12/03/2008, 12:00pm, EST
Wednesday, December 3rdWindows 7 already in beta by mid-January
Despite only having been publicly unveiled in late October, Windows 7 should already be in its first readily available beta version just after the start of the year, Technet's Keith Combs has confirmed. Manufactured DVDs of Windows 7 Beta 1 should be available to attendees of Microsoft's Developers Conference from January 13th onwards, suggesting the company will have the test operating system completed even sooner into 2009. Attendees at the Chicago and Minneapolis conferences will be the first to receive a copy at the show, though visitors to the earlier events should also have copies as well.
Although characterized as a first beta, the news supports Microsoft's plans for an accelerated schedule for Windows 7. At the October debut, the software was said to be receiving just one typical developer beta before moving on to a more public version and then the final release; the current timeframe gives Microsoft the majority of 2009 for its few remaining tests and hints that the company fully intends to move Windows 7 up to an official release in late 2009 instead of early 2010.
The speed up is helped largely by Microsoft's focus on optimizations and the user interface over the core architecture, which was completely overhauled for Vista and whose troubled development forced a rewrite in 2004 that effectively restarted much of the project.
Filed under: industry, software
Other story tags: Microsoft, Vista, Windows 7
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Hmm.
I wonder how much the decision to have a beta by January was influenced by the Snow Leopard release information.
Microsoft better be careful here. If this thing turns out to be another bug-fest, even more of their users will revolt; especially on the consumer side. It would be terrible for them... and hilarious for everyone else.
Rumor has it
it's roughly the same as vista. Basically a rebranding with a few tweaks?
Re: rumor has it
And rumor has it that Snow Leopard is a rebranding of Leopard, with a few tweaks.
Is MS claiming it is something that it is not?
uh, yeah
Microsoft exec: Windows 7 is no service pack
that's today. you can easily find out what ms is calling it by a little searching but, hey, that would require you caring about being accurate and we all know you only care about your posts being obnoxious.
and
show me where there's a rumor that SL is just a rebranding. one of the pc mag's did a review of 7 and were not impressed, basically calling it a, yeah, that's right, tweak.
Pig Lipstick
Wow!
It took how long for Microsoft to make up a new skin for Vista and change the name to Windows 7?
They really can't expect their prisoners... uh, users to fall for that one do they?
Oh, wait MS has been doing the same thing for years. From what I've heard, there are still remnants of MS-DOS buried in Vista!
Re-Pig Lipstick
Windows 7 does not make heavy changes to the kernel or underlying OS.
The heavy changes are in the user space.
The taskbar is seeing the biggest changes. There is also a new framework for multi-touch displays and multicore processing. I'm not sure I'd call those changes small.
NT has always had a DOS virtual machine for running legacy applications. The NT kernel however, does not rely on DOS and was a rewritten OS. If NT shares anything with a previous operating system, it would be VMS (design principals, not code).
Re: and
And show me where Snow Leopard isn't. Jobs already said what Snow leopard was focusing on. Stability, bug fixes, not new features. Oh, and throw in some under the hood stuff like "Grand Central" (because Apple loves names for their technology), which, does what? Improves performance.
good try
then it's not a rumor is it? duh. nice effort at redirection though.
on the other hand, ms is making a big effort to convince everyone that 7 is the answer! much like vista would be the answer.
but the point is that you only posted to be obnoxious. facts be damned.
We'll fix it ...
... THIS time!! We swear! Honest! Really!
Windows users are, in point of fact, STUPID. Because they keep falling for this line of crap every. Single. Time.
For 30 years now!
It's like rewatching an old movie and expecting the ending to be different!
MS has already essentially admitted that Win 7 is now just "Vista Redux," because (and this is the key) they sincerely believe that Vista is just fine, it's only suffering from an image problem.
How can you fix something you do not believe is broken?