Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 27 May 2008 23:05
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
Yes, that’s right – Microsoft has said a lot about the upcoming Windows
7 while masterfully revealing little, spilling not many but barely more
than a single bean of info. Is it the perfect start to a glorious new
era of “promise and deliver” or just more of the same-ol’, same-ol’?
Hey, check it out for yourself: Windows head honcho Steven Sinofsky talks to Ina Fried over at
CNET US, while Chris Flores issues his own post on ‘Communicating Windows 7’ over at the Windows
Vista Team Blog - at the same time a stack of supposed Windows 7 screenshots
mysteriously leak to the web!
Talk about timing – are the photo leaks a coincidence or perfectly timed? They come when Steve Ballmer has just been quoted coming out saying he’s so pleased with total Vista sales right now – although there must surely be many Vista equipped computers in corporate and consumer land that are having Vista removed and XP re-installed.
From what we can tell, Windows 7 promises great new features Microsoft can’t talk about yet, will be built on a natural evolution of the Windows 2008 Server kernel, itself an evolution of the Vista kernel, and while there will be some componentisation, Windows 7 won’t feature a totally rewritten ‘MinWin’ mini-kernel.
Instead, Windows 7 will be 100% compatible with the software and hardware of Vista, preventing Windows 7 upgraders going through incompatible driver hell as happened with Vista itself, XP before it, 2000 before that, ME/98/95 and 3.1 before that still!
Microsoft says they are targeting Windows 7 to ‘run on the same hardware recommended for Windows Vista’, although if they can pull this off, it will be a miracle.
That said, Apple manages to make newer versions of Mac OS X Leopard running faster on older computers – why can’t Microsoft manage this too? We will see.
So when will Windows 7 arrive – and what else is contained within? Please read on to page 2.
