectX8.1 and 9.0, but 8.0a, released in 2001 still works).
One very interesting feature that it had, was that File Manager (similar with Explorer as file browser) was a part of Windows 98, to make the migration more gently, improved drag and drop, a much improved explorer, a ton of drivers, it does not have in high frequencies CPUs the “divizion by zero” error and kernel panic.
What will bring WIndows 7, probably an Windows 98, with not mixing two kind of dialogs: desktop theme and wallpaper keeps one style – the Aero one, and the Screen Saver and advanced properties to have ugly Windows 9x-XP like interface. The menus probably will be easier to manage as click count and names will be more intuitive. Another thing, is to polish and polish. Windows must to be the easiest way to use computers, not the sluggish way to do that as Vista apepars for many. Another good thing, is as in Windows 95, many applications will not require for now UAC installer gray screens.
So Windows 7 is Vista+1, as is Ubuntu for Linux, an improvment that works.
1) A lot of you don’t realize that Sinofsky was in charge of Office 2007. No one knew the big UI change was coming until it was already in a near-final state. He doesn’t talk until he can deliver.
2) What I got from this interview us that Windows 7 will be like Server 2003 was to Server 2000 – a cleanup that really made the product line shine. Server 2000 helped break down a lot of barriers for MS and helped kill the big Nixes in the enterprise, but 2003 was far and away more polished. I have yet to find a bad review of Server 2003.
I installed Vista on a home-brew in January and love it. There are a few minor problem areas (why are there files I can’t access?!), but overall, worlds better than XP.
I have seen no criticisms that a reasonably experienced techie would consider valid.
Criticisms:
1) Performance/ compatibility. Early adopters get what they deserve. I had the same problems upgrading from 98SE to W2K and learned my lesson. I have 2 coworkers and 4 non-technical family members who upgraded. None have had problems. Why? I told them to wait. Unsurprisingly, those of us who waited with Vista have far fewer problems than those who tried early on.
2) MS overpromised and didn’t deliver those features. How good is what’s left? I know of no one personally who downgraded.
3) It’s different. Duh. If you wanted the same, why change your OS? If you take each new OS on it’s own terms, you will be able to make much more accurate evaluations based on their needs.
So… just to clarify…
– Same Kernel, but cleaned up and bugfixed
– Same driver model, but with extra support
– Same DirectX
– Same APIs (Net 3.0+)
– Short release schedule
– New Internet Explorer
– Performance tweaks
– Networking improvements
Seriously… It’s the equivalent of Win98 SE. Don’t get me wrong – Win98 SE and Win95 SE were far better than their predecessors, more stable and more performant; they sold me on that product line. I didn’t like 95 (due to stability), but SE really helped, and I used it even when 98 was out. Then I upgraded to 98SE when that sorted out the faults in 98.
Windows 7 looks like Vista SE to me… And maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. Certainly, for ISVs, corporate types and game developers, stability in the APIs and expectations would be nice, otherwise they are throwing away any Vista/DirectX 10 investments that they have made.
Not revolutionary, but maybe it will make the Vista codebase stable and usable for at least the next five years after windows 7 release.
But are-there still ‘revolutionary’ improvements to add to an OS??
The only big improvement, I can see would be:
– to have the same responsiveness as BeOS had, but this won’t happen thanks to software change as this would require to rewrite more or less all the applications (fast SSDs and multicore CPUs will hopefully give the same result though)
– true security: same, all the application would need to be rewritten: won’t happen.
– going from hierarchical FS to a ‘tagged’ FS: this is the mythical CairoFS: but apparently it’s very hard to implement without loosing performance which Microsoft can really afford currently!
– better ‘on-line portability’: here Microsoft fear Google so I doubt that they’re going to push making everything online (but they should).
one general tip, does apply to xp, vista, windows 2008 and most likely windows 7 (but not win 2k/2k3) :
quit screwing around with the UI!
So basically Windows 7 will be the second version of Vista? Don’t we all know that it takes Microsoft 3 tries to get anything right? There is a reason it was called Short Horn.
Hello,
I remember reading here (http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/05/asus-and-microsoft-working-an-ee…) that there is a chance of Windows 7 running on EEE-type devices. This can be construed to mean that Windows 7 will be to Vista what Windows Server 2003 was to Windows 2000, which is a complete improvement that can actually work with less hardware requirements than the original OS.
The one thing that i hope to see happen is a better use of virtualization within the OS itself, where the base OS will be based off of the MinWin kernel, and the OS will utilize the VT-x extensions available on the latest Intel CPUs to run legacy applications in virtual machines, like OS X did with Classic, but with much better CPU support. Legacy Win32 applications will hopefully be handled by an included copy of the Windows Server 2003 codebase that runs with extremely low user permissions, as it represents the peak of pre-Vista operating environments, and actually requires less resources than Windows XP
.
Vista already has virtualized registry entries for applications, which is one incredibly good saving grace of the OS. Hopefully this can be extended to a complete legacy environment and build off what they have done with 64-bit Windows. Additionally, I could see them adopting a UNIX-type scheme (again, reinventing UNIX or Linux) to store registry entries in a separate application directory, and possibly in XML, which would also improve performance (scanning a 25 to 50MB HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive on a regular basis does kill I/O somewhat). The event logs in Vista can already export out to XML
.
Having the registry dynamically loaded in pieces based on what’s needed would also greatly improve performance, and help eliminate the single point of failure that it is.
I could also see them using this virtualization technique as an extension of WinSxS, so that applications will only see and load the DLLs they need in their own user space, like what Vista does, only better by using more stringent userspace separation of critical DLLs
.
What this comes down to is that Microsoft is probably going to modularize the consumer OS like they have Windows Server 2008, and leave legacy applications as an installation option that can be turned off and on as needed. The best part is, if they integrate Virtual PC and VT-x extensions deeply into the OS for this, they’ll probably be able to support more apps than Vista can.
Windows is doomed if the kernel is not gonna be rewritten or trimmed down to allow even old machines work.
Currently windows will waste 2-3x the performance you have on your new hardware. IT understands this very well, but those who never worked in Enterprises or Small/Medium enviornments would just rediculously talk about vista that it is OK and it even works better than XP!!!
Vista is not OK Vista+SP1 is also not OK. We need something 3x faster. Compare Mac hardware to a windows Vista equivelent hardware and you will understand what I am talking about regrading performance. Mac is 4x more faster in multitasking than Vista + it doesn’t have the Latency Vista has or the Windows Explorer crashability.
I never got Finder to crash uder heavy tasks like Network smb mounting and trasferring or gigabytes of data.
While Windows Explorer crashes frequently when you mount a share or windows cannot find that share.
I also read the article, it was pathetic and felt like and advertisement. Windows right now is like walmart is quality or even less like a Bazzar.
If MS doesn’t pay attention quickly now, then it won’t survive.
I have istalled M1 recently and found it to be 100% Vista is every aspect. It was slow and I knew they will never change the kernel the time I saw v 6.1 on the winver screen.
I advise them to start again from windows 2003 code and start programming for more stability and speed than features and features and Integrations and crappy things.
Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu have all surpassed this cobbled pile of garbage.
I went Red Hat and never looked back.
is not the registry…
MS should use their SoftGrid and do something like thinstall does… in a way that no app will ever touch the registry… even better, get the registry completely out and make legacy apps use a virtual registry (so easy to do that I actually do something like this on thinstall… too bad the original registry can’t actually be removed… but at least I have it isolated)… this way you can easily guarantee the portabilization of the applications, you get rid of registry bloat and overall prevent constant reinstallations of the OS…
No new kernel and it “builds on Vista”.
**Excellent!!**
*Thank you*, Microsoft, for offering a nice juicy portion of market-share to the other operating-systems!
Sheesh, by the time Windows 7 comes out, even Haiku will probably be stable and really rocking along!
Good ol’ MS – “If we give this Vista puppy a new paint job and weld some wings to the roof, no-one will notice that it’s really an Edsel…” :-))