Windows 7

[Mystic]

Microsoft is not saying very much about Windows 7 which may be released as soon as late 2009. But I managed to find out a little bit.

The core of Windows 7 is being called MinWin or something like that and apparently will consist of only about 100 files and be about 25 MB in size. In comparison Vista has about 5000 files and 5 GB. And there will be some kind of feature apparently where you can restore the O/S if you have problems without losing data and having to reinstall the O/S.

Some have suggested that perhaps the O/S will be a virtual O/S. And Microsoft recently talked about IE 8 which will probably be included in Windows 7.

The screen shots I saw about Windows 7 look like Vista but nobody really knows what the O/S will look like.

I also saw a video where Bill Gates was asked a question about Vista and he seemed to basically say that he would not answer until Windows 7 comes out. I got the impression that he probably is not really happy about Vista. Just my impression.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

It's vaporware. I find it fascinating that MS can't shut up about it's next versions, you see, they have already rolled out Vista at nearly 100% of the organization for almost a full year now.

Name me a single large company that has done that?

None.

Microsoft is far ahead of the O.S. curve in terms of rolling out the latest version of their latest O.S. Internally, Microsoft folks have the exact opposite of what the rest of us have: wait a couple years to deploy the "newest" OS, deploy it everywhere, then hope it can make a 5-year PC life cycle. Conversely, MS rolls it out to nearly all of it's computers within 30-90 days of the release date. And usually much of their computer fleet has already been upgraded by the time it's released to the public.

MS is on the front-edge of their O.S. rollout.

This makes them look awkward in the market place when they talk about the "next" version of Windows nearly endlessly. I place my bets on 2010 for Windows 7... just in time for vendors to ship new PC's for the Christmas season.

 

[simple_gifts]

Still waiting for WinFS, a feature that was supposed to be in Vista.....

Quote:

you can restore the O/S if you have problems


%s/if/when/g

 

[Mystic]

I found out some more stuff. Apparently the MinWin project is a parallel project that helps Microsoft develop more compact O/Ss and helps them to be able to develop O/Ss in a kind of component manner. In other words Windows 7 may have as many components as needed for a given task-there would be more components the more requirements there are. MinWin probably will not be the core of Windows 7.

But a sharp-eyed person noticed the 'Restore Console' or whatever it is called. Right now the screen shots look like Vista but nobody really knows what Windows 7 will actually look like.

In the demonstration several different O/Ss were put up one at a time-virtual O/Ss. Some people think that Windows 7 will be a kind of virtual O/S with a certain core system. Perhaps it would be possible to literally have two or more O/Ss on the same computer-you could bring up a virtual O/S-XP or Vista or Windows 7. There might be much better security that way and it might be possible to easily restore the O/S if necessary without affecting data and the core. Just thinking out loud.

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

In the demonstration several different O/Ss were put up one at a time-virtual O/Ss. Some people think that Windows 7 will be a kind of virtual O/S with a certain core system. Perhaps it would be possible to literally have two or more O/Ss on the same computer-you could bring up a virtual O/S-XP or Vista or Windows 7. There might be much better security that way and it might be possible to easily restore the O/S if necessary without affecting data and the core.


Great idea, we've been using virtualized Linux machines for several months now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen

When will this be ready? 2010?

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

LOL.

5 years on VMWare this month at my job. Back then, people refused to entertain the idea of such a thing. Nowadays, it's commonplace.

I wonder if this virtualization that is talked about is application virtualization (no OS virtualization) as MS purchased Softricity some time ago.

 

[simple_gifts]

It will be tough for MS to continue shouting "Linux stole our IP" when they are just starting to develop an idea Red Hat has already included in their distribution.