Microsoft misses internal deadline for Vista RTM

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Thursday, 26 October 2006

With so many delays to Windows Vista over the last few years, what’s two or three more weeks between friends? With the RTM scheduled to be finished in the US today (the 25th), two reports say it's now coming early November. Read on to find out why.

According to respected Taiwanese tech news website DigiTimes and US based Paul Thurrott at his website, the final RTM version of Vista is being delayed one last time.

Why? Because a show-stopper series of bugs has been found in RTM build 5824. This build had around 500 bugs, a third of 1450 bugs in the older Vista RC2. While this 500 bug figure has been reported to be the number at which the release is practically good to go, the show-stopping new bugs delivered a devastating blow to the October 25 RTM deadline, which has now shifted to November 8.

These new bugs are said to cause computers upgraded from Windows XP to Windows Vista to crash and freeze up and require complete re-installation. Releasing an OS that definitely did that to upgraders would clearly not be a good look.

According to Paul Thurrott, that bug was finally found and fixed in a new build, 5840, last Friday. Testing over the weekend proved successful, with Microsoft set to continue testing it until the November release to RTM.

This will be just in time to fulfil the November 2006 promise of launching a business-ready Vista version, barring any further last minute changes. Let’s hope this final round of testing ferrets out any last bugs and problems so Vista is as trouble-free a process for new users.

Naturally, someone will find the first bug in the business, and then the consumer version, and the news will be all over the Web. Microsoft will release the first patches and updates for Vista soon enough, so if further bugs are found, they will be fixed. But at least this is much easier to do in a world of broadband.

Microsoft has noted that the already announced timetables for the release of Vista remain unchanged, so it’s still January 2007 for consumer versions and all the boxed upgrade editions.
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