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Hawkeye_a · Apr 6, 2008, 12:32 PM

Whats the deal here? i dont follow the PC world, but apparently Vista is version 6.0 and they just announced Windows 7.0 ?!?! thats a heck of a lot of wasted marketing and dev. $$$ if you ask me, cause Vista has barely been on the market for 2 years. right ?

So whats the 'deal' with 7 ? is it a jump similar to Win95 to Win98 ?

If you ask me, they just killed Vista.

turtle777 · Apr 6, 2008, 12:34 PM

Hold you horses.

If they announced Windows 7 now, that doesn't mean it will be REALLY available before 2012.

How long was it between Vista announced and shipped ?

-t

Rumor · Apr 6, 2008, 12:36 PM

64stang06 · Apr 6, 2008, 02:18 PM

No worse than Apple releasing Tiger in April 2005, then at WWDC in 2006, announcing plans for Leopard which, accoring to a search on MacNN, was supposed to be released by the end of 2006.

andreas_g4 · Apr 6, 2008, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by 64stang06

No worse than Apple releasing Tiger in April 2005, then at WWDC in 2006, announcing plans for Leopard which, accoring to a search on MacNN, was supposed to be released by the end of 2006.

Comparing OS X and Windows OS-cycles with such a narrow view is ridiculous. Apple has a lot work to do to stay ahead and it's no automatism in place to ensure this, but regarding (the OS itself and) OS release cycles, it's way ahead.

Person Man · Apr 6, 2008, 03:23 PM

Originally Posted by andreas_g4

Comparing OS X and Windows OS-cycles with such a narrow view is ridiculous. Apple has a lot work to do to stay ahead and it's no automatism in place to ensure this, but regarding (the OS itself and) OS release cycles, it's way ahead.

His point was that the probablility of Vista sales being killed by the announcement of Windows 7 is as great as the probability that Tiger sales were killed by the announcement of Leopard. In other words, announcing Windows 7 early is not gonna kill Vista sales, just as announcing Leopard early did not kill Tiger sales.

analogika · Apr 6, 2008, 03:33 PM

Also, Vista sales are already in the toilet, so they might as well announce that they're actually going to *release* some of the worthwhile functionality initially slated for Longhorn before it became the castrated XP-plus-some that Vista is now.

Kenneth · Apr 6, 2008, 04:03 PM

Could it be Windows 7 = Vista + improvement? Possibly, they just want to change the name.

For me, I'm the only one who use Vista business at work. WindowsXP is just *old* to me.

mduell · Apr 6, 2008, 04:06 PM

Windows 7 hasn't really been announced... some of the kernel devs have shown off the new kernel at a few geek meetings and Gates mentioned that the external (MSDN) betas will start next year.

They'll probably get back to the 2-3 year pre-Vista cycle (95->98->2000->2002(XP) rather than the 5 year cycle for Vista, so late 2009-late 2010 is the expected release timeframe. Many of Vista's problems were driven by management and the head of the Windows group was just replaced with the head of the Office group (who lead Office 2007, which is fantastic, not like the poop 2008 is), so I'm expecting more out of Windows 7.

Hopefully I'll be able to get in the Windows 7 beta (I was in Vista beta, and that experience lead me to stick with XP!) and see how it is.

64stang06 · Apr 6, 2008, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by Person Man

His point was that the probablility of Vista sales being killed by the announcement of Windows 7 is as great as the probability that Tiger sales were killed by the announcement of Leopard. In other words, announcing Windows 7 early is not gonna kill Vista sales, just as announcing Leopard early did not kill Tiger sales.

Exactly, thank you for understanding my point.

Oisín · Apr 6, 2008, 06:04 PM

(I was in Vista beta, and that experience lead me to stick with XP!)

Everyone who’s bought a copy of Vista is in the Vista Beta testing group.

mduell · Apr 6, 2008, 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by Oisín

Everyone who’s bought a copy of Vista is in the Vista Beta testing group.

No more than any other .0 OS reslease; at least I didn't pay for it.

MacosNerd · Apr 7, 2008, 07:27 AM

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a

Whats the deal here? i dont follow the PC world, but apparently Vista is version 6.0 and they just announced Windows 7.0 ?!?! thats a heck of a lot of wasted marketing and dev. $$$ if you ask me, cause Vista has barely been on the market for 2 years. right ?.

And how is this different then Apple announcing a new version of OSX? Just because vista is out the door that they'd stop developing the next version of the OS.

From what I read, microsoft is trying to have an aggressive deadline for this version, but their track record is rather poor. I've not read any details about what the potential features could be, but if they fall into the similar trap of over promising things it will end up like vista. A bloated hog that's little different then windows xp, except for the ripped off OSX gui that is.

Hawkeye_a · Apr 7, 2008, 10:03 AM

Well Apple's OSX releases are admittedly evolutionary, incremental and cheaper(for a single package). With Windows, theyre bloated, pretty different from the ground up from the previous version and far more expensive.... not to mention the 6(?) different versions.

With OSX, Apple is exploiting the foundation laid back in 10.0, with Windows it's different APIs, filesystems, etc.... Oh and a lot more expensive. Seeing as how their major consumer base is the enterprise, i dont see seee how releasing different platforms so close to each other is good for business. imho.

Tomchu · Apr 7, 2008, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a

with Windows it's different APIs, filesystems, etc....

Uh ... I'm sorry, but there's no other way to put this: Get your head out of your butt.

mitchell_pgh · 03:31 PM

I would say that they are simply upgrading Vista... and trying to get it on a more Mac like upgrade cycle. Apple's been able to cover so much ground using their current method.

Also, comparing Mac users to Windows users is foolish on many levels. I would argue that the XP to Vista upgrade offered few tantalizing reasons for end users to upgrade.

olePigeon · Apr 7, 2008, 03:45 PM

Windows 7 is supposed to be the OS X of Windows. It's a ground-up rewrite of the NT kernel and is not binary compatible with NT 6. They'll be doing a Classic style implementation through Virtual PC for NT 6 & FAT binaries, and a Carbon style API for future Windows applications.

Who knows, it could be good. Microsoft doesn't have a great track record, though. Guess we'll see.

Chuckit · Apr 7, 2008, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Windows 7 is supposed to be the OS X of Windows.

I thought that's what Win2K was.

olePigeon · Apr 7, 2008, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

I thought that's what Win2K was.

What, you're gonna get all persnickety whenever Microsoft decides to "OS X" its way out of a bad situation?

MacosNerd · Apr 7, 2008, 04:08 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

Windows 7 is supposed to be the OS X of Windows. It's a ground-up rewrite of the NT kernel and is not binary compatible with NT 6. .

I thought they rewrote the NT kernel in Vista?

MacosNerd · Apr 7, 2008, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

Uh ... I'm sorry, but there's no other way to put this: Get your head out of your butt.

Well put, I was trying to figure out how best to respond to the remark about the APIs but you hit the head of the nail

olePigeon · Apr 7, 2008, 04:28 PM

Originally Posted by MacosNerd

I thought they rewrote the NT kernel in Vista?

That was Longhorn, which was abandoned. Vista is an updated XP.

Tomchu · Apr 7, 2008, 05:13 PM

There never has, and probably never will be a complete re-write of the NT kernel. The NT kernel is one of the few things in Windows NT that is solid, reliable, and well-engineered. Anyone who's heard of VMS will probably know of David Cutler ... David Cutler is the Linus Torvalds of VMS and NT.

For the record, Windows 2000 was NT 5.0, Windows XP was NT 5.1, and Windows Vista is NT 6.0. Windows 7 is just that -- NT 7.0.

And whoever said "not binary compatible" ... debatable. It's definitely time for Win32 to be put down, but any .NET binaries should and probably will run fine. Microsoft can't risk doing a complete overhaul, especially after telling (forcing?) everyone to move to .NET.

Originally Posted by olePigeon

That was Longhorn, which was abandoned. Vista is an updated XP.

Wrong. Longhorn was the codename for Vista, and its internal stuff is largely based off of the Server 2003/XP64 code base.

Hawkeye_a · Apr 7, 2008, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by MacosNerd

Well put, I was trying to figure out how best to respond to the remark about the APIs but you hit the head of the nail

jeeze..sorry for not getting all my facts straight. i guess Microsoft isnt as bad as a 'imagined'

brassplayersrock² · Apr 7, 2008, 11:25 PM

fanboism shows its ugly head once again (not you hawk,. don't worry, you're cool)

ApeInTheShell · Apr 8, 2008, 01:41 AM

apple announced after Panther that it would be slowing down release
dates for their systems. This allowed people to switch when they were ready.

MacosNerd · Apr 8, 2008, 06:52 AM

Originally Posted by ApeInTheShell

apple announced after Panther that it would be slowing down release dates for their systems.

This was also done, because the updates were becoming more complex and it was harder to maintain such an aggressive cycle. I also think, consumers would be protesting the need to plunk down 125 or so every year for a small number of changes. Now apple can implement a wider array of changes and make the upgrade a little more worthwhile and solid.

Hawkeye_a · Apr 16, 2008, 09:43 AM

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock²

fanboism shows its ugly head once again (not you hawk,. don't worry, you're cool)

Oh, i'm a Mac fanboy to the max. THE MAX BABY

I have no shame in supporting a company which puts out amazing products.

Its starting to seem like Vista is the new Windows Me (as far as popularity and 'just wanting to move on' goes).

Cheers

PB2K · Apr 17, 2008, 08:24 AM

time for microsoft to show what they are capable of

vista is a monster

MacosNerd · Apr 17, 2008, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by PB2K

time for microsoft to show what they are capable of

vista is a monster

I think they did show what they're capable of - with Vista.

or were thinking of the zune

olePigeon · Apr 17, 2008, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

Wrong. Longhorn was the codename for Vista, and its internal stuff is largely based off of the Server 2003/XP64 code base.

I had it backwards. The first iteration of Vista was a rewritten XP core. That was abandoned (along with WinFS and other features) and built on top of Server 2003 instead. There're a group of Longhorn fans who're trying to keep the original one going. I don't remember if they were forced to shut down or not.

driven · Apr 17, 2008, 03:49 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

(who lead Office 2007, which is fantastic, not like the poop 2008 is), so I'm expecting more out of Windows 7.

Personally I hate Office 2007 also. Outlook is glacial compared to it's 2003 counterpart and it clutters my todo list with flagged e-mails. (Rendering the task list unusable.) So ... rolled that back to 2003 as well. Also: If I wanted to learn a whole new interface I might as well switch products, such as OpenOffice. What's the point?

driven · Apr 17, 2008, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

There never has, and probably never will be a complete re-write of the NT kernel. The NT kernel is one of the few things in Windows NT that is solid, reliable, and well-engineered. Anyone who's heard of VMS will probably know of David Cutler ... David Cutler is the Linus Torvalds of VMS and NT.

For the record, Windows 2000 was NT 5.0, Windows XP was NT 5.1, and Windows Vista is NT 6.0. Windows 7 is just that -- NT 7.0.

And whoever said "not binary compatible" ... debatable. It's definitely time for Win32 to be put down, but any .NET binaries should and probably will run fine. Microsoft can't risk doing a complete overhaul, especially after telling (forcing?) everyone to move to .NET.

Wrong. Longhorn was the codename for Vista, and its internal stuff is largely based off of the Server 2003/XP64 code base.

Well ... after they dropped back and started over it was based on the Server 2003/XP64 codebase. :-) Prior to that it was all new ... of course it also had "3 pillars" back then ... once the filesystem was dropped it became 2.

(For whatever reason I keep picturing Mel Brooks "history of the world part I" where Moses brought 15 commandments down from the mountain, then dropped one and broke it ... at which time it became 10 commandments.