Developers Will Get Windows 7 Alpha On Oct. 28

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."

Re:Vista/Mohave Remix

[reynaert]

I would be very surprised if Windows 7 is anything other than Vista SP2.

Windows 7

[BigBlueOx]

AKA Windows DVIAMEWBSOSTLDF
(Damn! Vista Is A Major Embarrassment We'd Better Slam Out Something That Looks Different FAST!)

Re:What happens to windows vista now ?

[blitzkrieg3]

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, as opposed to negative, and reviews will probably be favorable considering that MS set the bar so low with vista.

Re:zomg! run! or why is code so big

[WillAffleckUW]

Actually, they just said the size of the flash drive will be 160GB.

Remember, it's an alpha release, so all code modules include debug code and other information that a release candidate won't have. This assists in stepping through the debugging and allowing you to dump the status of objects and variables, including statics, at the time of a crash or problem.

But, admittedly, code bloat is a problem at Microsoft.

I hope the final version won't autoload all the libraries and all the possible apps that you might ever need or want - this is one of the reasons why WinVista is such a dog of an OS - on startup it loads a lot of chrome most people don't want and don't need - and this is why they can trick you into "choosing" a stripped down WinVista with all these optional chrome apps and libraries not there on load as "better" than WinXP.

But, given their past behavior, I wouldn't bet on them releasing a lean OS, even for business users.

Re:Vista/Mohave Remix

[Taxman415a]

Emphasis on the bit. Of course they're just claiming that it's going to have multi-touch throughout anyway. Most likely it will be half assed and even if it isn't that would still make Windows 7 a far cry from the features that were promised to be in Vista/Longhorn years ago. So yes, basically it's Windows ME all over again.