Windows 8?

This from the CompTIA SmartBrief
Microsoft Windows 8 To Arrive In 2012 -- InformationWeek

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I don't see why this is such a big deal.

Windows 95: 1995
Windows 98: 1998
Windows ME: 2000
Windows 2000: 2000
Windows XP: 2001
Windows Vista: 2006
Windows 7: 2009
Does it really surprise you the windows 8 would be slated for 2012?

tiersten

Nothing particularly unusual about Microsoft's plans here.

OSX has been on a 2 year cycle since 10.3 so they push out versions even quicker than Microsoft.

Darthn3ss

Devilsbane wrote: »

Does it really surprise you the windows 8 would be slated for 2012?

Do a lot of businesses/schools use 7 yet?

Devilsbane

Darthn3ss wrote: »

Do a lot of businesses/schools use 7 yet?

It is a small percentage that is growing. I know the college I went to converted to windows 7 over the summer. (The machines originally came with Windows Vista, but they installed XP through last year).

Where I work we are still on XP with no intentions of going to 7 yet. However they are working on deploying Office:2010 much to the dismay of many employees.

tiersten

Darthn3ss wrote: »

Do a lot of businesses/schools use 7 yet?

Is this a dig at Windows?

Businesses and schools always lag behind the latest/greatest version for compatibility reasons. They tend to have large amounts of legacy applications. I know companies that are still on Windows 2000 which only just hit EOS this year.

Devilsbane

tiersten wrote: »

Businesses and schools always lag behind the latest/greatest version for compatibility reasons. They tend to have large amounts of legacy applications. I know companies that are still on Windows 2000 which only just hit EOS this year.

Schools not as much since they have an obligation to teach cutting edge technologies, but business lags way behind. Where I work we just went to XP SP3 a couple months ago, and I have spoken with friends who are still on SP2 where they work. And we have several windows 2k servers still around serving file/print services.

tiersten

Devilsbane wrote: »

Schools not as much since they have an obligation to teach cutting edge technologies, but business lags way behind.

Huh. Must just be the places I've been to then because they've always lagged behind in the crusty ancient general computer labs. Good to know it isn't like that everywhere!

earweed

I wasn't surprised to see Windows 8 rumors already popping up. Just thought this was good info. Seems they are adding new features to the OS to try to work better together with mobile devices which I think is a good thing.
The article also mentions that MS may open an online Apps store which I think is interesting. I think MS is behind in the mobile market and they need to do some serious work to get a foothold in that market.

Devilsbane

earweed wrote: »

The article also mentions that MS may open an online Apps store which I think is interesting. I think MS is behind in the mobile market and they need to do some serious work to get a foothold in that market.

I heard today that Microsoft is opening a Microsoft Store in the Mall of America across from the Apple store.

Bokeh

M$ has been running ads on Craigs List for folks to work at their stores here in the Twin Cities area for a few months now. Would be interesting if they do go across from Apple. I can see both having carnival-like barkers out front, trying to drive folks to their prospective areas.

it_consultant

Darthn3ss wrote: »

Do a lot of businesses/schools use 7 yet?

70% of my desktops are Windows 7, primarily because we went through a PC refresh at two of my clients. Some of the new ones we kept with XP (against my better judgement) and I can tell you that almost all of our desktop support calls are on the XP clients. I'm sold, I won't deploy another PC with Windows XP. If there is a compatibility problem there is Windows XP mode.

Devilsbane

Bokeh wrote: »

M$ has been running ads on Craigs List for folks to work at their stores here in the Twin Cities area for a few months now. Would be interesting if they do go across from Apple. I can see both having carnival-like barkers out front, trying to drive folks to their prospective areas.

Maybe they will have a nerf war or something lol

apr911

Devilsbane wrote: »

I don't see why this is such a big deal.

Windows 95: 1995
Windows 98: 1998
Windows ME: 2000
Windows 2000: 2000
Windows XP: 2001
Windows Vista: 2006
Windows 7: 2009
Does it really surprise you the windows 8 would be slated for 2012?

There are a few things of note here...

1. The upgrade path of the 95 (Win4) to 98 (Win4.1) was widely adopted by Corporate clients because of the increased stability of Win98 over 95.

2. The upgrade path of 98 (Win4.1) to 2000 (Win5) was widely adopted by Corporate clients because of increase stability and feature set of 2000. Especially when coupled with the corresponding release of Server 2000 which was a serious overhaul over NT and necessitated an upgrade of the Client OS.

Windows ME (Win4.9)... Was marketed to home users as Windows 2000 was released for Corporate users at about the same time. It was actually a rather stable OS for the systems designed to run it but it was less stable on custom machines and as home user upgrade path. Thus it got a bad wrap and widespread adoption failed.

3. Windows XP (Win5.1) was much more quickly adopted by home users as it had more features and was more stable than 98/ME and was more polished than 2000. Corporate users followed a with the release of a corresponding server OS in Windows Server 2003 (Win5.2) which was more stable and had additional features over Windows Server 2000.

Something XP did a very good job of that helped spur its adoption was not requiring major (and expensive) hardware upgrades/refreshes to run well/efficiently on systems... XP ala 2001 was nice and lean, it required only 64 MB of ram to run and could run fast and clean on 128-512 MB. Of course with each service pack it became more bloated and now I cant imagine running it, even with all themes and features turned off, on anything less than 512 MB and with themes and features on, 768 MB.

4. Microsoft really blew it with Windows Vista (Win6). Vista was a bit of a step backward. Corporate users wouldnt adopt because it didnt add any useful features for corporate users (shiny new GUI does not equal a useful feature to corporate users) except for maybe increased security, however, it was a nightmare to administer with UAC turned on so most users turned it off negating that benefit. Finally, it was not timed to correspond with the release of a new server OS. So M$ released a client OS without a corresponding server.

On the home front Vista adoption was slow because like ME, Vista is horribly buggy when run on systems not designed for it and fixes and driver support was lacking. Additionally, power users disliked it because they couldnt get it to run lean and efficient like XP and general users disliked it because they didnt want to approve every little change that occurs on the computer. Oh, and lets not forget it had more retail versions/editions to choose from than there are full release versions of windows (maybe an exaggeration) adding to the confusion.Thus it developed a bad reputation resulting in decreased adoption.

5. Windows 7 (Win7) was definitely more of win for Microsoft. Its a crisp, clean, arguably more secure OS and Microsoft did a good job of cleaning up the product line by dropping back to 3 consumer versions.

Unfortunately, its corresponding server Os (2k

doesnt bring anything ground breaking to the table over the amazingly stable and viable workhorse that is 2k3. 2k8 may be more stable and secure by virtue of its more compartmentalized nature and service installs but other than that it doesnt really offer that much new/improved stuff. Unfortunately it also had a poorly timed market debut in early 2008 at the height of the recent recession, this pushed back the general adoption period (market release [eval/budget]+ 6-8months [deploy]) well into 2009.

The slow adoption of 2k8 and continuing tight budgets of IT departments has resulted in slow adoption of Win7 in Corporate clients. Adoption rates are increasing as things start to improve and/or companies enter necessary and unpostponable hardware refreshes, additionally w2k3 entered its Extended Support phase this year which should hasten adoption of 2k8 and thus win7.

The economy hasnt helped it with the consumer client either and the fact is people are generally still happy with XP and unlike the first versions of XP, it doesnt run as lean and requires some fairly beefy hardware upgrades for most home users. The upgrades costs are in addition to the licensing costs of $120-220

**********************************8

I think this is why people are surprised Win8 is slated for 2012. M$ has had slow adoption rates of their last 2 major releases (Windows Vista (6) and Windows 7) and Windows XP continues to account for >50% market share of the client OS market place. This has led to problems for Microsoft in killing off XP (read M$ extends downgrade rights to 2020) and he fact that these releases have not yet, nor had an opportunity to, saturate the market place raises the question of just how often can microsoft come out with major releases?

In closing consider this...
95/98/ME are primarily the same code base (ver 4) Win9x.

And now for some dates of major code releases of Windows...
Win1 - 1985
Win2 - 1987
Win3 - 1990 - First widely adopted version
Win4 - 1995 (95/98/98SE/ME - AKA Win9x)
Win5 - 2000 (2000, XP, 2K3)
Win6 - 2006 (Vista)
Win7 - 2008/2009 (2K8, Win7)

Youll notice that the major code pushes for the widely adopted versions (Windows 3, 4-Win9x, 5-2k/xp/2k3 and 7? or 8? ) occurs once every 5 years and for the non-widely adopted (Windows 1, 2 and 6-Vista), every 2-3 years

In 2003, Windows 98 was still the Client OS of choice on 1 in every 4 computers. 2 years past release of XP and 3 years past release of 2000 and ME.

In 2007, 6 years after release and 1 year past the release of Windows Vista, XP reached its peak market share of 70%.

Windows 7 was Released 370 days ago. All things considered, I think it has a pretty good adoption rate thus far and its picking up speed. XP is still the dominant player though so until Win7 >50% market share, I think you'll see surprise that the next new version is coming.

-APR911

Cert Poor

Why Win8 when we haven't even had SP1 for Win 7?

apr911

Cert Poor wrote: »

Why Win8 when we haven't even had SP1 for Win 7?

Funny you should mention that. I almost forgot. The Windows 7 SP1 Release Candidate was publicly released yesterday (Oct. 26, 2010).

The final version is slated for release in sometime in the 1st half of 2011.

I in no way recommend or endorse installing a Release Candidate Service Pack on your computer. I will not be held responsible for any mayhem that may ensue from doing so... but for those of you interested, up for a challenge or willing to take the risk...

Win7 SP1 RC
Download Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate(RC)

N2IT

I'm one of the Windows 7 testers. I love it!

Don't get me wrong I have to do A LOT of work arounds, but I get it to perform and I am growing with it. It feels good to be one of the first to actually use it in an enterprise environment.

snokerpoker

I heard all the W8 rumors recently and am not surprised. As other posters have mentioned, M$ has released a new OS every few years. While I'm not surprised, I'm annoyed because I like Windows 7 and think it should be around longer than 2-3 years.

infoman66

I do not know where he will hang from the new versions of OS ...
Win xp grown so much to my heart that I do not know how to say goodbye from him ...
Most of all I bother graphic changes and beautification of the desktop, that do not add functionality or work faster ...
Its duration Vista, Windows 7 fits in the standard procedure of enhancing the OS.. (1-2 years).

RobertKaucher

infoman66 wrote: »

I do not know where he will hang from the new versions of OS ...
Win xp grown so much to my heart that I do not know how to say goodbye from him ...
Most of all I bother graphic changes and beautification of the desktop, that do not add functionality or work faster ...
Its duration Vista, Windows 7 fits in the standard procedure of enhancing the OS.. (1-2 years).

With Windows 7 64 bit on the very same system that I once had Win XP 32 bit I can say I am much faster and more productive. I can find my programs and switch between windows much more easily. Also, support for using dual monitors on my laptop is far more stable, I no longer have to reboot everynight, and some of the applications I am working with that occasionally hung or crashed in XP work like magic. If IS wants to put me back on XP they will have to pry the laptop from my dead and lifeless hands!

Paul Boz

I somewhat consider Windows 7 to be a service pack of Vista which gets the OS (Vista) where it should have been from day 1. I'm sure MS would have considered improving Vista but decided to move forward because of how negative the market reaction was to Vista's launch. They seemingly wiped their hands completely clean of the Vista product, similar to windows ME.

I don't have issue with newer versions of windows coming out. 2012 is a long time from now in computing terms. I'm sure there will be some great beta releases along the way. I've been using Windows 7 since RC1 so I've had several years of experience with the OS now. In a year and a half when an RC version of Windows 8 comes out I will have been on windows 7 for nearly four years. Shift that timeline forward about six to nine months for those who go with final release versions and its still the same 4 year window.

exampasser

apr911 wrote: »

Funny you should mention that. I almost forgot. The Windows 7 SP1 Release Candidate was publicly released yesterday (Oct. 26, 2010).

The final version is slated for release in sometime in the 1st half of 2011.

I in no way recommend or endorse installing a Release Candidate Service Pack on your computer. I will not be held responsible for any mayhem that may ensue from doing so... but for those of you interested, up for a challenge or willing to take the risk...

Win7 SP1 RC
Download Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate(RC)

I hope that the service pack will fix Realtek HD audio crackling issues that many people (myself included) have been experiencing. I'll have look into it to see if it addresses integrated audio problems.

SephStorm

haven't heard about it. I am very annoyed however that my company is still using Windows Vista, even on computers that dont meet the minimum requirements... anyway, we are getting new computers that should run vista better... guess what OS they come installed with? Yep, Windows 7, but someone has decided that its not time yet, so we have to re-image with vista...

tiersten

exampasser wrote: »

I hope that the service pack will fix Realtek HD audio crackling issues that many people (myself included) have been experiencing. I'll have look into it to see if it addresses integrated audio problems.

Your problem is more likely that Realtek is crap and nothing to do with Windows itself...

exampasser

tiersten wrote: »

Your problem is more likely that Realtek is crap and nothing to do with Windows itself...

At least they make some good wireless NIC chipsets lol. Anyways from my research, some people are reporting that they do not suffer the same issue from the chip under earlier versions of Windows. Sorry for getting a bit off-topic.

ehnde

SephStorm wrote: »

haven't heard about it. I am very annoyed however that my company is still using Windows Vista, even on computers that dont meet the minimum requirements... anyway, we are getting new computers that should run vista better... guess what OS they come installed with? Yep, Windows 7, but someone has decided that its not time yet, so we have to re-image with vista...

Dude I'm annoyed for you. That's the dumbest thing I've heard all day.

tiersten

exampasser wrote: »

At least they make some good wireless NIC chipsets lol.

I've never really used any Realtek wireless chipsets. I think some of the consumer devices I've got have them embedded but I've never used one directly. Its tended to be Cisco, Intel or Atheros.

exampasser wrote: »

Anyways from my research, some people are reporting that they do not suffer the same issue from the chip under earlier versions of Windows.

That generally implies issues with the drivers which would be supplied by Realtek.

exampasser

tiersten wrote: »

That generally implies issues with the drivers which would be supplied by Realtek.

That may indeed be the case, (although you would think that they would be able to fix a driver issue by now as it's been a known glitch for over a year, maybe they just have poorly written drivers) but from my personal experience the crackling issue tends to happen during times when the hard drive is being accessed so it could also be some hardware configuration issue(some people have mentioned by possibility of an IQR issue), who knows?

exampasser

Back on topic(kinda), I wonder if Microsoft continues with the numeric naming scheme for Windows OS's if they would call what would be Windows 13, Windows 14 to ward off bad luck lol (would be funnier it it was released on Friday the 13th), but that's a long way off though.