Microsoft Confirms Windows "7" - MGX Conference

[sundayx Veteran]

32-bit will be here to stay for another couple decades. Abandoning a large portion of the market is not good marketing. Although they could have a lot of advance features to just "cater" and direct the use of 64-bit systems, they can't just ignore the rest of the market.

I'm surprised to see how there is a lot of emphasis for hardware to match software requirements. For Windows 7 I hope to see more optimization on the OS part so that there isn't a lot of emphasis for upgrade. For example RAM requirements that seems to be an overhyped issue.

[zshadow]

I'm really surprised too that the next OS will be 32-bit as well, to make Vista work well you need 2GB of ram, and i'm sure "Windows 7" will need 4GB atleast to run well. Which requires you to have 64-bit, go figure. And, all new processors in the last 2 yrs at least are 64-bit capable, in 3 yrs from now everyone will have 64-bit chips, and those who have 32-bit chips only would need to upgrade their pc to run Win 7. I don't see why MS isn't pushing 64-bit more, it's eventually going to be the standard. What really "grinds my gears" is a lot of new software by MS is running in 32-bit still! Grrr! ;)

Yeah, pretty annoying that they won't be going strictly 64-bit with the next release of Windows. Although I disagree, to get Vista working "well" you only need 1GB of RAM. If you're power user, you'll want 2GB. 4GB is overkill right now IMO, unless you do video editing.

[PGHammer]

Are you people kidding or what?

There is NO connection between Win9x windows (95/98/98se/me) and WinNT (NT4 (anyone remembers that?), NT5 (aka win 2000) NT5.1 (aka win XP) NT6(aka vista) and now NT7 for the newest OS.

The Win9x line was discontinued with ME. They switched to NT line instead.

No connection? Actually, there are *several* connections between the codebases of 9x and NT 4.

1. The NT 4 shell was sourced directly from Windows 95.

2. Almost half the core changes introduced with Windows 95's famous (infamous?) OEM Service Release 2 came from the NT 4 codebase (a look at the code signatures of the DLLs proves that).

3. The functionality of the Hardware Emulation Layer intyroduced with Windows 2000 Professional came from Windows 98 Second Edition. (In case you forgot, Windows 2000 Professional was the first NT-based OS to explicitly support DirectX.)

4. It was Windows 2000 Professional, not Windows XP, that was the first NT-based Windows to see widespread non-corporate/enterprise use.

[Glowstick]

3. The functionality of the Hardware Emulation Layer intyroduced with Windows 2000 Professional came from Windows 98 Second Edition. (In case you forgot, Windows 2000 Professional was the first NT-based OS to explicitly support DirectX.)

There isn't a rolleyes big enough for this.

[Menge]

No connection? Actually, there are *several* connections between the codebases of 9x and NT 4.

1. The NT 4 shell was sourced directly from Windows 95.

2. Almost half the core changes introduced with Windows 95's famous (infamous?) OEM Service Release 2 came from the NT 4 codebase (a look at the code signatures of the DLLs proves that).

3. The functionality of the Hardware Emulation Layer intyroduced with Windows 2000 Professional came from Windows 98 Second Edition. (In case you forgot, Windows 2000 Professional was the first NT-based OS to explicitly support DirectX.)

4. It was Windows 2000 Professional, not Windows XP, that was the first NT-based Windows to see widespread non-corporate/enterprise use.

you DO realize that:

1) the NT4 shell, while VERY similar to the Windows 95 shell, could NOT sourced from it. Mainly because of the fact that the system interfaces were different and the system was UNICODE (whereas W95 was all ANSI)

3) there's no hardware emulation in WinNT... there's Hardware ABSTRACTION - which has been there since the early days of the NT kernel. and the abstraction portion of it has nothing to do with Windows 98 OR even worse: DirectX.

4) this is very true in my eyes, though.

[cropcircles]

The various architecture's aren't developing at the same pace to incorparate 64. Untill then we live with 32. Blame the frickn' developers at Redmond. Look at what was left out of the inititial plans for Longhorn/Vista. " The three tier stack of Avalon, WinFS and Indigo were compelling and forward thinking. The watered down version of Indigo, the poorly performing and unused by Vista Avalon stack and the complete evisceration of the relational file system are a complete about face from that original vision " MS will be sweating bullets on this next OS release.. 64 ?

[Rudy]

3. The functionality of the Hardware Emulation Layer intyroduced with Windows 2000 Professional came from Windows 98 Second Edition. (In case you forgot, Windows 2000 Professional was the first NT-based OS to explicitly support DirectX.)

NT4 supported up to directX 3 or something like that

[nX07]

I surely hope that this subscription based service is only an option, and one will die soon after. I would hate the thought of having to "rent" windows, and all future versions after that..

[abecedarian paradoxious]

...

And, all new processors in the last 2 yrs at least are 64-bit capable,

...

Go check VIA's website- everything they're selling is x86 and no rumors about 64bit.

[Mr. Dee]

NT4 supported up to directX 3 or something like that

Windows NT 4 never supported any version of Direct X, just like how it never supported USB. NT 4 was targeted mainly at businesses, for persons who wanted to do gaming, Windows 95 and 98 were recommended and since those two supported USB based devices, they were considered more consumer friendly.

Remember, back in 96 when NT 4 was released, you had to look through the NT 4 Hardware Library Manual to know if your machine was even supported! When Windows 2000 included Direct X supported it was seen as a big surprise since its marketing was very business oriented.