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Developers Will Get Windows 7 Alpha On Oct. 28
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 25, 2008 04:01 PM
from the let's-call-it-project-kilimanjaro dept.
from the let's-call-it-project-kilimanjaro dept.
CWmike writes "Microsoft confirmed today that it will hand out 'pre-beta' release copies of Windows 7 on Oct. 28, at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC). Mike Swanson, a Microsoft technology evangelist, has said attendees will receive a 160GB external USB hard drive that will presumably include the Windows 7 alpha. Mike Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, was cautiously optimistic that today's announcement meant Microsoft was on track with Windows 7. 'If they didn't do this, you would have to wonder if they could make the schedule,' Cherry said."
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Technology: Microsoft To Release Cloud-Oriented Windows OS 209 comments
CWmike writes "Within a month, Microsoft will unveil what CEO Steve Ballmer called 'Windows Cloud.' The operating system, which will likely have a different name, is intended for developers writing cloud-computing applications, said Ballmer, who spoke to an auditorium of IT managers at a Microsoft-sponsored conference in London. Ballmer was short on details, saying more information would spoil the announcement. Windows Cloud is a separate project from Windows 7, the operating system that Microsoft is developing to succeed Windows Vista."
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Vista/Mohave Remix (Score:3, Funny)
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Did you mean Vista RC1?
Re:Vista/Mohave Remix (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a bit bigger than that. Multi-touch capabilities, vastly improved BitLocker, new networking capabilities that simplify sending/sharing files, a couple substantial changes to UAC (in some cases simply changing simple config options to make it less "annoying", in other cases adding new capabilities such as automatic elevation for MS-signed binaries). Bootup and hibernation are being parallelized and should run faster on multi-core machines now. Many apps, including the calculator, notepad, and Paint have undergone significant UI and/or feature upgrades. The general UI has been updated somewhat as well.
The kernel sounds remarkably similar, though. More like 6.1 or 6.2 than 7.0.
Parent
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The Vista codeline is what Windows 2008 is built on (it is Vista SP1 with additional server-orientated stuff). The Windows 7 codebase is built on top of this.
Also, from what I understand, MS aren't doing anything too drastic in the kernel.
With Vista as the foundation (which they rewrote a lot of, IIRC) they can make incremental, evolutionary improvements.
Take Firefox as an example: Mozilla didn't rewrite it when they were developing FF3; they cleaned up bits, for sure, and added new features, but it was a l
Re: (Score:2)
I think you meant Vista/Mohave Redux.
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True,
And if EAX/DirectSound and DirectSound3D don't work, this thing is headed for the same DRM/Securepath infested garbage bin Vista is in.
External HD? (Score:2)
If they require an external HD to hand this thing out it better contain a boatload of documentation or developer tools. I've never seen one of these, so can someone tell us what MS usually hands out in a pre-beta for developers that takes up so many bits?
Re:External HD? (Score:5, Funny)
Here you go [wikipedia.org].
Parent
What happens to windows vista now ? (Score:2)
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or doing the robot.
vista isn't going to get adopted by businesses so windows 7 is important. so for right now they need to pretend like vista is all happy fun stuff for consumers, and eventually windows 7 will fix stuff.
but (Score:2)
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Until Microsoft ends support for XP and a new version of Windows is required to ever get anything patched (still years away, but businesses must prepare).
It's evangelism! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, vista's not dead...
Mike Swanson, a Microsoft technology evangelist
Here's the text from his upcoming speech:
"And, beeHOLD, Ah say to YOO-uh, Windows 7 comes NOT to ABOLISH Vista but to FULFILL it! Ay-men!"
Don't stick around for the faith healings, you might get smacked upside the head with an external 160 Gig HDD.
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Don't stick around for the faith healings, you might get smacked upside the head with an external 160 Gig HDD.
why external ?
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they were still pushing and selling it to people ? ads and whatnot, with shaking butts etc ?
It looks like they're attacking this from two angles. There's the "Vista isn't as bad as you think it is" side, and the "Let's get something else out the door without a prejudiced bad reputation" side. Right now vista evokes the mental image of a steaming pile of bloat, so unless the marketing campaign can give the vista brand a positive image in the mind of consumers, there's no hurt in talking about the next big thing (that isn't vista). At the very worst, it will start out with 0 brand recognition, a
Windows 7 (Score:2, Insightful)
(Damn! Vista Is A Major Embarrassment We'd Better Slam Out Something That Looks Different FAST!)
Windows 7, leaner than ever! (Score:2)
On the volume of the drive... (Score:2, Interesting)
I have trouble believing that Microsoft would deliberately submit themselves to a joke so transparent that half of the Slashdot comments are about it. They worry about that sort of thing. Why, I bet Ballmer is reading this thread and throwing chairs around right now!
October 8th is the private beta (Score:4, Funny)
October 9th is the public beta. I hear they will be using Bittorrent for distribution.
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No no no. You didn't read the full article. Windows 7 only takes up 2 gigs. The rest of the space on the hard drives they're handing out is full of porn and stolen credit card numbers.
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I feel like an old fart remembering the time that we had a 4 GB harddrive.
I'm only 28 and remember loading programs from a cassette tape on our VIC-20. I also remember when we got our first 100MB hard drive for our Packard Bell, and immediately partitioned it into 5 20MB partitions.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps if you had spent some of those 20 seconds reading the article, you might have run across this sentence:
Mike Swanson, a Microsoft technology evangelist working on the PDC, said earlier this week that attendees will receive a 160GB external USB hard drive that will contain all the developer bits from the conference. The USB drive will presumably include the pre-beta version of Windows 7.
So, this includes all the bits from the conference... this means a lot of video presentations, power-point presentations and images, along with (I'd presume) a number of SDKs, what have you...
The 160GB hard drive is in no way indicative of the final size of the Windows 7.
Oh, and my first harddrive was 20MB. :)