Microsoft delays "Longhorn" – I mean VISTA!
 

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Microsoft has just announced that they are delaying the launch of their new OS, Vista, to the consumer market until January 2007. Here is the BBC article.

Anyone know what they are waiting for!? Taking into account the immense human resources available to Microsoft (including the unfathomable number of companies they have purchased in recent years), it certainly can’t be a question of resources?

So, what is the problem? Is Microsoft finally realizing that they are creatively bankrupt and simply don’t have a decent product to launch? Are they still stung by having to cancel announced features that hackers proved were embarrasing security loopholes within 48 hours or so? (You may remember that one; Microsoft announced that these features "were really not a part of Vista" after all.) Or are they waiting for more OSX features to copy?

. BBC: “When Vista eventually hits the market it will be
. the longest gap between releases of Windows systems.”

Well, Microsoft bashing is tempting -- but seriously: What is Microsoft waiting for?!


With best regards,
ArcticStones

Well, they said they were still "tweaking security." However, there is a business edition that will ship in December. I guess business don't need security.

If OS X 10.5 ships before Longvista, I'm going to have a lot of laughs.

Re: Tweaking LongYawn
 

"Tweaking security" -- I like that excuse. According to the Oxford American Dictionary, which ships with OSX, tweaking means to improve a system by making fine adjustments to it.

Obviously, after all these years and Ballmer knows how many man-hours, only very few features in LongYawn can remain that need "tweaking". Perhaps it’s time for a press release that says something like: "Sorry, folks, but Microsoft still hasn’t a clue as to how to make an OS that is fit for the 21st century. So we’ve decided to close shop."

:D

BUT SERIOUSLY..... how long does it take to rip off OSX?

I mean...... there are skins for windows that will make it look like OSX.... why didn't they just buy one of those?

I am soooo disappointed :D It is interesting to me that Apple had to announce (after the release of Tiger I think) that they were actually slowing down the release of major updates. Maybe Microsquish is finally starting to realize that security in windoze is an unmitigated disaster..."tweaking security" yeah right.

Umm, where can I purchase an OSX skin that will make it look like Windows?

dont joke.... there are skins out there!

google it!

Well, considering there have been five major releases in the time that XP has been stagnant, the target keeps changing so they have to re-write Windows every time.

I, for one, am looking forward to Vista. How else could I relive the nostalgia of Mac OS X v10.0 (Cheetah)?

BaZing!!!!

:D

I look forward to vista, been running the beta here for a while. The good thing about MS products is that they really aim to please thier customers. Which is why a lot of the added features are what they are.

The revamped interface is mostly requested by consumer end users, where as a lot of the networking/OS stuff is what the IT world demanded.

Windows has never really tried to look snazzy until OS X came out, and XP was the first OS that actually had the more snazzy look to it. It also allows you customize everything from default window size, color, border, pictures etc. Features which Mac OS X lacks. It also had things like fast user switching and other features that made it more functional. A lot of the fucntional features OS X has adopted now in Panther and in Tiger.

As for security issues, every OS has them, even Mac OS X, and if you run your system right and with the right hardware you don't really run into many "security" issues. most security exploits efffect the consumer end user and not much of the enterprise level. However, there is always an exception.

I will say it does need an overhaul, I think I have beta release 2, and certain things really run sluggish.

MS isn't releasing Beta 2 until mid-April.

Hmm the folder we have for the installer files clearly states beta 2....

I have not really messed with it past loading it on a laptop we have back in the shop.

There should be a build number in the lower right corner of your desktop.
Beta 1 is build 5112,
Beta 2 is build 5308

I have read of some places getting early releases of Beta2 for testing and review purposes, maybe it one of those? But the build number should tell you for sure.

it is 55308, and I work for a school district and I am sure they want us to roll out a full on vista upgrade to all of our MS PCs.

here is a screen shot of the installer...

The release date is march 1, 2006 on it

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/1363/sshot2tj.th.png

Taken from this link:

http://www.windowsitpro.com/windowsp...ott_49744.html

tlarkin & Pantherman – the perfect team
 

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Pantherman -- you and Tom Larkin make a perfect team!

Together, you just proved that Microsoft really hasn’t a clue as to what is going on. Not even with the pace of its own development and status of its own Beta releases.

:D :D

Yeah I am sure the dev team and the PR team do not speak the same language to each other a lot.

Not sure about the language, but people are crying for sure at Microsoft according to this article.

I am going to load vista onto a test machine today and start playing with this beta 2. I am curious to how bad it is actually going to be.

My theory is that given the security issues XP has had, Microsoft has gone for a complete rewrite with the same look and feel, but all new guts. In a way, Apple has done this too - the key is gradually giving up any hope of backward compatibility, so Vista has to be compatible with XP and maybe 2000, but no further back. That's a pile of work to a system that has layers of patches like an onion.

Yes, there have been talks about phasing out the registry as well, which would be nice IMHO. Applications should run like in OS X and in Unix, where every resource an application needs in located in that applciations folder. One thing I like about OS X over MS Windows is that.

And one of the greatest advantages of that is drag and drop installs/uninstalls. with the exception of a few harmless (since nothing will read them and they can't interfere with others) pref files, nothing is left when you trash an app installed by d&d.

Yup, it is pretty nice. There are like a few advantages of having a registry, configuration wise, but overall I would like to see it completely go away.

The benefits of not having one seem to out weigh what little benefits you get from it.

Even an alternative method for storing where an application should find stuff would be an improvement - then an app's registry insertions couldn't collide with the registry list of another.

Microsoft also said that Office 2007 is going to be late.

From wikipedia.

I got a real kick out of the original release date.