I'm pleased by your advanced windows xp. It surely shows an advancement in technology and i do believe that in the near future there will be a more improved version. I do thank you and appreciate your efforts.

"Microsoft revealed Tuesday afternoon what many had expected for months -- consumer availability of Windows Vista has been delayed until 2007."

To be honest, the media was shocked. To be honest, at least the stock market did not expect it. I did and I am glad that Vista will maturate before it gets released.

...

"Lets see you make an OS like VISTA which consists of 6 million lines of code"

...

Give the PC Rat several ~billion~ dollars and tens of thousands of employees, and he'd do it !

And it wouldn't take five+ years or 6 million lines of code, either.
...

The Computer Rodent

...

Actually i made a mistake, its 200 million lines of code.

http://www.gearlive.com/...-the-numbers-0108051321/

And if anyone in the world would give you all that money and time and employees you would not have a clue what to do.

Stop being so delusional you idiot.

Microsoft has some of the world’s best programmers, directors and managers working on Windows Vista.

The truth is, none of us here can even contemplate how big Vista or any OS is.

Please tell us all here, what software programs have you created/programmed/managed, that was close to the size of any OS.

** Microsoft has some of the world’s best programmers, directors and managers working on Windows Vista. **

-- Are you applying there ?
There are better programmers and software managers outside. Look outside your "Windows".

I believe that's what he meant when he said "some"

you sir, are delusional.

Thank you.

Reading: To examine and grasp the meaning of (written or printed characters, words, or sentences).

People should try this one day.

To quote David Coursey:
Wouldn't you rather have an operating system that meets your quality, compatibility, performance, and security expectations rather than one that merely ships on time?

sure.

Vista has always appeared to me a cosmetically redesigned product rather than a totally new one when I view the screen shots.
A more radical approach is needed as Apple does in both software and hardware side.

While it certainly isn't just a cosmetic upgrade (the changes to the audio and video subsystems alone decry that), it also has nothing to really offer me other than increased memory usage. This isn't to say it won't offer others viable reasons to upgrade but I personally have no need to do so.

That situation is in marked contrast to when I went from Windows 2000 to XP, because XP offer a significantly improvede driver model, much better hardware compatibility and a host of other features I found useful.

However, such is not the case with Vista.

Didn't you pay attention to the people who tell you that "appearances can be deceiving." and "don't judge a book by its cover." ?

Wow. That may be one of the most uninfomred comments I've about Vista. If anything, although different, the GUI is the least changed item. The real changes are under the hood. The file system when it ships, the driver model, the kernel.... What they are doing to Vista is shaping desktop computing for the next 10 years.

I guess redesigning a GUI and slapping it on a BSD implementation constitutes a non-cosmetic change? Or how about that radical new apple hardware, the x86 architecture? Wow, apple is so innovative.

While I'll admit that Vista is not the revolutionary change it would have been with WinFS included in it, it still brings several new features to the OS. Personally I'd like to see windows move towards a microkernel implementation similar to Microsoft's Singularity project.

So what if it comes out after Christmas. If Micro$oft can come up with a definate date (ie: Feb 07 2007 or something to that effect) the computer manufactures will probably include an upgrade coupon, just as they have with other releases.

"Buy our computer now, in time for christmas, and when Windows Vista comes out, you can upgrade for free"

or some such.

Steve

Vista the new version (circa 2007 ???} of Windows Me,won't be available this decade. The technology involved is too complex for Microsoft's programmers to code without the inherent bugs, patches, service packs.Not to mention the hardware headaches of 64 bit computing so scrap your monitor, graphics card,cpu and most peripherals.That essentialy means be prepared to purchase a new computer.How many corporations can afford to do so in an economic scenerio of little growth ?

So basically you're saying Microsoft is dumb, so Vista won't come around this decade?

Killer logic!

"so scrap your monitor, graphics card,cpu and most peripherals."

You just threw every bit of credability you may have once had out the window with that sentence.

It is rare that I call someone a complete and utter idiot but your lack of knowledge, willingness to display it and just plain silliness qualifies.

Note: I'm not a fan of Vista but utter BS is utter BS.

Are you an IT manager in a large organization? No? Well I am and you might be shocked to know that we have been preparing for Windows Vista for over 2 years. We have already spent months testing our mission critical applications on beta releases of Windows Vista and while we do not plan to migrate until until Q4 2007 at the earlist we are still planning this. Much like we were planning Windows XP back in 1999 then migrated to it in Q1 2003.

As for the hardware requirments, this might come as a shock to you so sit down, a lot of the fancy stuff that we don't need in a corporate environment gets disabled on lower spec hardware, beta copies of Vista are being used as XP replacements in my organization on 1.8Ghz system with integrated graphics and 512MB of RAM and performs fine (considering it has no optimizations enabled, XP was the same at this stage in development).

I very much doubt small businesses will upgrade to Vista via a retail purchase, for the 150+ small businesses I have done consultancy for on this very matter have never bought retail, why? Because when they order their OEM system it comes with the latest version of Windows on it. Companies will migrate in their own time. As they would do if the choice was only still XP. The smarter small businesses would scale up in order to support Vista on any new systems they might purchase in the 6 month period before release however it isn't required, just generally a good idea.

You also need to remember businesses replace old hardware once it starts to reach the end of its narural life, while it is true most computers will last 10+ years companies cannot afford to maintain such old equipment, they need systems that are supported by the hardware vendor and are cheap to repair, old hardware costs more than new hardware. Also businesses change, what used to me a simple admin job 10 years ago probably isn't so simple, hell a simple job from 3 years ago might be 10x more complex now if the business has grown rapidly. This requires more powerful computers. Not to mention new technologies which all ease of management for IT groups and ease of development (think Java and .NET). New environments and tools normally require more powerful systems to run them on (doubly so for Java and .NET apps), online collaboration, video and audio communication on the computer, dealing with more and more data on the client side. All these things push older hardware to its limits.

Businesses will upgrade in time, I don't know what the adoption rates will be as that depends on the company. I can speak for my company and several other large companies I deal with and they are all well over half way through they Vista migration plan. Just because you read about Windows Vista on BBC News last year doesn't mean we have not been planning for it for a lot longer. Delaying the release isn't as big a problem as everyone thinks, it gives companies more time to prepare and we (theoreticaly) end up with a better product.

As for Vista being like ME. I guess you have not had a real go with it. And I don't mean installing it and playing around with the themes for 10 minutes. For businesses Vista offers some great new deployment techniques as well as a host of other internal management systems. Things like WinFS missed the release but there are so many changes under the hood you wouldn't even think they were from the same product line.

So please I ask you to not comment on something you have very little understanding of. I suggest you go and read as much as you can about Vista, WPF, etc. and then come back when Vista has been out for around 6 months and see if your attitude is the same.

Right well thats my 2p posted, next please...

you sir are an idiot savant

Delphi ? I am positive that large organization has plenty of IT managers testing Vista

Dooood, totally killerrrrr.

Why is this such a big deal? January is only 4 weeks away from November? Its normal for a RTM to take a month to get released on PC's as the manufacturers like Dell and HP etc. make images to work on their systems and finds which software will slow down the OS the most to load on the startup list.

The reason this is a big deal is that it won't be ready for the holiday season. This is going to make it harder for PC sales because alot of people will decide to hold off on getting a new PC until Vista is ready. And with the release happening so close to the holiday season (but after) this will definitely hurt holiday sales on PC's.

I would say, only a small amount. If you go out to the nearest sidewalk and ask people walking by when the next version of Windows will be released 95%+ would have no clue. If they dont know when it will be release, how would it effect if they will purchase a computer?

i'll field that one! dell, hp, gateway, etc. will be strumming the new vista bandwagon when it hits their machines ... you'll see a flurry of ads that inform you that their pcs have the latest microsoft os. a new os is a huge selling point and even more so during the holidays.

There's alot more people out there that know about it then you think. Especially being it made national news on TV. And come Christmas time a hell of alot more people will know that Vista is coming out

They will just do what they did to keep Windows Mobile selling when it was delayed, and when Windows XP was delayed. Send a free upgrade CD to anyone who purchased a computer in November/December. As usual, the media is making much more out of this then it really is. And just because it made it on National TV it doesnt mean much, if you watched the news last night, what was the name of the person that murdered the other person in the bad part of town 45 minutes from where you live? If its not important to you, you really dont remember it.

Lets see. Most of you guys, especically the guys who are so low in their lives they need to complain about an operating system, program code.. Now, I have a job for you. Create a 6 Million line program which will power your computer, with NO bugs at all or you will have lil people complaining all day and night. Get over it, if you dont want bugs, go run dos.. or hell, use an abacaus.. however its spelt, however, the only bug there would be then is YOU.

You forget to mention the infinite combinations of hardware you have to code for...

And don't forget that the vast majority of those drivers can have issues, gotta program around that possibility too.

That's the key to why Windows has been such a success. MS invented a way to open their OS to any hardware manufacturer. Amazing when you think about it. Most people don't think of it, which is good, but it may be one of the most significant breakthroughs in home computing.

What, now they're timing the release to coincide with those of the Phantom Console and Duke Nukem Forever?

Don't forget Stalker as well.

Never heard of it. I'll have to look that up sometime.

...

Must be a typo.

Win-Vista won't be out until 2008, will it ?

But, let's be realistic: Microsoft has only had FIVE YEARS to get this to market.

...

The Computer Rodent

...

Lets see you make an OS like VISTA which consists of 6 million lines of code.

They try to make it as fast as possible, and try to get rid of as many bugs as they can find.

They can release the OS, but then idiots like you will complain about all these bugs and glitches and just keep crying and crying on about how you have to update the OS every month.

Just stop your whining you little girl.

You dont like MS, you don't like their products or the time they take to make them, make your own and see how it works out for you.

Or at the very least go find a better product and stop making the rest of us listen to whining! :)

Thank God someone has spoken their mind to these people who are constantly b****ing and complaining about what they don't like about Microsoft. Congratulations MLEVIT! I'm behind you 100% in sharing your opinion.

They made XP in less than 2 years...lol

Bear in mind that XP was little more than a "Prettied-Up" upgrade to Windows 2000... Vista is being re-written at ground level...

Nice.... way ta go...

The way I see it.... if all the whiners think MS sucks so bad and most are wanna be Linux bigots, why do they waste their time here whining? Must be a really sad life when the only way they can find joy and happiness is to piss and moan about an OS. How pathetic.

You people are right, stop complaining about this Vista crap...It is Microsoft, they are slow and they have to patch all the bugs they have, so just sit and relax, but if you can't wait get a Mac :P

Says who? Vista build on XP...

Every windows OS is a build from an older version of windows.

3.1 and 3.11 was built off of dos (yes, 3.1 is DOS with a GUI)
95 was built off of 3.11 Workgroups
98 was built off of 95
NT was built off of 95
ME was built off of 98 (still using dos as a shell)
2000 was built off of NT (finally moving away from dos)
XP was built off of 2000
Vista is now being built off of XP SP2

All they are doing, is beautifying the OS and adding a few features, and taking out a few features.

by the way, I'm not dogging MS or Windows so all you fan boys know, I wouldn't use any other OS.

Actually, that's not entirely correct. I believe they are (If they are basing the code on any line they have) basing it more on Windows 2003 Server than they are XP.

Remember, Vista is not gonna have any 16 bit code left in it.

NT does NOT have any roots in 95/98. Never did... NT started as a joint venture w/Microsoft and IBM. Out the effort came OS/2 and NT -- they parted ways at some point. Obviously they went their seperate directions and don't read any criticism here on either... Just wanted to clarify the "NT was built off of 95" comment.

Gunzip

not quite right...

follow these code streams:
1. 3.0 > 3.1 > wfw 3.1 > 95 > 98 > ME > dead
2. NT 3.0 > NT 3.5 > 3.51 > 4 > W2K > XP > end of stream
3. Windows Server 2003 > R2 > Vista

Technically, Windows 3.x was a DOS shell.

Gunzip is ab-so-lute-ly correct.

There is more to it than this, but on a high-level this is what transpired it the early 1990s:

IBM and MS agreed to build a new OS jointly.

IBM wanted a rock-solid OS (mainframe mentality) and would do whatever it took to build it. The result was very solid, BUT development was slow and the hardware requirements were HUGE and at the time, people couldn't lay down $5000 for a PC to run Ami Pro and Lotus 1-2-3. There were very few native apps for OS/2.

MS wanted sales and saw an opportunity to create a shell for an existing OS - DOS. This would give users graphical computing at a low price point than was never thought possible.

Obviously we know what happened. MS's strategy of marketing to the common person won out in the end in terms of sales. It wasn't until 1995-6 that their efforts with IBM came to fruition in NT. By this time, OS/2 had a very small niche market, and the MS machine could not be stopped. BTW, NT sales were sluggish for the same reason OS/2's were - these were very hardware intensive systems.

A side note: when IBM and MS parted ways, the agreement was that OS/2 could continue to run 16-bit apps written for Windows. This helped OS/2 chug along until the release of Windows 95. Any app natively written for Win95 was not permitted to run on OS/2. Although OS/2 was native 32-bit, the MS/IBM agreement prevented 32-bit Windows apps from running.

OS/2 was ahead of any other desktop OS at the time. IBM's poor marketing skills really set the world back by 10 years in desktop computing.

could be wrong, I could have sworn NT was based off of Windows 3.11 (for workgroups) but with a new kernel not running on DOS making Windows NT 3.1. Server 2003 is definatly however based off of Windows 2000 Server (the development path split however into XP and 2003). Which should make the dev tree look something like..

1)3.1->95-> 98 > ME > EOL
2)3.1->3.11->NT3.x->NT4->2000->XP->EOL
3)3.1->3.11->NT3.x->NT4->2000->2003->Vista

This is it:

Original Windows:
1.01 -> 1.02 -> 1.03 -> 1.04 > 2.03 -> 2.10 -> 2.11 -> 3.0 -> 3.1 -> 3.11 -> 4.0.950 (95) -> 4.0.1111 (95OSR2) -> 4.0.1998 (98) -> 4.0.2222 (98SE) -> 4.9.3000 (ME) (end of line)

Windows NT:
3.1.511 -> 3.5.887 -> 3.51.1057 -> 4.0.1381 -> 5.0.2195 (2000) -> 5.1.2600 (XP) -> 5.2.3790 (2003/2003R2) -> 6.0.5308 (Vista Feb CTP) -> (the saga continues...)

Mark, I believe the original longhorn builds were based around XP, but all new branches come from Window 2003.

Thanks for adding more info Frankwick. That's good data!

No, the closest relative NT had was OS/2 but overall it was a pure 32-bit OS written from the ground up. It was not based on any previous version of Windows and certainly not a simple DOS shell.

NT came out years before 95, how could it be built off it? NT was a brand new 32-bit OS written from scratch.

Nice post. NT 3.1 also had native support for HPFS partitions and could run many OS/2 programs. HPFS support was dropped sometime later on and I think it was Windows 2000 which finally dropped the last of the OS/2 sub-system for good.

That's correct, Server 2003 SP1 to be exact.

I am in no hurry for Vista as I'm happy with XP.

However I must that 6 million lines of code for an OS sounds crazy!

They should forget about all the unnesscary extras (eg movie maker, calendar, media player etc) they insist on bundling with the OS and concerntrate on the core OS itself.

That way the OS could be readied for release sooner and people can add the other stuff later if they want it.

Exactly what was in Windows 1 and 2?

I never say a windows based PC until version 3 had come out.

Of course DOS wasn't a Microsoft creation. They bought it from somebody else.

Not even close. To say that NT came from 3.11 (or anything else in that code stream) is wrong. They have completely different architectures. Thank goodness!!

Windows pre 3.0: http://toastytech.com/guis/win101.html

Oops sorry, i made a mistake. Vista consists of over 200 million lines of code.

http://www.gearlive.com/...-the-numbers-0108051321/

corrections:

3.1 and 3.11 were operating environments that ran on top of dos, simular to desqview
95 was built off of 3.1 sorta
98 was built off of 95
NT was built off of 3.11 windows for workgroups
ME was built off of 98 (still using dos as a shell)
2000 was built off of NT (finally moving away from dos)
XP was built off of 2000

All they are doing, is beautifying the OS and adding a few features, and taking out a few features.

by the way, I'm not dogging MS or Windows so all you fan boys know, I wouldn't use any other OS.

Gates did create an OS from scratch for the Altair. This OS was used to create DOS as we know it.

3.11 didn't even include an operating system, do you mean to tell me that they redid an already created gui from the ground up to run on their newly devolped os backbone for it instead of just porting it over? That doesn't make any sense.

Btw (slightly unrelated) all these "doesn't even have support for xx-bit" comments are starting to annoy me, in most cases it use to be there and they simply cut it out (2000->2003) because they don't want to bother providing backwards-support even though it could easily be left or added in.

Vista from XP was scrapped some time back it is actually built from 2003SP1.

Laugh..

Can anyone really believe Microsoft. It's been delay after delay after delay. Yea it looks good. Why if it is ready for mission critial business is it not good enough to relase to mass of public at the same time? They way the artical is worded 'consumers would not find the operating system on new machines until January' does not clarify if any of the numerous home editions of vista will be on the shelves for comsumers to add to thier exisiting machines.

Shocking.......not really though, saw this coming. I think I'll just go ahead with my switch to Linux.

Funny, I thought you switched after every Windows-based article was posted... reminds me of a certain presidential candidate with the constant flip-flopping.

Once you switch to Linux, does this mean we will be aforded the luxuary of not having to read your posts here on Beta News?

Please.... go load Linux....

"...opinion of many"
"some notable Windows enthusiasts..."
"Some speculated..."
"Rumors had been circulating..."
"...what many had expected"

Not a single source to back up these hedges. This is not news, this is opining.

Damn, I held back buying a new pc for nothing. Not that I'm in a rush to get Vista but I wanted new hardware that would support the next genernation windows. But untill Vista actually blows me away with some kickass a** performance and features. LINUX SUSE will remain my main OS. Hey, Suse might even surpass Vista's new features by the time it comes out in 2017. heheh

Vista is going to be decent from the looks of it. I might be tempted to upgrade to it from Windows 2000. I examined XP, and decided against upgrading due to most everything being tacked on and breaking other things.

DirectX 10(Vista-Only) will have much improved performance over DirectX 9.0c, for certain functions. This means it should be close to OpenGL's performance and image quality, though last I checked(months ago) Vista will run OpenGL apps like Doom3 or VMware in an emulation layer that grants 40% performance unless you disable all the new effects and go back to the WinXP display method.

On a totally related note...buy WindowBlinds and don't give in to Microsoft's capitalistic pig methods(at least when it affects your games).

Now I'm off to try and tack features onto my Win2k install.

What need to improve:
1. System restore need to be smarter: can restore to clean conditions (NO virus, ETC), and also can restore when we cannot go to the windows/ the windows it self not working correctly.
2. Reduce the problems of reinstalling when we got problems. dont limit too much
3. reduce the hardware resources needed.
and others

Huh, delay it for ever as far as I'm concerned. After having a Windoze update "hotfix" kill my perfectly working wi fi connection again, I wish I'd never installed this junk in the first place.

Does anyone else find this a bit backwards?

What business wants Vista for Christmas anyway? Let alone the hassle of upgrading their computers during the busiest retail season of the year.

Not that I mind much, I'm in no rush to upgrade.

Dell, HP and others want to have Vista to sell during the xmas shopping season.

If the manufacturers really wanted to (especially Dell, who doesn't have channel inventory to worry about), they could take a November RTM and ship plenty of machines for Xmas. It's not like they can't start preparing until RTM. The big OEMs get access to WAY more pre-release builds than other JDP and Tier 1 beta testers, and the hardware requirements have been fixed for a long time.

What the manufacturers won't admit is that they want to spend a couple of months on integrating AOL, Real Player, and other stuff which typically annoys the heck out of the kind of person who reads BetaNews. In other words, they want to spend extra time on stuff which will only serve to make you spend extra time getting rid of it. Why? Because AOL, Real, Intuit, etc. are paying cold hard cash to get their crapware preloaded, in-your-face style. That's cash which comes in handy around Xmas when consumers expect big discounts.

They also want to spend some time on final testing of frivolous hardware bells and whistles, because the vast majority of consumers buying computers at Xmas are the kind who are really impressed by a special button on the keyboard which launches the default web browser (or "starts the Internet" as the bullet on the brochure might say). Wow! You mean I don't have to strain my back on clicking one little icon anymore? I can simply take my hand off the mouse, move it to an awkward location on the keyboard, press the button, then return to the mouse for typical web surfing? Geez, that's easily worth loading a couple megs worth of extra drivers!!

Since I'm running Vista build 5308 quite well on my system with only a 1gig processor, 512meg RAM and a video card that won't be totally supported (ATI Radeon 9200) I have to wonder if some of the delay dosen't have to do with the fact that hardware manufacturers have been very lax in getting drivers out there to be tested. Even the drivers that are allowing my Radeon 9200 to work comes from Microsoft.

I give credit to ATI and Creative for putting out beta versions of drivers so that they can get results and be ready. ATI may not be supporting my video card for Vista but at least they have beta drivers out for the cards they will be supporting. Not with support for the surround sound on my system but, Creative's drivers for my SoundBlaster Live 24bit are working quite well. Any comments on other sound card makers? Anyone see any beta drivers for HP or Cannon printers?

Don't get me wrong! I see a lot of things wrong with Microsoft. However, if they delay retail sales of Vista a bit to get it right I'm more than pleased that they are doing so. One of my biggest complaints has always been that products are put out before they are ready..

hehehe- i knew it... Go Linux, SuSE linux that is. You can get a totally new O/S every year or even sooner.Great product!!

Yeah.... Go.... AWAY!!!

You did!!! Why didn't you open your mouth earlier then? You would've hurt MS stocks by 3 percent. Now you lost that pleasure, didn't you?
"You can get a totally new O/S every year or even sooner" ....Riiiiiiight, they write a "totally new" OS every year, just for you. What grade are you in, sir?

The bigger suck to this delay is now having to wait EVEN LONGER for Adobe product updates and others alike. As alot of these companies are waiting to release 64bit versions or plain'ol updates until AFTER Vista. Since it's core logic is so different. FRAK!

Somebody's watching Battlestar Galactica. :P

What does "core logic" mean? Are you saying the API's for Vista are completely different than any other version of Windows? I doubt that is true.

You know what is really sad about this whole situation. Microsoft could wait indefinitely before rolling out a new os release or office release for that matter. They could let windows xp stagnate just like ie did. It isn't going to hurt them in the least. You know why, because everyone will still be using windows. The oem's will still be rolling it out, the enterprise environment will still be using it on desktops and there is no reason to switch. No one has the money Microsoft does to destroy competitors. The only reason Linux is still around is because it's free and people need support so they pay the companies for it. I wish it were different but Microsoft knows this. The computer age thus far belongs to Microsoft, there really isn't anything that can be done, other then Apple releasing their software to run on any pc hardware. Then you have problems with software support with 3rd parties, there really isn't any compared to windows. There are very few software developers for Mac os compared to windows obviously, then you have the marketing engrained in every users head that may not know better then MS. Then you have companies like dell with 30 percent of the market pushing windows and the vicious cycle continues, it circular you know.

There really is just no way to break the monopoly without breaking up Microsoft into competing companies. They can take their time, has Microsoft lost any market share because their next os release is 5 years late? 10 years? heck there isn't even 100 percent winodws xp install base yet. Nope, so in the mean time Microsoft can continue to enter new markets, buy out competitors. Stop competitors cash flow by providing free products and tying them to windows. They will continue to reap all the profit of the industry while companies that truly innovate in the computer market like apple and linux supports continue to loose market share and money and remain tiny.

who really needs vista anyway? is there a service pack for xp due out or have they forgotten about that os?

sp3 isn't due till 2007, well after vista. Don't you just love the commitment. Windows xp and Internet explorer look like it was shot up with a fully automatic machine gun for 5 years, was then patched and are still no closer to having a secure os. should vista fix this? I doubt it, that is what sp2 was supposed to do, but it hasn't done much of anything other then annoy people with the little message box.

If any other company had the amount of money microsoft does, I would certaily hope they would do some good with it, instead of sit on it and collect interest. They made 30 billion in profit in 2005. they spent a couple billion on research and development. I bet hardly any of it was on ie or windows. But it was on office, xbox 360 and whatever else. This is because it is the products that have at least one of these things in common they have some competion in, are a new emerging market or it is a cash cow. IE is a good example, they let it sit around and let the internet development stop, then firefox came about and brought it back to life gained 10 percent market share. Then ms said wowa, we better start back up here is something nipping at our heals. There it is in a nut shell.

That's okay. Now I have time to upgrade my hardware before a new PC with Vista. Maybe when Vista comes out, Intel Kentsfield will be ready.

Microsoft can delay until 2010 if they would like. As long as the end result is better, I'm happy to wait. I feel no limitations with Windows XP at the current time -- at least no limitations that a new version of Windows will improve upon.

Performance improvements and benchmarks would be something I'd be highly interested in and equally highly doubtful of receiving. A new version of Windows usually ushurs in a gradual worldwide need for upgraded equipment to handle new layers of software processes.

As others have mentioned - if MS wants to delay, it might be worth considering integration of Monad, WinFS, and other technologies promised and removed. In the meantime, IE7 will have a huge global impact especially if distributed via Windows Update. As a developer, I'm excited to see IE6 fade, scared to think that I may be providing legacy support on websites for IE6 and then supporting standards-compliant browsers (FF/Moz) and possibly IE7 ...

I digress. Good for Microsoft. This allows Apple to continue promoting their innovations, gives consumers more time to prepare, and hopefully allows the software to mature in a constructive way.

It seems like M$ need more time to copy Apple Tiger features. Or maybe they will try to copy Leopard (Mac OS 10.5)...
Anyway, the only original feature could be their grave: The framework works pretty bad, slow and useless...

Erm..enlighten me about *which* framework works "bad"? And how exactly is the framework which you speak of useless?

He's probably talking about .net, and MS's recent step backwards away from promoting this.

Haha yeah I agree on that. I have noticed vista is looking less and less like the windows it used to be. It now looks like they rolled linux and mac os10 together. Every feature they all inovated is now being copied. But why not, after all why spend all the money being the first to market with inovative features when you can sit back, relax and watch everyone else do it. Then you will make 10 times more money then everyone else put together by copying it. Now that is true Microsoft style.

Ah. Well I've been working heavily with .NET since beta 1 of the 1.0 framework. Is it useless? Far from it. Is it slow? Not really.

As far as the purported MS step back from .NET, this was very heavily based on misinformation. Because Microsoft didn't develop core OS functionality in .NET, sites posted articles screaming "MS Abandons .NET!".

Fact is, Vista would be largely incompatible with legacy hardware if core OS components were developed in .NET It's just not meant for that. .NET would have to have some serious changes to integrate with low level processes and hardware communication

MS is promoting .NET today as much as it has in the last 5 years.

I don't want to offend anyone about the crappy framework, I know there are a lot of people working hard for it, trying to make a success of it... and it's a shame...
One fair example: ATI Catalyst drivers with their CCC written with that f*cking framework make me sick. Now, the same drivers with the "old" Control panel (C++ I think) work flawless and uses 10% of RAM and CPU resources. Ati fault? I don't think so. The difference is that framework: Five years of development and still so bad? I call it ineptitude. Name a good example of what the .net framework can do for us, so I can change my mind.

So basically you're judging a massive, complex, well thought out framework on an ATI control panel? Come on, get real man. I (and my team) have written very complex financial applications using the .NET framework and they work as well as we wrote them. Sure we found bugs, but they were ours, not the framework's.

You know, I got the opportunity to work with the .NET CLR development team back in 2000. A case study was done on our project (sub contracting with Accenture). I've to say, the team was top of the line, 100% standup guys.

So if you're somehow under the impression its some garbage framework whipped up in 6 months to somehow topple Java, you're way wrong. I've had the advantage of working with it for 5+ years now, exclusively, and it is definitely here to stay and is some of the best technology I've gotten to work with.

I was really iffy about .NET when it first came about, but I have to say that it is REALLY COOL technology.

ATI is at fault. I have a .NET 2.0 application that I wrote thats under 200k and it executes in less than a second (bonus, there's no installation just an exe). Sure it's not doing all that the ATI app is, but my experience with ATI products tells me that it's all them that's the problem.

I'm actually in agreement with fewt for once...was that a horse that just flew by? ;)

Floodland, ATI's CCC isn't a fair example. In fact, it's probably the worst example you can ever think of. I seriously don't know how they managed to write a program so clumsy and frustrating to use it almost makes me want to puke! And with every new version, it just seems to get worse.

There are tons of good .NET applications out there. Paint.NET is one of them.

Also, you need to compare .NET with Java, not with C++ apps. Speed-wise, it is almost like comparing a 56K dial-up connection and a 10Mbps broadband connection. Of course broadband is much better - more often than not. But it is also much more expensive and requires better infrastructure, more difficult to maintain, etc.

But I guess it is easier for a programmer to understand the power of .NET. For non-programmers out there, CCC will be ever ready to drive ppl away from .NET.

Everyone agrees with me eventually.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! ;-)

Okay, everybody surprised by this, raise your mouse.

I am a little dismayed, but this is no big deal. I was going to wait until Vista shipped to purchase a new PC. Looks like I need to wait a little longer.

Everything seemed to be on track. MS must have made a major architecture shift in order to announce 9 months early that it won't ship this year. Nine months is a long time to tidy up a release that has seen incredible progress in the Feb CTP release. If you haven't seen Feb CTP, it is really nice. It's smooth, 95% stable, and has a nice interface. All the drivers aren't there yet and it's has typical beta slugishness, but those things can be hammered out in 9 months.

Remember, Vista was originally (back in 2003-2004, I've been following the OS closely) built on the Windows Server 2003 codebase. After a few years of working on that codebase, there was a huge reorganization that took place inside the project, and the Longhorn team started from scratch and started coding Longhorn using the Windows XP SP2 codebase. In the end, it means more security, so if Microsoft are willing to push this out a little later with security benefits in the end, then I'd be more than happy to wait. I've waited 3 years and a month or so won't hurt me.

According to the CNET News.com Article:

"Allchin said some of the additional time was for ensuring security levels, and the company is also working on ironing out usability issues.

"We're trying to crank up the security level higher than ever," Allchin said. "This came down to a few weeks. We're trying to do the responsible thing here.""

>>>> This is something I can live with, so I see no reason to be upset about it.

I was really beginning to wonder myself. I think it was smart of them to delay the release to insure the quality of the product.

The Feb CTP wouldn't install on my laptop. That hardly seems like a big issue this far out, but every other MS OS beta I've tried at this point in the game at the very least installed.

I had same problem with my system.

Better to delay it now than to have another DOS 4.0, Windows 95(pre-A), Windows 98(Release version), or Windows ME (All of which had nasty bugs when initially released ESPECIALLY Win95 which some disks even shipped containing a Virus).

Win 98 was the better of the 9x series...comparing it with that nonsense called ME is ludicrist

It's news, but not surprising. The word around campus was that this was going to happen... it's just official now.

By then maybe winfs will be ready, and Microsoft will have a worthy desktop search component.

How embarrassing for the "Software Assurance" people.

Kill me now.

Vista will launch in November of 2009, mark your calendars.

Does this mean MS learned from it's mistakes? Is there the glimmer of hope that .NET blemish will be permanently removed?

Now guys, it's "JUST IN", so we have to hear the excuses before we start making our own. Wait...I've been waiting for THREE YEARS, I'm fed up too!

BOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!
ms sucks
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!

I'm sure there are people that know you who would say the same about you... let's at least TRY to not be idiots, eh?

Ha! Fat chance of that!

Ugh...

Well I can't really say this is completely unexpected. Maybe it'll be released in time for the PS3 =)

Nope. They are waiting for something prety surprising: stereodisplays. :) StereoVista will run on the market april 2010.

I have XP Pro now, and have no pressing need or want for Vista for awhile. I may even be able to get a beta copy sometime soon, so I can try it on an extra pc or something.

chris

Microsoft have the right idea with Vista. The NET Framework is actually an excellent idea as long as the NET Framework software is written correctly. The ATI CCC is probably the best example of very poor programming and optimisation for supposedly a large program for many many years. As the programming of NET Framework improves, so does the programmes that run of it.

Vista is essentially Windows NT version 6.
- Server 2003 is Windows NT version 5.2
- Server 2003 x64 has the same designation, 5.2 as x32 version
- Windows XP Pro x64 Edition is essentially Server 2003 x64 edition. Uses the SAME updates (Microsoft lists them separately, but they are identical)
- Windows XP is Windows NT version 5.1
- Windows 2000 is Windows NT 5.0

So Server 2003, XP, and 2000 have the same programming roots.

Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME are based on Windows version 4. Don't confuse this with Windows NT 4, its a completely and utterly separate operating system.

Windows 2000 was not based on NT 4. NT 4 even though it came out after Windows 95 lacked Plug and Play, and was purely designed as workstation software. It could not handle games too well if at all.

Windows 2000 was Microsoft's Cairo plan, which was in the process of being made before NT 4 was even released. The idea was to have an operating system base that can be used for workstations and home use alike. Their plans didn't quite eventuate like this, and it wasn't until Windows XP came out that they succeeded.

Windows does have its problems, but Linux is not better off. Linux can be better for some things, but ease of use is certainly not one of them. If you were keen you'd be spending all your time compiling and updating your OS with Linux. Some people like Linux because they don't want to use software that people can make large profits off of. The simple nature or thigs is that if Linux started to grab a larger market share software would start to become proprietry, and further down the track you'd end up with the same situation which put people off Microsoft etc. in the first place. The other problem with Linux is there are so many different versions, desktops, and things that can be changed (which can be a good thing) but creates a nightmare if people required help with their system. Keep in mind most people that use computers don't know much about programming!

So all in all, Windows Vista should succeed and be a great OS. I'd turn off that super prefetch or whatever they call it if they're still going to use it. I'm not getting 3GB of memory so the OS can chew 2GB of it by half loading every piece of software I've got! (or even just the Microsoft ones).

I think Microsoft made an error by having 32 and 64 bit versions though. The 64 bit Vista should have been the only one as Intel and AMD CPU's now support it (AMD for a couple of years now). Just means that driver developers will have to make two different drivers. For ATI and NVIDIA, 4 different drivers, for XP, XP x64, Vista 32 and Vista 64.

You said:
Windows 2000 was not based on NT 4. NT 4 even though it came out after Windows 95 lacked Plug and Play, and was purely designed as workstation software.

Uh...that's nonsense. Windows NT is Windows NT. Windows is developed just like any other software, it is branched for releases. Windows NT 5.0 (2000) is most definately based on NT 4.0. The build numbers tell the story. AND NT 4.0 did have PnP support, it was a seperate install located on the NT 4.0 CD! :)

You have to understand the concept of a CODE BASE (or TRUNK), and how a code base evolves over time. Windows 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x is a different code base than Windows NT 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 6.x. Now code was ported back and forth between these two code bases thru time. Windows 98 actually got a slither of NT kernal functionality for device drivers (WDM). Windows NT 4.0 got it's desktop code from Windows 95. But both remained two seperate code bases. When Microsoft does a release, they FORK off the trunk of the Windows code base, and that branch is maintained for the life of that product. Often fixes for a branch will make it's way back into the trunk as well, and will be part of later releases.

This is it:

Original Windows:
1.01 -> 1.02 -> 1.03 -> 1.04 > 2.03 -> 2.10 -> 2.11 -> 3.0 -> 3.1 -> 3.11 -> 4.0.950 (95) -> 4.0.1111 (95OSR2) -> 4.0.1998 (98) -> 4.0.2222 (98SE) -> 4.9.3000 (ME) (end of line)

Windows NT:
3.1.511 -> 3.5.887 -> 3.51.1057 -> 4.0.1381 -> 5.0.2195 (2000) -> 5.1.2600 (XP) -> 5.2.3790 (2003/2003R2) -> 6.0.5308 (Vista Feb CTP) -> (the saga continues...)

Exactly, Windows 2000 was even officially named Windows NT 5.0 up until late in the beta when they decided to change the name to 2000, which I believe was a mistake since it caused a lot of confusion. People naturally thought Windows 2000 was an upgrade to Windows 98. I have heard they were planning to have a consumer version of Windows 2000 which is why they changed the name but they dropped it and released Windows Me instead (more confusion).

Not that it really matters, but I remember there being a 95c version, so I had to do a quick google search, and came up with this revision. This includes all 5 versions of Windows 95 and shows Windows 98 as 4.10.** instead of 4.0.** and Windows Me as 4.90.** instead of 4.9.**

The Big difference between Origional Windows and Windows NT, is that all versions of the origional were still GUI's on top of Dos, as far as I can remember, NT does not. (not sure about NT3.5 or earlier, but I don't remember stand-alone DOS support on NT4.0, and I know that NT5.0 aka Windose 2000 does not have it). (please don't confuse a command shell with low-level DOS).

Original Windows:
1.01 -> 1.02 -> 1.03 -> 1.04 > 2.03 -> 2.10 -> 2.11 -> 3.0 -> 3.1 -> 3.11 -> 4.0.950 (95) -> 4.0.950A (95A or 95SP1) -> 4.0.1111 or 4.0.950B(95B or 95OSR2) -> 4.03.1212 or 4.00.950B (95B or 95OSR2.1)[USB Support] -> 4.03.1214 or 4.00.950C (95C or 95OSR2.5) -> 4.10.1998 (98) -> 4.10.2222 (98SE) -> 4.90.3000 (ME) (end of line)

"As with all things google, I found this on three different sites, but not verified from Micro$oft itself, so take it as unverified"

Steve

NT 3.1 was a true 32-bit OS from the ground up and was not based on DOS or any of the Windows releases at that time. It shared the same look and feel as Windows 3.1 but that's all.