Gates teases bankers with Windows 7 dates

So by my calculations...

With a 1 year late delivery and then the inevitable pass on 1.0, I'll have to wait until early 2011 for less bug-prone version 1.1 of Windows7, by which point the world will have moved further and everyone will be net-centric.

But...

Why the hurry!?

From what I hear Vista is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Or does MS know something their staunch defenders roaming the internetz (some commenters on El Reg specially included) don't?

But you've got a point there; in the next year or so probably means mid 2013.

Yeah...

... cos rushing their last OS to market before it was ready worked like a charm!

Quiet. Too quiet.

"Where's Webster?" did he run out of Oxycontin, and is now taking an enforced nap?

Windows 7?

Have I missed something here? I have used Windows 2, 3, 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP & Vista. (The never was a Window 1 in the field)

So we are going to go back to XP, yipee! It was the best version of Windows.

@So by my calculations...

Unfortunately, we won't be net centric when we have ISPs battling with people like BT regarding pricing and availaibility of bandwidth. So it won't happen anytime soon... if at all.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/07/ashley_highfield_isps_mailbag/

Re: Minimum spec for Windows 7 ...

"is a HAL-9000.

With apologies to the late revered Arthur C Clarke."

You'd have to be Psychotically unhinged to install it?

charging for a service pack?

They seem to be getting very apple esque by charging for service packs.

Otherwise my guess is windows 7 will "slip" till 2012.

Microsoft=== overpromise and underdelivery

i know for sure this will have been said before but..

we all know how long a microsoft minute is.. does it follow a microsoft year-or-so is subject to the same degree of variation? and why are we suprised when this is found to be true?

\sorries\coat\hat\exit stage left, tapdancing

One thing is for sure...

... They have just killed the vista upgrade Market stone dead. After all, so support won't have ended, anyone who hasn't upgraded by now will wait another 18 months... Bet the retailers are fuming at Bill for this announcement.

Before you start...

Before the Microsoft bashing starts I would like to say that I still have my original Win95 box and maybe I'm just being sentimental but I can't bring myself to get rid of it or upgrade it. Why should I? Less than 200MB and it has given me very little trouble over the years. The sweet old thing just sits there in the closet quietly gathering dust.

Yep, Linux fanboi.

They should...

...just open-source Windows for the desktop. Then they can still sell Windows Server products and all the office apps and other assorted piles 'o' poo they peddle...

By open-sourcing Windows, they'd - within a couple of years - have a *very* strong product free of all bloat, that pretty much everyone would use.

Surely M$ make enough money already... Think of all the money they'd save if they didn't have to employ all those useless Windoze coders who use dubious programming techniques (Such as this one plucked from the leaked Win2k source:

private\ntos\w32\ntuser\client\nt6\user.h:

* The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that of the national debt.)

Open-sourcers do it for FREE!

Vista SP2

Does anybody remember when Longhorm was going to be released in 2005, and it was going to have that whizzy filesystem-is-a-database, and all that other nifty stuff? Well, welcome to Vista SP2. You'll be expected to pay for it, which is great news (for Microsoft) for a service pack. But it will have good compatibility with the previous O/S version. In 2013 when this code finally escapes from Redmond, it might actually be the O/S that Microsoft bragged it would be. Yeah, 8 years late, but maybe worth the wait. Well, I'm waiting, anyway.

The penguin, because if you need a new O/S before 2013, he's always there.

Windows NT6.1 (Windows 7)

I have seen screen shots of Windows 7 build 6519 on Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows. Its labelled Windows 6.1. Since Vista is 6.0 it safe to assume that it will be a revised build of Vista. Possibly more stable (it would be hard to be worse) with some of the features they jettisoned on Vista to get it out in err time! procrastination aside I expect Microsoft will release Windows 7 more or less on time as they have less work to do.

Microsoft Rules

F**K OSX and that Linux FAD

MS RULES

Re: Quiet. Too quiet.

But does Webster haunt Windows-related stories too? I thought he was just to be found wherever that red fruit was mentioned... (don't say it out loud)

Yeah right...

"Windows 7" by mid 2009 ? Yeah right, I'll believe that when I see it... Furthermore, Microsoft doing a rush job does not inspire any confidence at all, since even if they did deliver 'something' in mid 2009 I'd expect it to be swiss cheese and ripe for exploits... Forget it.

Smells like teen spirit

@ J

Phreaky is with us, if only in spirit. see Damien Jorgensen, 3rd post above yours.

and i'd have to say "it" 3 times, if he was asleep. that always summons him, and he comes out roaring, like a hibernating bear woken before his time.

Sorry, too late Bill

After years using Windows, my next OS, after XP, will NOT be from M$

cavemen and windows

@Damien Jorgenson

F**K OSX and that Linux FAD

MS RULES

Congratulations, you just won the cyber-neanderthal award. There's nothing like a well considered opinion and what you said was nothing like a well considered opinion.

Moving on...

Here's what I remember - MS had to drop loads of the "features" of Vista because it was "too hard to make them work right". Some/all of the MS people emailed BG and said "we need to start again and build the new Windows from the ground up". This also turned out to be too hard.

Pressure from the Market Regulators resulted in MS releasing Vista when it was little more than a grotesque graphic layer added to the Server2003 code base with the ever present security nag screens added to offset the terminal stupidity of most Windows users. "I can't believe the OS is asking me if I'm sure I trust and want to run the software I just installed, how retarded is that?"

Windows will never be what it claims to be, and what OSX and especially Linux already is, secure by design. Because Microsoft are too proud and too stiff necked to admit the Unix model is best and copy it. So they'll release version after version of hopelessly insecure OS's and the security industry will continue to make bazillions off the back of it.

Prediction: At some point MS will turn up and say "the new windows is on our servers, you need only have a network connection (and a weekly fully paid up subscription) to access it".

The resultant laughter will be heard all over the earth.

Some hapless fools will actually use this new Software as a Service version of Windows which will turn out to be so badly designed that the MS servers will begin to crash, blue screen and lose data.

This will be blamed on Linux and terrorists.

Re: What's it got to do with Bill?...

Yes.... Bill did leave. But everyone at MS started calling him and telling on Ballmer, so he keeps having to go back... Something about needing to spank the monkey.

New name, same codebase.

Microsoft wants to get rid of the Vista name: Windows was better, right.

But Windows 7 will only be Vista with some rubbish deleted and probably some new rubbish added. Some new icons but basically Vista SP3-4.

The nice thing about it is that they can again sell it as a new OS.

Now perhaps even deliver it in time (or something).

Next, Gartner and others, will tell you that moving to Windows 7 will be so much easier (and so wonderful) if you do it from Vista and not XP.

And while you are waiting (again) , Linux on the desktop, is surpassing Windows in every possible way.

I want my beta!

My, but there are a lot of negative Nancies on the Reg today. Personally, I quite like Vista, although I was disappointed that some of the promised features got dropped. Of course, a lot of the Vista features were also made available for XP SP2 and Server 2003 R2 (WPF, WCF, WF), which may have negated the need to upgrade, but they were still part of the Vista development.

Anyway, I'm going to maintain a childlike enthusiasm for 7 until something concrete happens to disappoint me. Weird, I know, but I reckon I'll be happier on average that way.

Things that enthuse me so far: MinWin, a Windows kernel with a basic webserver running in 40 megs; rumours that WinFS will be in this time (cautious optimism there); Hypervisor on the desktop. I've already got my beta hardware picked out...

Are you serious...?

All the *nix fanbois out there, do you really mean it? If so, wow..

I have to say, I don't LIKE Windows as such, in fact it's a pretty poor excuse for a cutting-edge OS (and I'm talking about XP - my current install has lasted me about four years, through two complete hardware changes). Sure, it's starting to get slow and has inexplicable bugs, but at least I can fix most of them. On top of that, I can play games. And if I would be an ordinary user, I would surely appreciate how relatively easy it is to use/install/etc. Of course a lot of this is so because M$ have people firmly by the b@lls, there's no denying that.

I tried Ubuntu 7.10 recently, and it just didn't satisfy me. Sure, it was free, it did things well, the package manager actually works, and there's plenty of free software for it - but I still can't play my games on it, and it won't recognise some of my more "special" hardware unless I'm willing to really get my hands dirty (which I am, but I'm not a "normal" user).

So honestly, please stop trying to shove *nix (or even MacOS) down people's throats when they're still not suitable for a large chunk of the audience. I'm sure they'll get there, it'll just take a wee bit longer - say, maybe until mid-2009?

That's another fine mess

you got us into Steve...

When the grand opening of Windows 7 finaly arrives, they should just have the Laurel & Hardy music playing in the background as the curtain rises over the shiny box for the first time.

It will sell better from the word go if it says "Windows 7 with SP1 built-in!"

@AC

> did NT v1 & 2 ever exist?

Yes. NT v1 was called RSX/11M+, and NT v2 was called VMS.

Then Microsoft got hold of the author and the rest is, as always, a very sad history.

The blue one, please, with the 11/750 boot tape in the pocket.

OS X for windows anyone?

Isn't right about now the time for apple to start making a killing selling an OS upgrade to PC users?

I for one wont be upgrading anything I own to Vista or Win07 after the debacle I've had with work machines.

>>cutting-edge OS (...XP...) ...slow and has inexplicable bugs

@Sergiu Panaite - So it's alright to shove THAT down people's throats? Oh right you can play games. Using Windows is also a bit like a game...like playing hopscotch in a minefield....

Mine's the one with the oral forceps and funnel in the right pocket...

So Vista SP2 comes out just before Windows 7....

Hmmm... I see a timing flaw in this.

Vista is dead and buried, if you are in the UK it is horrendously overpriced and no one likes it except a few strange people that like misery and hardship... Like those in Yorkshire. (You know who you are)

If they are saying this then people will wait till windows 7 now. Although some are still waiting till sp2 for vista to make that jump.

If that (sp2) kicks out in the usual "wait another year" time scale then we are too close for people to buy Vista.

MS have to realise that comments like this will bury development and market take up of an already limp OS.

It will also put the whole world in a "This OS better work Gates" frame of mind, if windows 7 pans then MS are in serious trouble. They have little credibility after Vista and home server, which are poor on any scale. Windows 7 needs to be all singing and all dancing.

@Damian Jorgensen

MS rocks.... bless.

Re:Windows 7?

@Andy Barber

"Have I missed something here? I have used Windows 2, 3, 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP & Vista. (The never was a Window 1 in the field)

So we are going to go back to XP, yipee! It was the best version of Windows."

OK, let's go over this.

2000 and XP were part of the 32-bit Windows NT range.

Windows NT started at v3 (to match the current 16 bit Windows version). The version history of the NT range is NT3, NT4, Win2K (NT5), WinXP.

Now, looking at the 16 bit range over the same timeframe:

Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and ME.

Windows 95 was launched around the same time as NT4 -- it is 16-bit Windows 4.

The full name of Windows ME is "Windows 98 Millenium Edition", so it is only a sub-version upgrade to 98.

But 98 is really just 95 with proper support for USB etc, and I think is still identified as Windows 4 somewhere in the code.

Vista is neither a direct descendant of the NT code-base or the 16-bit codebase: it is a whole new collection of bugs, and it is classified here as Windows 6, so WinXP is exposed as a version of Windows NT 5: it is merely a polished and rebadged Windows 2000.

So I don't see what you're getting at.

However, I do wonder what the law makes of the price Microsoft charged for a mere sub-version upgrade (2000-XP, when 2000 reached end-of-support)...?

why bother

As an enterprise desktop, XP is good enough. Vista has some good features for enterprise laptop users – but nothing that Checkpoint etc weren’t offering already.

So, for all those VLEs in the midst of looking at Vista – why bother? Cancel the projects and sit on your XP install base for another couple of years. Enterprise support for XP is there until 2010.

On the humorous side – do you think W7 will have inbuilt features such at Temporal Machine and WindowSpaces? Former will be a snazzy backup app and the latter will be a new virtualised desktop.

Credit Crunch :-/

These days, perhaps a group of bankers should be called a "wunch"

The banking community...

You mean the hints were dropped to a very large and wealthy community of bankers who more often than not found Vista a little unpalatable, wanted to XP while contemplating a switch to other platforms with or without virtualized dumb terminals. Also the same set of bankers who are buying bucket loads of Wintel servers at atill quite high cost per unit, during a credit crunch, they are wondering why they need a license that costs almost as much a the hardware, while the alternatives are free and a support a fraction of the cost?

Now Bill cannot think we are gullible enough to think that MS can ship on time, so wet the appetite of "the purses" so they don't think they are being left high and dry with Vista aka Windows ME v2.0!

Nice one Bill. Sorry mate but you o/s offerings just don't do it for me anymore, nothing personal mate but our futures lie in different directions, so long and thanks for all the bugs!

@adnim

Fat chance of an OS that is just an OS.

It would be a fantastic idea though - with everything else purchaseable in modules or add ons or downloads, patches etc.

Windows Versions.... The end!

@Re:Windows 7?

To extend on what you were saying, windows 2000 is Windows 5.0 and Windows XP is Windows 5.1 (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CurrentVersion=5.1)

As for "Polished" I'm not overly convinced about that. It's based on the same code, but rather than polished XP was diverged somewhat. A fresh new GUI (similar to the GUI updates for Windows 95 that 98 came with... Thanks to IE Integration) and some minor code deviations. It IS a new revision of the version.

@adnim

I think it's pretty much a cert if 2008 Server is anything to go by