In my dreams Vista is going to end up being what I call "the Hyper threading of OSs"

Meaning the ground work laid by making everyone make their software Vista friendly will hopefully help in the end and let MS drop some old stuff from a future OS.

Take a queue from Apple here MS. Sometimes trying to be compatible with everything in history isn't worth the bloat.

Heh...

That would be great. I can only imagine the fun MS Trolls (and those who kick 'em around) would have with that.

Not only is it a good idea, it'd make the internet much more fun. ;)

If windows 7 is no better than Vista, then I shall not buy that either. Enough said!

"getting the feedback from the customers is very important". Great words of a great man, and a perfect guideline to follow for Microsoft: give the customer what he demands.

*LAUGHS*

You say that as though it were a simple thing...

Nobody says it to be a simple thing.

*laughs*

Replace "simple" with "possible".

Thanks.

If feedback from the customers is very important, Gates is assuming that it is possible.

Wow.

That'd be a no.

Gates is assuming only that it *may* be possibly to please the majority, not all of them. Not even close to all of them.

Do you *honestly* think he's that stupid? (I am making the assumption here that you are intelligent enough to know it is not possible)

He is not stupid, and of course it is impossible to please everybody. No democracy would be possible that way, but we love democracy. Nothing is perfect under the sun.

No, we hate Democracy.

We (I assume you mean the US) are *not* a democracy. Specifically because the Founding fathers knew better than to trust the country to the uneducated, easily swayed, marketing enslaved zombies (They called them citizens).

We're a Republic.

Nothing is perfect under the sun.

Truer words...

I agree.

What a load of bull. Microsoft is a monolith and rapid updates of stuff like social networking or file synchronization are pie in the sky. Furthermore unless there has been a restructuring within Microsoft then the Vista development debacle will only be repeated.

"be lower power" as in lower power than the sun.
"take less memory" as in it will theoretically run on less memory but in order for it to be livable you'll actually need to double the amount.
"be more efficient" as compared to a guru sitting on top of a frozen mountain using an abacus.

Those are my predictions for the next version of windows. If they actually manage to succeed on any one of those goals in a meaningful way I will be surprised, shocked, and awed. I would be glad to be wrong here.

Vista was such a huge disappointment. I really hope that their next operating system is truly more efficient, requires less power (processor/graphics), and less memory than Windows XP while being better functionally speaking. That would be a major milestone.

I was with you until the last bit, then you took a detour through troll-land.

I really hope that their next operating system is truly more efficient, requires less...while being better functionally speaking.

You do know, that except in the most inefficient of scenarios it is physically impossible to cram *more* of anything into the amount resources/space as was previously consumed by something *less* functional, right?

Additional features=additional resources, otherwise we'd all be using 286s, now wouldn't we?

Are there no moderators on this website? Why not permanently remove the as* hole called PC_Tool ? All he does is attack people and their contributions referring to them as trolls and the like. Their is only one Troll here and it is him - tiny d*** / tiny mind. What a sad bastar* he is!

What are you getting at? He made his point, agree with it or disagree. You are overreacting bigtime. The only person looking like a troll is you with the name calling and the bad attitude. You are the pot calling the kettle black, you should be proud of yourself.

// Additional features=additional resources, otherwise we'd all be using 286s, now wouldn't we? //

This is assuming that the follow-up OS is equally efficient. There are plenty of areas where they could improve and remove code in Vista, such as backward compatibility for starters. Now that would definetly not equate to Vista running on a 286 by any means, but it could mean lower requirements for future versions.. although it would mean more whiners complaining about their 10 year old printers not working.

I completely agree with everything PC_Tool has ever said. He only responds to "trolls". There has to be people out there that try to counteract the effects of idiots that bash Vista. PC_Tool and I are some of those people. Even though I dont talk as much as he does.

Banning PC_Tool, would be a real mistake.

meh. My perfectly functioning Sony DCS-S85 camera doesn't work on Vista. Sure, it is about 7 years old, but I use it all the time, it takes fantastic photos, why should I migrate to an OS that doesn't work with it?

Indeed agree.... especially with your last paragraph.

Maybe you should consider buying a camera from a company that will continue to support their older hardware and update their drivers accordingly. Updating the drivers lies squarely on the shoulders of Sony, not Microsoft. If long term support is an important feature to you, maybe you should take your business elsewhere next time.

This is assuming that the follow-up OS is equally efficient. There are plenty of areas where they could improve and remove code in Vista, such as backward compatibility for starters.

Ah...removing features?

;)

You get my point then, right?

Never said you should, now did I?

That said, the memory card probably works just fine in Vista, does it not?

You are responding to a post in which I attacked no-one, you brainless, delusional, asshat.

All he does is attack people and their contributions referring to them as trolls and the like.All he does is attack people and their contributions referring to them as trolls and the like.

Speaking of trolls...where are your contributions? Where are your helpful tips, suggestions, comments providing additional information?

Right.

Quick Google site-search of BetaNews for your ID shows *nothing* but personal attacks.

How cute...

tiny d*** / tiny mind. What a sad bastar* he is!

Case in point.

Have fun being modded to oblivion, loser. :)

I like what Gates says about Windows 7, quote "...The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient..." That is EXACTLY what they MUST do: Lightweight but yet Powerful. Way to go Microsoft ;-) If only they would've had that philosophy in mind when they wrote the code for Vista :-(

They did.

:)

Rev 1. (Just as Win95 was Rev1 for what became 98/98SE)

Just as many liked and many disliked 95, many will like and dislike Vista.

*shrug*

No big.

Windows 7 will improve upon everything they got right with Vista while hopefully correcting the bigger mistakes. (maybe this time Symantec will let them lock down the kernel?)

It really shouldn't be a matter of Symantec (or any other ISV) "letting" them do anything.

Microsoft had the right idea the first time around, and they definitely should have stuck to their guns on that one. I was applauding their efforts for days until the ISVs starting whining about it... and eventually Microsoft caved in.

It's their kernel, they should do whatever they want to with it, and take any measure necessary to ensure the integrity of it. I agree with you completely... time to lock it down and deny access to it outright... no exceptions.

Any ISV, that cries foul on anti-competitive or anti-trust crap can't be ignored by MS even though Symantec was just lazy and didnt want to do the work make it work without needing to touch the kernel. If anything proved that it was the EU crap. Anyone can complain and if the EU hears it and get all giddy saying we can get line our pockets even more now.

Eh, I don't know... I guess that was a rather touchy subject for me back when it was a hot topic of discussion.

I do not deny that it was ultimately a monster of Microsoft's own creation (regardless of the existence of a small handful of 3rd-party security products for *nix and BSD-based OSes like OS X). However, I have utterly no sympathy for a company whose business model is relying on the shortcomings of another company's product, then cries "foul" when they fear their revenue is threatened when that company tries to make their product more secure.

You certainly don't hear the ISVs complaining and filing antitrust lawsuits against the likes of Apple, Novell, or Red Hat for making products that practically negate the need for 3rd-party security solutions. No way... it's taboo to pick on the underdogs. These days, smacking Microsoft around is expected, and in certain circles, encouraged.

I have utterly no sympathy for a company whose business model is relying on the shortcomings of another company's product,

Wow... Those were damned near my exact words as that was being discussed prior to Vista's release.

Talk about your conflict of interest, right?

Windows Server 2008 is a great piece of software. It is the best OS to ever come out of Redmond. Will MS be able to do to the client like the did with the server the past several years? They have made the server so modular that you can even run it without a GUI. All of this is easy done via roles. You install a role and you can remove one. The installer is smart enough to know that certain roles require other roles and takes care of this for you. The result is a much cleaner install that only runs what you need. Can they do this on the client side and make "legacy" a role? I don't need to run Windows 2000 and earlier apps, so why should I have to drag around a bunch of DLLs all the time?

Probably too many options there for the average user.

They have a hard enough time picking Time/date, region, and the one or two other choices MSFT offers them during install.

...that, and most folks would never see them anyway as Windows is usually shipped installed on a PC.

Hell, even most Linux distros no longer offer the billion different installation options by default that they used to.

Trust me, all of us here would probably *love* that functionality in the Windows client OS. Sadly, we do not count for much in the consumer market.

But wait! toolie told me that Vista was the greatest OS eva. Why would I want Win7?*

*Oh that's right.... I found a better OS that's free!

Never said it, trollboy. :)

I know, you can't discuss anything remotely based in reality, so you make it up as you go along. We really should all just play along with you.

After all, we wouldn't want to be cruel to the mentally deficient....

(regarding your "excellent" free OS, have you updated OpenSSH and generated all of your new keys yet?)

Why do we need a new OS every 3 years? XP is popular because it kept the platform stable for the applications developed before and during its lifecycle. Vista did not, on many fronts. Many mainstream apps simply did not work, many corp apps didn't work (whereas they worked fine going from NT 4 to W2K to XP.)

I don't know why MS feels this need to change the base from where everything is run from. I'd like to see more stability and less changes, more ability to bring services from the cloud to take care of the desktop on a proven, reliable setup. Right now I see upheaval every time a server/client upgrade cycle. THIS COSTS MONEY NEEDLESSLY. Stop it, MSFT!

You can stick with XP. No one is forcing you to do anything keep the systems and the OS around as long as you like.

While you're busy with that, the rest of us will move on.

Or better yet, only upgrade every two or three cycles. There's nothing that says you have to upgrade every time a new version comes out. Prior to XP, we skipped 98, and ME. Many did.

I'd say we might skip Windows 7, but that really depends on what it offers. If it's as modular as we're all hoping, we'll probably hit it. If not, we'll wait for 8...or 9.

Why stop the cycle if you can get off of it any time you wish and then just get back on whenever you wish? Just because *you* don't want it doesn't mean all others agree.

Well they need to do that so they can sell more OSes and make more money and blah blah.

Apple does not really change there OS they just do upgrades, yes Apple does charge for the major ones. Microsoft needs to Make a 64 bit OS get rid of the Win95 - WinXP backward compatibly like Apple did with OS9 to OS X. Microsoft could even use a virtual machine to provide backward compatibility until companies and software houses rewrite their code.

You're the same type of person who complained that Microsoft took too long to come out with Vista and that Apple was so innovative with the new OSX and how they come out with revisions faster than Microsoft.

"that Microsoft took too long to come out with Vista"
Nope. I could care less about Vista.

"Apple was so innovative with the new OSX and how they come out with revisions faster than Microsoft."
I can't stand Apple's marketing. Nothing they could make would change their grating on my mind when I happen to see their RDF.

I can also evaluate alternatives, like staying with XP or moving to linux, since the OS is no longer as important as universal access to my data. If I go Linux, I'm pretty much guaranteed a hardened OS that I can choose how my data is structured and available. Microsoft or Apple can't guarantee that openness in 10+ years.

I will likely skip the Vista upgrade for the machines I manage en masse. Because simply supporting my own Vista box is a mess. I simply have to use Vista's built in troubleshooting tools (excellent, I might add,) to determine most drivers suck for Vista and have for the past 16 months. It hasn't gotten much better. We will not accept suspend and hibernation issues on Vista, and right now we still see them on intel 9x5 graphics chipsets and many bluetooth and fingerprint driversets. Those don't exist under XP..

Microsoft's whole business is based on supporting older formats and programs. Apple might be able to pull it off with ~4-8% marketshare and a consumer market that has more money, but businesses wouldn't put up with it--period.

Why do you people incessantly try to blame bad drivers on MS? ISVs REALLY dropped the ball on drivers for vista. They were to ***king lazy to get good final drivers out in a timely manner. That is not MSs fault.

Most of that is understandable. Many corps may skip Vista for those reasons. Many won't.

Tat said,

If I go Linux, I'm pretty much guaranteed a hardened OS

See my post referring to OpenSSH. Everyone seems to think Linux is so much more secure...it's only such until a developer gets pissed off and breaks something. The Kernel does go through quote a bit of testing, but the apps included with every distro (and thus arguably part of the OS) get far less scrutiny, as demonstrated by this issue.

windows 7 is gonna be an optimization of the windows vista codebase plus some new features... no surprises there.. not to mention apple has been doing it for the last 7 years and sold 5 releases OF THE SAME OS VERSION at $129 each..

a lot of people don't get that vista was a huge architecture change... that they're going to optimizing and building off of for a while... including windows 7...

Actually, I do not consider OS X to be the same OS version over-and-over. It was market for what it was, upgrades and alterations to the existing OS. (Which is why the numbering is 10.1, 10.2, rather than a complete rebranding.)

I started with 10.2 and when I went to 10.3 I noticed noticeable improvements and added functionality. I then jumped from 10.3 to 10.5 and saw monumental differences in performance, organization and features.

There's a difference between releasing upgrades every 2-3 years, and releasing a new OS in the same time period. Also, necessity is a major factor that I think gets overlooked too often.

Windows XP was, and is, a great OS. I don't think it was wise to put Vista out when Microsoft could have continued with XP and adding revisions and upgrades to a widely-accepted platform.

Also, a 2-3 year gap is not that long in certain industries. I work for a large corporation and only now are we testing how Vista reacts to our custom applications. By the time Vista is fully-adopted, Windows 7 may very well be out, and the process begins all over again. This sort of schedule could hamper large corporate upgrades.

I think it would be wise for Microsoft to take their time with Windows 7, deliver a quality product, and spend time refining that product with additional upgrades and enhancements.

Bingo.

They started with Vista which implemented a horde of new changes and ways of doing things. The next 2 to 3 versions will simply be "updates" along the same lines of an OSX update improving on and expanding this new architecture. It will get more modular, more efficient, and much of the cruft (read: backwards compatibility, 32bit support) will be cut.

Really looking forward to it becoming more modular. Waiting to see how they handle that, the rumor mills regarding it have been pretty vague.

Actually, that's pretty much what the problem was...

MSFT used to be on that same release schedule (every 2-3 years) and hit a major snag on Vista.

It's going back to that 2-3 year per release 2-3 releases per major revision. We just missed one, and that's what seems to be causing most of the controversy around it. People got too comfortable with a 8 year old OS, 8 year old tech, and 8 year old PC performance.

Windows 7 will refine Vista, as likely will Windows 8 be a refinement of that one. (wouldn't be surprised if they threw a 9 in there and held off the next major revision for 10, but...)

Hmmm... i was following you until "8 year old PC performance". Don't you mean 8-year-old-software-on-a-modern-PC performance? Dunno if people like turtle machines...

I buy that story of enhancing periodically but... you know what happens usually when products are treated that way(besides our hopes)... It ends up as "bloating", you know.

I agree with you 8 years was a long time and for that 8 years we got a decent new OS but without the added stuff MS promised. Hopefully they havne't given up on WinFS and other things that they were going to put into Vista.

I also hope its not $300 for Windows 7 if their updates. I would like to see pricing around $100 for 7 and 8 if their built off of Vista. That I think is one thing Apple did right by making the OS cheap enough to buy every update that is made. I do like that MS brings out free SP's but if companies are going to have to buy and test a new OS every 2 years (and the Os' are getting more intracate) then the pricing should be lowered. Between 95 and 98 their wasn't much of a difference, but between 98 and 2000 their was a major difference and between 2000 and XP their was a major difference and now XP to Vista their is a moderate difference. As hardware and software start doing more things and Vista has to keep up it gets tougher and tougher for companies to test a new OS in a decent amount of time. If we're going back to a 2 year period then it may take a year to test new and old technologies with the new OS to make sure their aren't any glitches (or at least their managable). One way to fix this is to make the upgrades cheap enough so a company doesn't feel like its shelling out a huge chunk of money ever OS upgrade.

I do think we need to get rid of 32 bit though. The thing is that backwards compatibility is what MS relies on to keep people coming back so you can't just say for them to forget it. Yes you can use a virtual machine but most people won't want to do that, its just an extra cost (unless its built into the OS), more to configure and it slows the computer down because it has to emulate everything. So MS does it this way where they have 32bit and 64bit versions. The problem with this is most people are using the 32bit version and because of this companeis are lagging on making 64bit software and drivers. MS has to push companeis into making 64bit drivers and software and also let people people who bought the 32bit version of Vista can upgrade to the 64bit for free or at a cheap price when the software they use comes out in 64bit. Also MS hasn't really been advertising 64bit so the average person doesn't even know what it is and what the advantage of it is, so this has to be done as well.

Sorry for the long rant.

It ends up as "bloating", you know.

What you call bloat others call enhanced functionality on systems that have the resources to handle it.

New features don't come out of nowhere. They take space and resources. Any product progressing through revisions and gaining functionality will also require more space and resources, and if not given them, slow down or simply fail to function.

Don't you mean 8-year-old-software-on-a-modern-PC performance?

Depends. Anything in your system you could not have purchased 8 years ago? Now ask that of the majority of XP users out there...

I also hope its not $300 for Windows 7 if their updates. I would like to see pricing around $100 for 7 and 8 if their built off of Vista.

Think about it this way: Retail price = LTS. You plan on getting your money's worth. OEM = update/upgrade. It hits your price-range and isn't one you'd likely plan to use forever (since you treat them as updates).

*shrug* One way to look at it, anyway.

I do like that MS brings out free SP's but if companies are going to have to buy and test a new OS every 2 years (and the Os' are getting more intracate) then the pricing should be lowered.

Most companies skip an OS or two. That was pretty much SOP until XP sat around the house for 8 frakking years. My guess is that it would once again become SOP and people would uptake the second or third gen of a major rev.

I do think we need to get rid of 32 bit though. The thing is that backwards compatibility is what MS relies on to keep people coming back so you can't just say for them to forget it.

Sure you can. Bundle a limited functionality VM for 32-bit compatibility. Like VirtualBox "seamless" mode.

MS has to push companeis into making 64bit drivers and software

Accomplished by making 32-bit run in a VM only.

Sorry for the long rant.

That wasn't a rant. That was a pleasant and rational exchange of ideas and opinions.

As rare as it is here, I do believe it's actually allowed. ;)

And explain US how do you count 8 from 2001 to 2007...
It's not the 1 plus the 7, eh! no!
It's 7 minus 1 and it equals 6. Wasn't 6 years from XP to Vista???

MS needs to draw a line in the sand and start over, much like Apple did in the OS9 to OSX transition.

Dump 32 bit support, dump legacy code. Truly re-write the OS to be modern and lean.

If any of you knew how much sloppy code and bandaid work their is in XP and Vista, patching things to maintain backward compatibility, you'd all be very surprised. For example, the Windows Print Spooler. What a pile of turd.

Can PC_Tool not speak English. His vocabulary sucks!

Just about the same age as PC_Tools girlfriend !

October 25, 2001. Windows XP did not simply materialize out of thin air on that date. To me (and I would imagine many others who frequent this and other tech news sites), with all of the Whistler betas and release candidates, the Windows XP "eXPerience" is well over 8 years old.

I understood "frakking". :)

There is no call for that jofin. Be alittle more mature than that.

*laughing my a** off*

Wasn't this mindless jackass calling *me* a troll not too long ago?

Ah, the joys of self delusion...

Heh...

Can PC_Tool not speak English. His vocabulary sucks!

...indeed. Whereas you seem to be quite proficient, especially concerning interrogatives.

8, 6....does it really make a difference?

I beta tested XP from the beginning, so my timing may be a bit off, but the point should still be valid unless you're arguing that an RTM-RTM of 6 years is SOP for MS operating systems...

"I'm very excited about the work being done there"
Ohhh, deja vu! ;|

"The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient"
What are the odds of that happening I wonder. Or was he describing linux :?

Unless they plan to change how Windows is updated, and make the upgrades more reasonable price.

Don't get me wrong I have no problem paying for my OS when its every 5 years. I just hate to think this is a way to get more money out of us, which might backfire, since people already complain about the price.

Of course I look at OS X and see people paying almost as much for just an upgrade and begin to think maybe Microsoft has thought this through.

Linux is a great OS for many different reasons, it needs more support from the industry before we see it on office computers. I think that might happen within the next 5 years. Of course based on this article that would be mean 2 brand new versions of Windows. If that were to happen Linux would have some issues, if those new features were worth while.

Yes its just a way for Microsoft to make more money.

Really they don't need to release a new OS every 2 to 3 years. What they need to do is make a good OS then maybe every 3 years charge $100 to continue to get major upgrades or something. I usually skip every other OS anyways so I might consider getting Windows 7 and then skip Windows 8 and goto Windows 9.

What Microsoft needs to do is make the kernal as stable and compact as possible and then get rid of all the bloat or make it an option on install. All that bloat that Microsoft adds means more code the programmers need to write and debug and then more system resources that are needed, and faster CPU's just to do the same thing you could do the OS before.

The system requirements for Vista is more machine then i would say 80% of users will ever need. you don't need a 2GHz machine to check emails play solitaire, and lets face it unless your a big time gamer you don't need all that. And Vista's bloat just makes what should be a screaming machine cry in pain. What is Windows 7 going to do or for that matter will we need a supercomputer just to get Windows 8 to boot up?

I would love to see a modular Windows. I use XP now and I don't have the blue bar with the green start button, mine is grey. I took all the nice graphical stuff off, I don't have a background, I want to use the least resourses as possible because I want the OS to run as quick as it can.

With Vista I'd probably take out Aero and all the eye candy, its not needed. Same with OSX, all the eye candy doesn't make the computer do anything special, its just looks. When a 3D OS of some kind is made that needs the extra features for graphics then maybe I'll keep the eye candy on, but until then its just waste to me. Nice graphics I leave for games not the OS.

So if Windows 7 is modular then you can take out all the stuff you don't want and have a faster running software.

i been testing windows 7.. its pretty cool :P

It's exactly the same as Vista right now. A few dialog changes...that is it.

...you must really like Vista. :)