Microsoft said on Monday in the US that the server version of Windows 7 would not be a major release and will bear the name Windows Server 2008 R2. In the past, Microsoft has used R2 monikers to signify a product with a few new features, as opposed to major changes to a product. Microsoft declined to discuss what will be in Windows Server 2008 R2, but a spokesman confirmed that it is the server version of Windows 7. The release was due sometime in 2010, Microsoft said.The server move calls into question just how different Windows 7 is going to be from Windows Vista on the desktop side. Steven Sinofsky, the head of development for the desktop version of Windows, has said that Windows 7 on the PC side would not make major changes to things like the kernel and driver model, but has maintained that it would be a major release of Windows.
Microsoft has said that the desktop version of Windows 7 would include a new multitouch interface, but has not talked about other features. The software maker confirmed its naming plans, following a report by ZDNet.com blogger Mary Jo Foley. Initially Foley reported that Microsoft was skipping its minor R2 release and moving straight to its next major release. However, Microsoft clarified that it indeed saw Windows 7 on the server side as a minor release.
View: Full Article @ ZDNet Australia
Good stuff Microsoft, don't promise us features, then don't deliver. It's like a surprise birthday present or something, it's really not exciting if you get told before you get to open it.
+5, Insightful
that why it will bear a lot of stuffs with vista
should we says vista R2
With the shear quantity of code involved with Vista Win2008 Microsoft are bogged down. Their software bloat has grown just as (discontented) employee has bloated, this is widely recognised. Microsoft is unable to employ the best and brightest (as acknowledged by Gates and Ballmer over the last few years). When Vista / Win2008 was panned (by many) their SECOND reaction was to immediately talk up Windows 7.
Those working in the Microsoft Windows IT sector (most of us! ) are quite mature, and have heard all the waffle and empty promises, time and again. Microsoft O/S is not finished yet, but you only have to look at their stock price, and dividends over the last 5 years, to realise where they are headed. Microsoft are stuck with a legacy (we still run Win2000, and have no need to change), they are never likely to see the heady days of Win95 / WinNT / Win2000 again. They are now just "holding the fort", and not doing a great job! Microsoft is going the way of the US economy (and as we British did in the first part of the 20th century) "Night Night Vienna!"
With the shear quantity of code involved with Vista Win2008 Microsoft are bogged down. Their software bloat has grown just as (discontented) employee has bloated, this is widely recognised. Microsoft is unable to employ the best and brightest (as acknowledged by Gates and Ballmer over the last few years). When Vista / Win2008 was panned (by many) their SECOND reaction was to immediately talk up Windows 7.
Those working in the Microsoft Windows IT sector (most of us! ) are quite mature, and have heard all the waffle and empty promises, time and again. Microsoft O/S is not finished yet, but you only have to look at their stock price, and dividends over the last 5 years, to realise where they are headed. Microsoft are stuck with a legacy (we still run Win2000, and have no need to change), they are never likely to see the heady days of Win95 / WinNT / Win2000 again. They are now just "holding the fort", and not doing a great job! Microsoft is going the way of the US economy (and as we British did in the first part of the 20th century) "Night Night Vienna!"
Take your meds. Hardly any of that made any sense, and what did is wrong. Employee bloat? Are you suggesting we need to send some Gas-X to the Redmond compound? You do understand how the stock market works, yes? A million shares at $5 is worth more than a hundred at $10. They have MUCH more stock issued than other companies.
They really hit a problem with Vista and the popularity of netbooks hence the extension of XP's life cycle for them. It would be nice if they addressed this and made Windows more modular.
This news is on Windows Server, not Vista. You failed.
This news also include what will expect for the client version of Windows 7, so you failed to read the entire article.
Last edited by Lasker on 20 Aug 2008 - 13:46
This news also include what will expect for the client version of Windows 7, so you failed to read the entire article.
No, it's not.
That is the ONLY thing in the article about the client.
Wow so instead of saying what was wrong with vista and why you switched you just bashed vista with no reason at all?
Yes vista has problems but if windows 7 even does nothing but fixes vistas bugs it would be a great release. Vista is a great starting point and really just needs some tweaks here and there
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08...28&from=rss
"More than one in every three new PCs is downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP, either at the factory or by the buyer, said performance and metrics researcher Devil Mountain Software, which operates a community-based testing network. 'The 35% is only an estimate, but it shows a trend within our own user base,' Craig Barth, the company's CTO, said. 'People are taking advantage of Vista's downgrade rights.' Last year, Devil Mountain benchmarked Vista and XP performance using other performance-testing tools and concluded that XP was much faster. Barth said things haven't changed since then. 'Everything I've seen clearly shows me that Vista is an OS that should never have left the barn.'
I'd hardly call the 95/NT days "great", at least not in terms of Microsoft's image. Windows 95 was the butt of many jokes back then, though the market wasn't nearly as competitive. The Linux/OSS movement was still in its infancy and was regarded as a geeky niche. Mac OS, while a somewhat viable competitor, was tethered to a piece of hardware that had non-standard ports, could only run one OS, and had very limited overall software support - especially in the games arena. Not to mention that many analysts and industry pros were uncertain of the future of Apple. No, I'd say that Windows 95 was really the only choice for most users. On the corporate level, NT4 was more of a "me too" effort than anything else. It built on the mostly stable, though immature and quirky, foundation of the NT 3.x line...but for all the new features it brought and the quirks it fixed, it also brought in a whole new array of issues.
I'd say to look beyond the desktop for a moment - there's already a healthy amount of competition going on there; market forces should do their thing and hopefully Microsoft will wise up and restructure their desktop efforts. On the server end, things are a bit different. Since the release of 2000, MS has done a phenomenal job of ramping up its server offerings. NTDS..err..Active Directory, which many of us scoffed as an eDirectory wannabe, has evolved beautifully - now greatly surpassing Novell's offering and then some. No doubt that Microsoft has scored points with all but the biggest *nix stalwarts and MS bigots throughout the past few years - compare that to their laughable offerings of a little over a decade ago.
Yes, the company and their codebase has gotten undoubtedly bloated. This happens to everyone. Don't forget that Microsoft is competing on many fronts. The consumer desktop, the enterprise desktop and data center, the living room, the pocket....the list goes on. What's the OSS movement focusing on? How about Sun? Novell? Apple? Exactly. If I could address MS's board, I'd tell them to strongly consider "Microsoft Home", "Microsoft Entertainment", "Microsoft Business Core" as the mediating branch between: "Microsoft Small Business" and "Microsoft Enterprise".
Just my 78 cents.
-Berz
The version could be 6.1
The version could be 6.1
Isn't Vienna a codename?
FYI -- I have preferred Windows OS's for a while, and I develop for Windows OS's. Vista is imploding under its own weight (too many legacy APIs, too many new APIs that have little reason to exist other than as something shiny & new). There is good reason the market is rejecting Vista, and it has little to do with the extreme fanatics of any camp. Personally I think Linux will establish an irreversible foothold due to this Vista debacle. It'll be painful, but in the end the market will be better for it.
That's all I expect with the short time they have to produce it. It will be Vista R2.
Here is the problem I just discovered after writing the above, Microsoft could not use that logic, since it would mean that XP was the 6th release of Windows, Vista the 7th and 7 being the 8th.
Microsoft needs to explain themselves. If it continued with the 6.1 version by Beta 1, its definitely a Vista R2 release.
Right right, because tacking a candy-coated shell on top of a 1960s OS is oh-so-innovative, right? Regardless, I'm glad you 'Switched' too.
Vista was a major release, and look at the response to that.
XP does everything I need it to do, and I'm already familiar with the GUI. If Microsoft would have given us the option to run Vista with the 2000/XP GUI I might have transitioned to it. But, no: They HAD to force everyone to learn a whole new menu system that didn't need to be there. They re-aranged everything when nothing needed to be re-aranged, and that's very annoying.
You add to that that there's nothing new or compelling enough in Vista to make me need to buy it, and is it any wonder that I'm sticking with XP? Why spend money on something you don't need?
XP does everything I need it to do, and I'm already familiar with the GUI. If Microsoft would have given us the option to run Vista with the 2000/XP GUI I might have transitioned to it. But, no: They HAD to force everyone to learn a whole new menu system that didn't need to be there. They re-aranged everything when nothing needed to be re-aranged, and that's very annoying.
You add to that that there's nothing new or compelling enough in Vista to make me need to buy it, and is it any wonder that I'm sticking with XP? Why spend money on something you don't need?
I guess I don't understand the point to continue using software that is almost 8 years old. Yes vista wasn't that great when it came out, but right now it's really good. I don't use it as I use windows 2008 server 64, but it's still mostly vista. I don't understand why people really think that they can continue to use Windows XP for about two, or three more years. Vista runs great with 4gigs of ram and atleast 2.4gig dual core. That's really cheap hardware, and I mean if you can't run vista then it's probably time to upgrade anyway.
Windows 7 could be an excellent OS, all they have to do is take the bad points of Vista and fix them and everyone should be happy.
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