Windows 8 RTM to Hit in July 2011

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I am all for Microsoft releasing a *New* operating system if it follows a similar path like Apple's OSX where they are really just a new name but "Upgrades" not full revisions. If they do go this method they need to start off Windows 8 right and cut that "upgrade" OS's price in half at least otherwise you won't find many people bothering. I think that is the only reason people dread new versions of windows for the outstanding price you pay if you don't buy a brand new computer.
 
I develop for a software company that uses a rapid-iteration development model (not exactly Agile, but our own verison of it). We release a new version of our product every two weeks. Sooner if major bug-fix or other problem arises. Companies that use this model pose a serious threat to Microsoft's future health, I believe Microsoft learned a valuable lesson with Vista. The lesson is this, if you listen to your customers (constantly poll them on want they want), and build what they ask for, you can't create software that doesn't sell. Notice the whole Windows 7 was my idea campaign? Give people what they want (granted, sometimes they don't know what they want, which is why you have to find out) and they will buy it.

Hopefully this translates to lower prices on the updates, but I don't think there is any promise of that. I like Microsoft products, I use Visual Studio, Office, Win 7, etc. on a daily basis. But let's be honest, Vista was a misstep, Windows development had stagnated, and Mac OSX and Linux had caught up with or exceeded Windows in almost every regard(save only the massive amount of software that is Windows only), before Windows 7.

There are two key factors that allow us to release every two weeks. First, our upgrade system is seamless. Our software connects to the Internet when it's started, downloads an update, notifies the user, and restarts itself if necessary (usually not the case). Second, our software is highly modular. We can upgrade any part of it without affecting the rest of the software in any way.

Anyone who's dug around and programmed for Win 7 knows that it also has much more seamless upgrade system than previous versions of Windows (i.e. you can install video drivers without restarting), and is also very highly modularized. It would not surpise me in the least if Microsoft starts following this sort of development model.

Time will tell.
 
Having a 3 year life cycle for a OS revision is actually more NORMAL and prevents stagnation of older tech.

I grew up with Amigas, which had multi-tasking OS since 1985 (MS consumer Multi-tasking OS came out in 95 with Win95), and 1.0 / 2.0 etc like with Apple and MS-DOS was about every 2~3 years. One of the things that hurt Amiga was that they were still selling a 1.3 OS computer in 1992... 5 years after its release, along with a 2.1 & 3.0 systems (stupid).

As shown with XP > Vista, the move to vista was bad mostly because of the memory sucking & performance issues of vista. But XP had been MS's primary OS for 5 years before Vista. And even for today, XP is still good enough to be used today, especially business and odd-ball software.

WindowsXP is still sold by MS on various new computers. Pretty much nobody buys vista.

To a big degree, the SP are revisions to an OS that sometimes adds features. XP-MCE could be figured as XP2, it has a different and slicker skin over XP home/Pro. (I've been using MCE for most clients as its $15 more than Home and a lot cheaper than PRO with most of PROs features).

Windows 8 coming out in 2012(early) would be good for everyone. Windows 9 would then be due for 2015.

But *BUT* I would like to see MS start selling Windows for a reduced costs... Like $50 OEM/upgrade and $100 retail. With a large market share and yet dying PC-Gaming industry... Linux & Chrome OS is looking better for many people. What do MOST people do on their home computers: Web browsing, email, IM, storage of their photos, videos and music.

Any computer can do that... even our cellphones can (but with tiny screens duh). So the need for "MS-Windows" specific OS becomes lower and lower. And since Microsoft doesn't support PC gaming (how many MS Xbox titles are also available for Windows??? Thought so) - then the PS3/4 and Xbox360/362(whatever) will replace PC gaming (noooo!).
 
[citation][nom]Upendra09[/nom]If you are thinking i gve you a negative one, i didn't you actually bring up a good pointwhenn i said strictly x64 i meant only sell x64 bit versions of and not hybrid versionsso the OS will be backwards compatible but it won't be sold as a 32 bit OS[/citation]

Windows 8 will not have x86 version, at least this was the plan when I left there few months ago.
Windows Server 2008 R2 already is x64 only.
 
The entire time line seems odd. Businesses are a major part of Microsoft's revenue flow and are notorious in slow adoption of anything new. IT departments just do not want to deal with radical corporate wide upgrades and bean counters do not want the cost outlays without a definite benefit. I find it difficult to imagine companies wanting to go with such a rapid pace of not only OS's, but also major productivity software like Office. No company is going to want to face a near yearly onslaught of major Office upgrades along with any potential employee training.

Also, how would employees and job seekers keep up? Learn to be proficient in Office 2011 then have to retrain a year later for Office 2012. On top of that, have to master whatever OS a company has chosen to adopt and whatever quirks each OS version brings to a particular Office version.

Just doesn't seem rational. Besides, MS was just advertising for Windows 8 programmers just a few months ago. How do you integrate a set of coding teams fast enough to crank out a brand new OS and have it tested and ready to roll in approximately 18 months? Perhaps it could be done, if Windows 8 only amounts to Vista Service Pack 2.
 
[citation][nom]dinamic[/nom]windows 7 = OLD (first release 2006/aka vista)[/citation]

But vista is a buggy, slow, memory eating OS that is overall, a crappy OS for most people to use. Most Vista "lovers" - disable many features to make it more usable... While with Win7, those features and more can be left on and STILL use less memory and resources.

If you read the Toms Hardware article about 2D video & memory, you would understand why Vista will always be broken crap. Here is the specific page: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/2d-windows-gdi,2539-6.html

Windows7 runs fine on computers with 1GB of RAM which even 2 GB would simply choke a vista box. Look at all the 4~8GB Vista boxes out there for basic/home/gaming computers... Windows7 doesn't have those memory issues.

Yes, Win7 is based off the "advancements" of vista. But the issues of Vista and its problems don't make it a viable upgrade from XP.
 
While I won't argue with that, what do they intend to put in 8 that they didn't put in 7 in the first place? Are they suggesting they rushed out an unfinished product?
Click to expand...

MS release an unfinished os? Never... unless you count every one they've released...
 
[citation][nom]AsAnAtheist[/nom]Hmm Windows 8 I wonder what it will bring to the table.[/citation]

My guess is that it will be designed to make a better use of CPU-GPU integration. This integration might also be a reason why Windows 8 is coming so soon.
 
My friend told me this, i called him retarded. I guess it is I who is retarded. Really? Next year? I'm only now upgrading all of my systems to win7, and now i got win8 comming along? Can't they leave me to get bored of win7 first? If they end up republishing 7 with a new logo I will not be bothering.
 
Honestly, some people will just piss and moan whatever MS do. If they sit with XP for 8 years people complain that they don't have as frequent an update as OSX, then if they drop the lifecycle back to a couple of years people moan again saying they are profiteering.

Make. Up. Your. Minds.

I personally only paid £30 for Windows 7, my wife is doing a masters degree and got it for me via the student scheme. Maybe if it is really successful then MS should keep doing the same, an incremental update path with shorter intervals and lower price. That should keep all the moaners happy, as well as keeping stockholders happy as uptake should also be high.
 
They can do that, that is fine. Looks like they are just trying to follow Apple OS model in terms of releases. The difference being the price. Apple does not charge 250-400 for the OS and there is no upgrade price and a full install price. You just pay 29.00 for the new OS and that is it. If Microsoft adopts a price structure that makes sense for a 2 year lifecycle OS then it is ok. Say $75 or $99.99 or something around there it would be fine.
 
[citation][nom]ap3x[/nom]They can do that, that is fine. Looks like they are just trying to follow Apple OS model in terms of releases.[/citation]
I wonder if Apple were following MS first? Didn't MS have 5 major OS releases between 1995 and 2001, those being 95, 98, Me, 2000 & XP? OSX first desktop release was in March 2001 so I suppose it was a good strategy to follow MS, because MS then changed direction and stayed with XP for a few years before goping back to a short cycle people think Apple invented the short cycle. People have very short memories about this sort of stuff.
 
[citation][nom]razorblaze42[/nom]I read some post that windows 8 will move to 128bit, guess thats if we see 128bit cpu's by that time.[/citation]
Really? Where did you read that? In the National Enquirer? Was that before the "Alien Arrested for Driving UFO Drunk"? Please think before you even try to sound smart or pass along "info" which is so comical it almost made me fall off my chair. 128bit.... LOL
 
Ill buy it. This is nothing new Microsoft did this all the time until xp, now they are back to full speed after the bump they made with vista.
 
[citation][nom]gayan[/nom]Great.. I will hang on to my XP for another two years then (why waste $100+ for a product that is going to be replaced in a years time, when what I have now gets the job done perfectly OK)[/citation]

This is very true. First they released Vista which I eventually dumped for XP. Then they released Win 7 just a couple of years later. Now Win 8? Come on, this is not a sequel to a popular Video game. I think Windows 7 addressed a lot of issues Vista had; however before people can get comfy with the new OS they are trying to release another one. Personally I think this is Steve Ballmer's overly opportunistic business model. When Gates was at the helm at Redmond MS was not this $greedy$. After all Win XP proved that a reasonably featured OS can last for the long haul.
 
[citation][nom]zak_mckraken[/nom]While I understand every product has a life-cycle, my point of view is that you gather feedback of your product to better prepare the next one. What could they possibly working on now? They claim 7 is the best Windows so far. While I won't argue with that, what do they intend to put in 8 that they didn't put in 7 in the first place? Are they suggesting they rushed out an unfinished product?[/citation]

It's not an unfinished product. MS is using the same product life cycle auto manufacturers use. Release a product every 2 years with a new look and feel so at to make existing customers feel they own an outdated product and upgrade. Ballmer just got greedy!
 
We can only hope that they do not start artificially make older products even more older... As long as programs run in windows Vista, win7, win8, win9 etc. it's not problem how many os MS will release. Everytime they bring something that makes older one obsolete (read XP to Vista) in some sentence it gets more serious.
You don't need the newest os for anything, if every progam you use, works in the one you own at this moment...
And yeah, the MS do it for the money, what else? They are busines company from the bone to the skin...
 
[citation][nom]hannibal[/nom]We can only hope that they do not start artificially make older products even more older... As long as programs run in windows Vista, win7, win8, win9 etc. it's not problem how many os MS will release. Everytime they bring something that makes older one obsolete (read XP to Vista) in some sentence it gets more serious. You don't need the newest os for anything, if every progam you use, works in the one you own at this moment...And yeah, the MS do it for the money, what else? They are busines company from the bone to the skin...[/citation]

Thankfully developers are slow to support new releases, thus forcing Microsoft to slow down, else they lose compatibility and support.
 
Gossips are going around that, Windows 8 will support 128 bit tooo.. Lets see...
But this much small life span for a Successful and stable version of Windows 7 makes me so sad....
 
Why are all of you complaining?, no one is told they have to upgrade... It's optional, isn't it?

I'll tell you why the new OS is necessary.... Hardware advances force MS to do so. So if you are planning to buy new machine ina few years you may have no choice to go with a new OS.

In 2 or 3 years we will be having 16,32 and possibly 64 cores on a chip and 2 chips on a motherboard (this year you already have 6-8 core, and boards being designed for 2 chips). This begs to differ why a new OS is needed...for cloud computing or distributed computing. so the OS can arrange the use of the processors to best utilize the power of the cores. Right now, the OS does this poorly. In later OS's the core will be arrange to do vector,scalar,array,and other arrangements to best utilize the number of cores , rather than letting a bunch of them sit idle while a small number of them do all the work(Intel's Sandy and Ivy bridge versions will have vector extensions). There would be other hardware changes that can also force this, from bus design to protocol and security changes for software and hardware (microcode protection).

Cloud computing is also useful in using cpu cycles from other running machines in your business or housenold, nice using that extra power will someone is doing simple word processing.

Another reason would be for external hard drives, you need a DRFS (distributed remote file system) for network drives. Hardware is making possible to have HD on routers, on usb hubs, or a multiple hd drives on a
usb hub on a router. Wait till you have wifi HD's.

MS is in direct contact with Hardware developers and chip makers. Intel just gave a bunch of 64 core cpu's out to universities to develope cloud computing algorithms for future chip designs and OS design, because they will need it in a few years or so(MS even has their own Univerisity and research campus). However 128 bit isn't necessary for awhile. The only one's who need it are research and library storage facilities, so all the ram in multiple machines, hd's in multiple machines and web addresses(ip's) can be addresses as a Memory allocations (ram address).You could address all the memory in the world on your computer, home users will never need this. A 128 bit data path would be nice, but it won't increase speed that much, but there is a trade off against slow down from memory pointers. The big increase in speed will come from bus designs in the next few years (and CPU speeds increases and cores increases) will seriously increase computing power more (20ghz clock speed in 10 years by intel's estimate).
 
Dear Microsoft: Please tell me this is a joke. Does your company really expect my company to expend money on the next version of Windows after debugging Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server for you? I feel like such an idiot for even asking but why should I trust the hacks writing this stuff? Most of the developers don't even live in this country. And yes, I am talking about the USA. The country that invented the GUI, the IP Address, and the Ethernet.
- Johnny Raincloud
 
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