Vista successor "Vienna" planned for late 2009

General Topics
1

I’ll believe it when I see it, but Microsoft is planning a late 2009 release date for the next version of Windows, codenamed Vienna. That would be just two and a half years after the launch of Vista, which in turn was released more than 5 years after Windows XP.

Many of the upgrades that were planned for Vista had been put on hold when it became clear that the most important item for Microsoft to focus on was security. Therefore Vienna will feature a new file system and a new user interface (no more start menus or toolbars), which had originally been intended for Vista.

Most significantly, Vienna will break backward compatibility with many existing Windows programs. While that will probably make it easier for Microsoft to hit it’s projected release date, I can’t imagine too many folks will be happy about the need to upgrade almost all of their existing software. That said, it’s possible that Vienna could include some sort of virtualization layer that would allow you to run older programs. Heck, if you can run Windows applications on Linux using Wine, why not run Windows programs on Windows?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128888-c,vistalonghorn/article.html

2

Oh this will be GREAT!!! What a selling point. Now I can get 20-25 people to switch to Mac off of this! No one want to switch because they have to get new software, but now even if they stay with windows they have to get new software, WOOT 8)

3

They won’t have finished this one by then ;D I think they had a similar time frame for Vista and look what happened to that.

Perhaps this ‘new’ OS will include the features that dropped off the Vista features list like the New File Format. I don’t see how dropping backward compatibility will save them that much time if they are effecting building a new OS from the ground up.

I think they have shot themselves in the foot, who wants to upgrade to Vista, when they have extended support for XP Home and yet another ‘new’ OS in two years that I believe will cause you some major issues.

4
  1. The Linux community is starting to unite. Fewer & better versions, created by companies who work together, will be the (near) future here.
  2. The ReactOS Project (http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html) will have a (hopefully stable) 0.5 beta version sooner or later.
  3. Mac’s are starting to sell more in Europe (probably elsewhere too).
  4. Bill Gates retired.

The future of Microsoft doesn’t seem very good to me, or -at least- the competition will be much harder. This of course is good news for the consumers (us, that is).

5

Mac Market Share is rising (Slowly) and so is the Linux market share.
I fully support Linux and anyone who wants to use it, It is a great OS I just wish It had the software availability that Mac OS X and windows have (I would drop the Mac in a heartbeat for Linux if it did :))

6

The more restrictive and draconian the measures M$ employs in new OSes the more likely people will say, thanks but no thanks. I strongly doubt I will upgrade to Vista and this announcement (a new OS in two years) is just another nail in the coffin of vista for me.

7

Vista is starting to sound like the new Windows M.E.

8

The day that direct x will be supported in linux is the day i switch over from windows. That is NEVER i am afraid !

9

Is OpenGL supported in Linux? because a lot of your DirectX games run fine with OpenGL on the Mac (once ported of course)

10

Here’s more info on Vienna.

http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/windows_7.asp

11

It certainly is :wink:

Here’s what Wikipedia says on Direct3d and OpenGL:

… Direct3D is a proprietary API designed by Microsoft Corporation for hardware 3D acceleration on the Windows platform …

… OpenGL is an open standard API that provides a number of functions for the rendering of 2D and 3D graphics. An implementation is available on most modern operating systems. …

Here’s the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Direct3D_and_OpenGL