Isn't that when the next Ubuntu comes out - HAHAHAHHA

Perhaps Microsoft would be better off considering the problem that users don't necessarily want to change systems every couple of years just to keep Microsoft's shareholders happily rich, but would prefer instead for Microsoft to concentrate on getting what they already have working the way people want it to.

Yes, there are those out there that will buy whatever Microsoft pump out, on the day, whatever the price, but they are but a part of the entire user base, and even they are getting a bit browned off by the problems, both real and perceived (and possibly imagined, but that's Microsoft's own fault for releasing code that is unfit for use every single time they put a new version out... Windows 3.0 anyone? Windows 95? Windows 98 FE? Pre-SP1 Windows XP?).

There's a reason why so many cling to XP, W2K and W98SE. When a user finally has a system that works, what is the point of changing it?

I think MS needs to do an Apple. v7 needs to be Vista, but fixed, in the same way Snow Leopard will be Leopard, but improved.

Go back to basics, throw out stuff that doesn't work and simplify.

Then strip it down to two versions - home and business - and sell it cheap.

oh goody another pointless M$ os!

i'm stickin' with XP for the forseeable future..even then i strip it right back to look like w2k anyway!

is SP3 ok now, can we apply that?

cheers,

bill

stuff and nonsense: http://www.eupeople.net/forum

Presumably one can apply the old joke where Bill Gates stands before God and is shown a video clip of Heaven where there are serene people mostly doing nothing and another clip of Hell where there is seemingly a party going on, full of booze, good music and beautiful people having a good time. When asked whether he prefers to go to Heaven or Hell for eternity, he picks Hell, only to find it is full of nasty, horrible things. He unhappily complains to God and asks where the party and beautiful people are, only to be told that the clip was merely a demo.

oh, good one! :)

[quote]

“Our intent with Windows 7 and the pre-release communication is to make sure that we have a reasonable degree of confidence in what we talk about when we do talk.”

[/quote]

Does this constitute an admission that previous efforts have been marked by failure to engage brain before placing mouth into gear?

As Prof Sumner-Miller was wont to say "Who'd-a-thunk it?"

Could be time to change the BillyG pic for a chair in mid-air.

“Our intent with Windows 7 and the pre-release communication is to make sure that we have a reasonable degree of confidence in what we talk about when we do talk.”

e.g. "My daughter can run Vista without anti-virus software"

I can't remember that happening since Cutler last talked about NT, which was what, 15 years ago?

Windows 7 - living proof that you actually CAN polish a turd!

That's "living" as in the good Doctor Frankenstein standing over something tied to the bed, drenched in blood & waving his hands in the air shouting "IT'S ALIVE...!" - in just the same way I presume that Windows 7 will come alive as soon as the hurricane season ramps up the power of the lightning bolts...

Paris - because she is usually the one tied to the bed & it has probably been far too long since someone last electrocuted her...

XP Media Center 2005 is great. Vista Ultimate is horrible.

I'll reserve judgement, but Microsoft is clearly PWNED by the media companies.

You know, the ones who are too ignorant to start their own iTunes? The ones who know how to destroy services, not create them?

You should know that after Windows Seven, we will finally have Windows Hate ;-)

Because we all know that windows is unsinkable. Don't we?

Seriously, they'd do better by promoting something that works and is trustworthy, like XP. Rather than something that is rustworthy, like vista.

I'm surprised ths guy still has a job after being personally responsible for the 'Windows Capable' debacle, when he made critical decisions without involving his boss Jim Alachin who subsequently lost his job as a result.

"We, as a team, definitely learned some lessons about “disclosure” and how we can all too easily get ahead of ourselves in talking about features before our understanding of them is solid. Our intent with Windows 7 and the pre-release communication is to make sure that we have a reasonable degree of confidence in what we talk about when we do talk." ..... http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/

Always a Good Plan otherwise it's just a Spout of Nonsensical GBIrish rather than a Font of NeuReal Wisdom. The Best Plan though is always to have the Source doing the Talking, especially if something is a still a bit Purple Hazey/Cloudy.

"We know the ins and outs of blogging and expect to have fun, provide great information, and also make a few mistakes." .... I bet you say that to all the boys and girls, E7.:-)

I wonder if they know that Blogging can Render every Hidden Secret, right to an Operating System's Core, which is maybe probably definitely why we have this Mutual Initiative. Bravo, Engineering Windows 7. I'll show you mine and you can show me yours .. and may the best Algorithm Win Win is a SMART Novelty.

Oh dear..... Does that mean that Partner/Competition Purchase ...Ye olde Windows E3 [Embrace, Extend and Extinguish] is no longer a Fast Track Option to Instant Obscene Obscured Wealth? How very disappointing :-).... Ah well, I suppose that just Opens up the Field Nicely to the Competition.

_Anyone_ can run Vista without anti-virus software.

Just not for long.

"Perhaps Microsoft would be better off considering the problem that users don't necessarily want to change systems every couple of years"

Could be worse, ubuntu seems to have a release every time I fart. At least MS support older versions for 10 yrs or so, unlike like most linux distros I could mention.

Paris, 'cos she enjoys a good release.

I'm not part of their "army" of customers who "care deeply about windows" anymore, in fact I couldn't give a monkey's, as I've been using Ubuntu at home for over a year and I'm quite happy with it. Good riddance to Microsoft! Even when I come to buy a new PC it's good to know you can get them without Windows on now.

It won't need *a* Cray - it'll need at least 3

so this is an announcement about an announcement

If they get this one wrong they'll be supporting windowsXP for another 7 years and their market share will continue to be eaten away.

Effectively Windows 7 = Vista 2 = a second chance

If they can pull off what they did from Win98 to WinXP, they'll be in with a fighting chance of clawing back disgruntled users.

Until then, it's winXP, or switch to Mac / Linux - or use all three ;)

e.g. "My daughter can run Vista without anti-virus software"

...why, wouldn't that be another operating system that works. To be honest MS are a victim of their own success, if they dont produce then it becomes old and their market share begins to fall, hence the rise of Linux and Apple (though, to be honest I think Steve Jobs would sell his soul to be in Bill Gates position really).

Is the future in the OS W7 or Leopard where we have to buy all new kit as the stuff here and now is "below"* minimum spec?

Personally I would like to see the cloud computing become more than what it is and connect to my pc anywhere in the world, I would never have to update it and worry about the antivirus or trojans masses that are released with regularity (funny that, isnt it, how rather than fix the problem microsoft left it open to exploit by other companies and themselves).

Yes I know your thinking PC Anywhere/Citrix or what about my p0rn, I dont want to have it somewhere where I can possibly get caught or how much storage can I have...

How about I pay £50 and I have a license and I never have to worry about buying the most expensive pc or waste time fixing the damn thing.

Do I need the latest pc and version of whatever OS to look at a document or spreadsheet... Do I need to play games on the pc when the Xbox/Wii is more fun anyway, cant I just get terabyte storage for everything I have and look at it with any device I want to at home or on a light powerful laptop that I dont have to worry about it going out of date in 2 months have a my.

Its hardly like the technology doesnt exist, we've only being using it for the past 60 years but I guess that it better to know that you've wasted part of your life doing some mundane task in work to go buy the next installment of crap (in reference of Vista) they produce!

Its like allowing the Music Corporations to choose what standard and media they want to allow on the market, mp3's would never exist and your mobile ringtone would be DRM enabled and last for 50 rings before have to pay for it again (actually that's a great idea to stop all those stupid ringtones)!

Anyway, its Friday and I've spent the week fixing crap Vista on laptops and now the hard drive has failed, time to drop it out of the 5 floor window and claim the warranty!

Its heading back to mainframes!

* as per marketing directives

Paris cause if your gonna get screwed you might as well enjoy it!

I hate to be one of those who've had no problems with Vista at all - given that many are intent on punting their foot right up the backside of the latest Gates/Ballmer installation - but it's true. It looks nice; it plays games; I've had no problems.

However checking my CPU temperature, I found that Vista runs at about 5 to 10C hotter than Ubuntu. Work than one out!

So windows 7 ... is it really 7?

Early years

3.11 for workgroups

NT 4

... so 3 + 4 is 7 already, but MS is not counting like that.

Win 95

Win 98

Win 2000

Win ME

Win XP

Win Vista

then comes 7 (?????), no wonder excel cant count, and that is not including sub divisions like 98 SE and Vista crap, crapper and super crap.

I do wonder if MS can make an OS that is functional against it's own spec since they have been trying for at least 10 versions so far.

How about some transparency in naming os the OS's, that would be a good start!

Oh yeah and just how many versions of Ubuntu and OSX are likly to come out in the time between MS press releases, let alone software releases.

I think Windows toleraters is more accurate.

"so this is an announcement about an announcement"

Yep! You know your company is really going down the tubes when your marketing people start hyping the next hype.

IT icon, because this whole piece clearly has *no* IT content whatsoever.

“We, as a team, definitely learned some lessons about ‘disclosure’ and how we can all too easily get ahead of ourselves in talking about features before our understanding of them is solid"

Talking about features before understanding them, do they mean the marketing department tell the engineers what features Windows should have?, if so I think we've finally found the problem at Micro$haft, marketing department led engineering, ohhhh it can't be good.

However, keep it up Micro$haft, I'm going to earn another small fortune rolling out Windows 7 for customers, then another fortune applying the patches to fix the thing.

(Mines the one with the black AMex card in the pocket)

Can M$ shoot themselves in the foot some more? They are just asking to overtaken by Linux. Unfortunately, this gives those douchebag apple users a leg up.

It's absolutely fine. I'm running Visual Studio, Netbeans and Rad Studio along with Office and SQL Server Express. Not had any problems on this laptop.

it's just a media /perception thing, kind of like the current state of the Labour party.

I used Ubuntu for a while, but got fed up when I had to restart the Window server every time I miss typed my WEP key/specified it as the wrong type of key.

Apple make you upgrade to get the new version of Java, something Sun don't charge for. Oh, and you need to buy a new OS every 2 years to get the latest Safari. Microsoft still produce a web browser for the OS the was released in 2001. Apple only go back as far as OS X 10.4.

Vista is not as bad as most of the sheep on here think

Microsoft's slogan should be "Try it, You'' Love it". Or is that taken?

No, MS can count, but they've been running two streams:

Personal: Win 3, Win 95, 95 OSR2 (=96), 98, 98 2nd ed (=99), ME (=2000, cos they couldn't merge it with NT like they thought, but had already handed over the year number)

Network: NT3, NT4, Win 2000 (= NT5), XP or 2002 (=NT6), Windows 7 hooray in 2010 (=NT7)

I remember when Win 95 was launched, the advertising told us we'd never need another Windows OS because they'd issue patches forever hahahahahahahahahahaha

I suggest that MS create a core/kernel to their operating system with a bunch of modular libraries. When critical updates or security fixes come up, users could do something like download files...you could suffix them with something like "rpm" or the like. They would install and there would rarely ever be a need to reboot (again and again and again).

If some new feature or app appeared that was simply a "must have", they could make sure it is based on a set of general, shared libraries (all in this "rpm" or similar format). Then, instead of buying a whole new OS, you just keep installing/updating these "rpm" (or similar) thingies! The only time one would ever need to buy a OS would be when the kernel or core underwent a major revision. There would be no reboots, no yearly race to the store to buy yet another largely redundant OS with only slight modifications in it to "justify" an entire new purchase, and everyone would be happier.

Microsoft has no possibility of "getting it right" or they would have done so by now. They are irrevocably committed to operating systems that thoroughly and completely suck. Windows 7 will be Windows, which means it will suck.

The other problem is that Microsoft is driven by its own needs for mega-money and mega-monopoly, not by the needs of computer users. Sometimes those needs overlap, but not always. Microsoft will continue to force unwanted technologies down its users' throats (no one wants Silverlight but you're getting it anyway!) while kissing the collective arses of RIAA/MPAA goons.

Switch to Linux. Switch *now* and don't look back. Windows 7 will suck, guaranteed.

Jonathan - you forgot Vista!

NT 3

NT 4

NT 5 = Win 2K

NT 5.1 = Win XP (check it - type ver at an XP command prompt!)

NT 6 = Vista

NT 7 = Windows 7

Pedants of the world unite!

MS need to bring out a new OS in the next couple of years as Vista has got stung in the corporate upgrade cycle.

Corporations usually install an OS then skip the next one and so on.

So a firms that went with NT4 would have skipped 2000 and gone to XP. They will now mostly skip Vista and rollout the next one.

Firms that went with 95 would have gone to 2000 and will be looking at rolling out Vista quite probably (though many would probably be planning with XP).

Unfortunately a lot of firms went with NT4. Whoops.

Not another one...

It feels great to be free and use my computer how I want to use it

Tux because Linux rules for me since 2004 and never looking back