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Windows 7 to replace Vista in 2009

Microsoft expects the latest Windows operating system, code-named Windows 7, to be released "sometime in the next year or so".

The software giant has been aiming to issue more regular updates of the operating system software that powers the majority of the world's PCs. Nevertheless, Bill Gates comments suggest that a successor to Vista might be released sooner than was generally expected. Microsoft has said it expects to release a new version of Windows approximately three years after the introduction of Vista in January 2007. The new versions of Windows will help revolutionise mobile phones and run the desk of the future, which would have a touch surface display allowing users to call up items using their hands.

Windows Vista is taking a while to catch on, with just 6.3 percent of enterprise users on the OS by the end of 2007. According to research most upgrades were from users of Windows 2000 which lost around six percent of users rather than XP, which Vista is intended to replace. Around a quarter of enterprises plan to upgrade to Vista in 2008 although companies may change plans and wait for the release of Windows 7.

Adoption of Microsoft's latest browser, Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), has also been sluggish, with just 30 percent of enterprise users on it 15 months after its launch. Slightly more than 70 percent of those surveyed were still using IE6 at the end of last year, despite the imminent arrival of a beta version of IE8. In contrast, Mozilla's Firefox 2.0 virtually replaced Firefox 1.5 the same period after its release. The proportion of users on Firefox actually doubled during 2007, with 18 percent using it at the end of the year. The proportion of users on all versions of IE fell by 10 percent. The survey quizzed more than 50,000 users from 2,300 large enterprises over the course of 2007.

Lol no chance. 2010 is the very earliest they will release it.

Late2010/early 2011 is the Microsoft estimate, and that was a matter of months ago when the codename changed from Vienna.

They have to get 7 right, its already 3 years behind schedule, so if they even dare to rush it, bang goes Microsoft's share of the home computer market.

Microsoft and Bill Gates know full well this is likely to be their final complete revision of the worlds favourite operating system; take up of Vista is slow, with many IT professionals still opting for Windows XP and 2003 over Windows Vista and 2008. If they fook it up, the world will not forget it, and it will be goodbye to Microsoft.

Where did you get this report... it seems rather odd, why is Bill Gates apparently calling it the "successor to Vista" - its actually the successor to Windows XP.

Dont have it yet when the lad posts one i will pass it on

lol cheers.

I can see Microsoft holdring out with Vista for a couple of year's yet... business's were reluctant to ditch 2000 for XP, but only in the past year or so have businesses finally begun to move across to XP and 2003 in their masses due to OS maturity.

I have a feeling Microsoft will want to leech as much revenue as they can out of Vista before launching the true XP successor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7334123.stm for more details. Interesting to notice that the Mickey$oft spokeswoman was in there PDQ to correct him. Have to say that I ditched all things Microsoft when I retired after 20+ years in the software industry, I now use Mandriva Linux as my OS, OpenOffice as my office suite, and Lazarus/FreePascal as my compiler, and I don't miss Billy boy one little bit, at least not until I look at my software bill.

Brian.

Cheers mate.

Glad to see someone can handle an MS-Free life lol; ive tried it and failed miserably!!

The thing with trying to use Linux is that so much of it (IMO, anyway) depends on the distribution that you try. I cringed when I saw someone mentioning that they'd tried Ubuntu and then given up on Linux. Unless you're coming from a Mac background, I wouldn't recommend ANYONE to try a GNOME desktop. I've tried Ubuntu and hated it, it just seems totally counter-intuitive to me (but then I've never used a Mac in my life). KDE is a far superior desktop, and it will be much more familiar to someone coming from a Windows setup. If you must try Ubuntu, try the Kubuntu variant - same underlying distro, but KDE rather than GNOME.

Same goes for the distros. I've lost count of the number of different ones that I've tried, must be at least half a dozen, probably more, but I still keep coming back to Mandriva, formerly Mandrake, as the best of the bunch. Other distros will adopt newer versions of the kernel faster than Mandriva do, but in my experience, Mandriva just works, and does so well. My wife still runs 2000, and I have at least as many problems to sort out on her PC as I do on my Mandriva box.

Anyone who wants to try Linux, start out with Mandriva, or at least include it in the distros that you try before making a decision. You can buy it loaded on to an 8GB USB key drive if you wish, so that you don't even have to touch your hard drive (the USB key drive comes with about 3GB of free space).


Brian.

I think the problem for me was I am so used to using Linux from the command line (its my job lol) I ended up going down that route to do everything, the interface just made things seem complicated in a way lol.

This is one of the things that got me irritated, I was looking for a way to do something and then within minutes, when I could'nt find what I was looking for, I would be back on the old command line to do it instead, and it just felt tedious.

Added to the fact I am so used to the Windows interface, and have been for more then a decade now, I think I just feel more "comfortable" using it.

So until XP dies, I will be leaving Linux by the wayside, I still say though that Linux could be made far simplar then what any release currently is (although admittedly I havent used Mandriva since it was called Mandrake, but I tend to find all releases are extremely alike in the way they work and they all share the same interfaces etc).

It seems Mandriva are having a try at remedying that last - at least, the latest updates seem to have KDE renamed as MDE, and I suspect that 'M' isn't a typo. It's still recognisably KDE, though.

And yes, if you're used to using Linux from the command line, then things are obviously well different for you. Much the same as those of us who were using PCs in MS-DOS (or even CP/M!) days before Billy foisted Windows on an unsuspecting world.

BTW, if you don't already use it, and are a command line geek in Windows, take a look at http://www.jpsoft.com It's the command processor which Microsoft *should* have written.


Brian.

IMHO Mandrivia is by far the fastest an easiest Linux Disto to use....It runs our file server and IP setup at work...Has done for the past 5-6 years (Mandrake as was) only down time was due to me pratting about wif it ....or HDD Fails.

I might be wrong but I think it is French, Based around the Red Hat OS. The Red Hat manuals seem to have most of the answers when I stuck. LoL.

Out of interest have you seen the new party tricks the 3D desktop can do...Beats the shit out of Windoze!!!!

Right about it being French, I'm not sure about based around Red Hat, but it sure uses RPMs. I haven't tried the 3D Desktop because this PC is an old clunker, second (or third) hand Dell PowerEdge server, and the graphics card in it crawls, it's an ancient Rage128. 2D works just fine for me.


Brian.

currently running windows 7..has the neat look of vista without sucking up loads of memory. like xp it is pretty capable of running on older systems. a week and a half of use and I am thinking this may be the os that will let me skip vista completely.

missus works for the council and not long ago did they decide to update to xp with sp2 lol - they wont consider vista for a long time... no business would without knowing the issues, solutions, etc with the os

Why SP2 looooooooool!

The council aint got a clue, SP2 was the most buggy service pack update for countless years, whereas SP3 on the other hand, improves stability and performance, and has no reports of any major issues.

The mind boggles sometimes as to how the IT managers working for places like the NHS and council, keep their jobs!

It's easy Matt. The people higher up have even less of a clue than the IT managers do