Jamie Le Souef

News is now flying around the internet of Windows 7 - how it’s to be broken down into modules allowing you to piece together the software you want and need, it’s ever jumping and speculated release date (2009, 2010, 2011), it’s UI, M1 (Milstone1) but one thing that I’ve read has really caught my eye.

In my opinion one of Microsoft’s biggest strengths is also their biggest weakness - Size. Windows with its massive market share, its split version install base and ridiculous support for legacy applications Windows is bloated and just continue to bloats. Evidence of this is clearly in Vista with its size and performance issues - not to mention the install size!

I’ve long been of the mind that Microsoft need to though caution out the window and start fresh. Windows needs to be rebuilt to be a lean and mean OS that supports future technologies and systems - allowing it to move forward and regain the title of the best OS available. This means getting rid of support for legacy applications within the core OS. No more FAT32 (even FAT16!) no more printers that are 10 years old, office 95 etc.

Virtualization! Legacy needs to be offered via Virtualization - not in the core OS.

What Microsoft should do is exactly what Apple did with the conversion to OS X - Virtualization. With all the new CPUs having hardware virtualization support, and 100+ cores foreseeable in the near future, it would seem stupid that Microsoft would start making moves to rebuild windows for the future, whilst offering support for legacy applications in a Virtual XP or vista environment.

This leads me to the latest article I’ve read that reads of is the author has some inside knowledge - thought there is no indication it’s any more than just a glorified opinion.

According to Dev Corvin “Windows 7 takes a different approach to the componentization and backwards compatibility issues; in short, it doesn’t think about them at all. Windows 7 will be a from-the-ground-up packaging of the Windows codebase; partially source, but not binary compatible with previous versions of Windows. Making the break from backwards compatibility is a dangerous proposal but a dream for software developers. Performance of native applications can be increased, distribution sizes can be cut down, functionality can be added without the worry of breaking old applications, and the overall end-user experience can be significantly improved.”

He points out that “Apple took an unorthodox approach in order to offer Mac OS 9 users the ability to retain their existing software while still upgrading to the improved Mac OS X experience; the virtual machine. Essentially, Mac OS X contained 3 separate application environments; Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic.

Cocoa was the name for the native, Objective-C environment which allowed code to execute directly on Mac OS X without any interpretation or legacy libraries. Carbon was a mid-point solution which allowed older, Mac OS 9 code to be recompiled and then executed in the Mac OS X environment, without providing access to the newer, native UI elements. Classic, the most interesting of the three environments, is the approach that Microsoft will be taking with Windows 7. Essentially, Classic provided a complete API and binary abstraction layer which allows Mac OS 9 code to run within a “virtual machine” inside Mac OS X. Applications retain the appearance and behavior (sic) that they have on the older Mac OS platform, yet still having access to the Mac OS X system resources.”

Apparently Windows 7 will be “breaking previous API compatibility, offering new API frameworks as a native solution, and providing support for legacy frameworks (COM, ATL, .NET Framework, etc) through monolithic libraries designed to provide the functionality of all previous revisions of the modules in question.”

If this is in fact the path of Windows 7 is to be taking then I believe Microsoft will be on a massive winner - if not with Windows 7 then future version of the no 1 piece of software. There is no doubt that at some stage windows will need to take a different path to what it has been since Windows 95 (if not earlier) and the sooner the better.

If you’re interested I recommend reading the full article over here.

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 is right on track for release in 2010. Concomitantly with the leaked details associated with Windows 7 Milestone 1 dropped by the Redmond company to select partners in January 2008, a potential timetable for the availability of the successor of Windows Vista was also made public. According to the leaked information on the next iteration of the Windows platform, having just reached M1, the final version of Windows 7 was to be wrapped up the end of 2009.

Officially, the Redmond company has only been saying that windows 7 development would take an estimated three-year timeframe. However, Microsoft always failed to specify the moment when the three-year timeframe started. The debut of Windows 7 development was indeed connected with the release of Windows Vista, but this aspect only contributed to the confusion because the latest Windows client was launched to businesses in November 2006 and to the general public in January 2007. So in this context, the finalization of Windows 7 could just as easily be aimed for the end of 2009, as well as 2010.

Well, this is no longer the case. Microsoft explained that it would deliver Windows 7 three years after the consumers launch of Vista. “We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA. The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release,” a Microsoft spokesperson revealed to Softpedia via email.

Windows Vista Consumer GA means nothing more than the general availability of the operating system. In this regard, Microsoft has merely reconfirmed what it has in fact said since mid 2007, that Windows 7 is planned for 2010. Recently, the Redmond company has delivered a build of Windows 7 for review to the U.S. antitrust regulators. This was made public via the “Joint status report on Microsoft’s compliance with the final judgments.”

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft

The latest status report in Microsoft’s U.S. antitrust case mentions that the company has submitted a build of Windows 7, the next version of the PC operating system, for review by the technical committee involved in the case. The report was filed last week, but it slipped under the radar until it was noted within the last day by Information Week and others.

Here’s the full report: PDF, 23 pages. And here are excerpts from the report’s Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 references:

As noted in the prior status report, as the scheduled expiration of the relevant portions of the Final Judgment approached, the TC [Technical Committee] identified a number of remaining middleware-related bugs and requested that Microsoft address these issues. Microsoft has corrected most of these issues, and the TC has tested the fixes. Microsoft has included these corrections in XP SP 3 or Vista SP 1, as appropriate. A remaining bug in the “Open With” feature will be corrected in “Windows 7,” the announced successor to Windows Vista. The TC and Microsoft continue to discuss another middleware issue, which the TC has sought to have Microsoft include in Windows 7.

In addition, the TC has begun to review Windows 7 itself. Microsoft recently supplied the TC with a build of Windows 7, and is discussing TC testing going forward. The TC will conduct middleware-related tests on future builds of Windows 7.

Plaintiffs reported in the last status report on their agreement with Microsoft to resolve any Final Judgment concerns relating to the desktop search functionality in Windows Vista (”Desktop Search”). The TC reviewed Microsoft’s implementation of the changes agreed to, and Microsoft included the new Desktop Search features in Vista SP 1, which Microsoft recently released to OEMs.

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft

Contrary to previous rumors of Microsoft planning a Windows 7 release sometime in 2009, Microsoft has apparently gotten in touch with WinVistaClub and set the record straight: Windows 7 is in “planning stages,” and development will take approximately three years. Microsoft wouldn’t comment on that supposed leak a while back, and of course denied any implications that development was being accelerated to make up for Vista shortcomings.

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft