It's not due out until January 2010, but Microsoft's next release of its operating system – codenamed Windows 7 – is already inspiring speculation. Will it be as painful to use as Vista, or will it fix Vista's issues? Rumors abound, encouraged by Microsoft's fairly close-mouthed stance. Here's what we've learned.
Contributed by Terri Wells Rating: / 1 June 03, 2008
If you're really intrigued, you can Google Windows 7 and find a lot of information. There's a web site apparently unaffiliated with Microsoft but dedicated to Windows 7 news, at least one blog that purports to be by someone on the team creating Windows 7, some (supposedly fake) videos on YouTube of milestone builds of Windows 7, and more. But how do you tell the real from the fake?
When possible, you go to official sources. Steven Sinofsky, who has been leading the development of Windows 7 since Jim Allchin left Microsoft, gave a lengthy interview to CNet. It's hard to find anything official on Windows 7 on Microsoft's web site, though; a search on Windows 7 there is far more likely to turn up information on Internet Explorer, but the company's Windows Vista news blog, written by Chris Flores, turned up some minor hints.
Then there's Dev Corvin, who was a Microsoft Evangelist and conceptual artist during the “codename Longhorn” development at Microsoft, and who apparently still has some sources at the company. Most recently, there's the demo that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer gave at the D6 Conference. Stir in a few analysts, and we might get some idea of what we'll see in a little over a year and a half (if Windows 7 releases on time).
Microsoft is being careful with what gets out about Windows 7 in part to manage expectations. According to Sinofsky, “we're really going to focus on making sure that when we talk about the product, that [Windows enthusiasts are] getting information that is really what we're doing for the product.” A number of analysts have thought that part of the reason Microsoft isn't seeing the speedy uptake with Vista that it has seen with other operating systems is that user expectations were high, and then word got out that Vista wasn't delivering on those expectations.
So what can you expect from Windows 7? Will it be an incremental improvement, or a whole new paradigm? Click on the link below.
In his interview with CNet, Sinofsky insisted that Windows 7 would display continuity with older Windows operating systems. “We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same,” he said. Windows 7 will be built on the Windows Server 2008 kernel, which evolved from the Windows Vista kernel.
Indeed, a lot of things in Windows 7 will work the same way they work in Windows Vista. Sinofsky cited memory management, networking, process management and security as items that will carry forward from one OS to the other. Windows 7 will be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, which should help with maintaining compatibility with device drivers.
Beyond that, Sinofsky notes that there will be “a lot of features in Windows 7.” Unfortunately, he doesn't go into much detail. Windows 7 will supposedly appeal to a broader set of people...but Sinofsky doesn't mention in what way. “I think what I would say is that we're talking about different types of customers, and different types of customers have different needs for information and are able to absorb it in a way that I think is mutually responsible,” he said coyly when pressed. Wonderful. Does this mean we'll be faced with many different versions of Windows 7, just as we were for Windows Vista? No answer.
Ina Fried, who interviewed Sinofsky, thinks the close-mouthed attitude is a result of getting burned by saying too much about Vista too early on. When Microsoft announced plans for Vista and then changed them, “developers just decided to wait until Vista finally shipped to start taking it seriously,” Fried noted, which is bad because “many of Vista's changes were the under-the-hood kind that required developer support to make them pay off.”
Whether Microsoft's change in attitude with Windows 7 will help or harm the company is open to debate. But at least one observer thinks it's a mistake. Don Reisinger, writing for CNet, noted that “Microsoft should be going out of its way to reassure us all that Windows 7 will not be the blunder Vista is.” In truth, the company needs to rebuild trust with its customers, and staying tight-lipped about future operating systems isn't the way to do it.
As I mentioned in the first section, Chris Flores wrote a Windows Vista News blog entry for Microsoft on Windows 7. Unfortunately, it's titled “Communicating Windows 7,” so at a guess, it contains barely any more informative than Sinofsky's interview. Flores admitted that there is a focus on “sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience.” The company has already started sharing its preliminary plans for Windows 7 with its software and hardware partners. These partners could then give Microsoft some feedback to consider.
But apparently the timing isn't right for the general public to get all the details. There will be beta releases, but Flores couldn't even state when those would happen. Is Microsoft really staying mum to manage expectations, or is there more going on here?
Well, perhaps we can use me as an example of a typical user, if there is any such thing. I have an older computer at home, and I use one at work. Both systems run XP. I have a friend who upgraded to Vista; he didn't have a choice, since his computer had just died and he had to buy a new one. As soon as I heard about the problems he had with it, I decided to sit tight as long as I could and avoid buying Vista.
Imagine that I hear details about Windows 7. Say that Microsoft says that Windows 7 will be better, faster, more secure, and less annoying than Windows Vista. Don't you think I would be even more resolved not to purchase a new system with Windows Vista? Of course I would. I'd definitely plan to sit tight with my old system, buying more memory for it to nurse it along for another year and a half rather than risk buying a whole new system with an “upgrade” to Windows Vista.
That is exactly the sort of thing that Microsoft is trying to avoid. Flores noted that, as of March 31, Microsoft had sold 140 million Windows Vista licenses, and its uptake among businesses is similar to the rate at which they adopted Windows XP when that OS came out. Businesses are capable of reaching the same conclusions as home users, however – and more of them probably would, if they had more information.
Dev Corvin maintains a site called thebetaguy.com; he notes that the articles he posts on the site “contain information gathered from largely internal, and therefore confidential, sources inside Microsoft and/or its partners.” He ran an “exclusive” on Windows 7. So what does he think we can look forward to?
First, he noted that Microsoft had to change their design and development strategy to comply with the US Department of Justice and European Union anti-trust regulations. Short version: they couldn't legally integrate a browser and a media player into the system. Microsoft responded to that by using a more modular approach with Vista, and is carrying that forward with Windows 7.
Unfortunately, that's likely to lead to performance issues. You see, if parts of an operating system are in different “modules” on a hard drive, the drive has to spend more time seeking to find what it needs to do any particular task. Vista suffers from these problems; will Windows 7 share that fate?
Possibly not. Corvin notes that “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.” Whoa. Does this mean Windows 7 will not be backward compatible with other Windows versions? And didn't Sinofsky say just the opposite?
No and yes. Windows 7, all by itself, may not be backward compatible with other versions of Windows – but it won't be all by itself. It will employ a virtual machine. Or, as Corvin explains it, “In Windows 7, Microsoft will break from the Windows' norm by 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 approach sounds familiar, it's because, well, Apple did it first. When Steve Jobs first put the UNIX-based OS X into Apple systems, he included three different application environments with the new systems. One of those environments lets users run their old applications based on older operating systems. In short, Jobs and Apple found a way to let their customers have their cake and eat it too – and from the looks of it, so will Microsoft.
If you went to D6, the sixth yearly conference about “all things digital” put on by the Wall Street Journal, you probably saw Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer doing a demo of Windows 7. If you didn't, you can find plenty of video clips of it online. Are we at last about to see all the wonders of the new operating system?
Unfortunately, Gates only parts the curtain a little, and doesn't really show us anything we couldn't figure out on our own. He focused on the user interface. Not surprisingly, it incorporates what we've seen before in Microsoft Surface – a full screen touch interface capable of distinguishing multiple contact points. In the demo, we saw him move photos, change their size, lay photos on top of other photos, even flip them over to reveal writing on the back (presumably information contained in an alt tag of some kind).
That's not all. When the screen displayed a rotating globe, the interface enabled the user to spin the globe, zoom in on a particular point on the globe, and even find out information about specific points of interest. It looks more impressive than a mere description can convey. The demo finished with some piano playing – with the keys displayed on the screen and the pianist touching the screen to play. Since the screen could handle multiple touches simultaneously, the user could even play chords.
Granted, this tells us a bit more about Windows 7. Before you say it, yes, my first reaction was that Microsoft is stealing from Apple again (iPhone anyone?). Beyond that, however, the touch interface could be a real game changer, especially if users get more comfortable with it than they were with the keyboard/mouse arrangement. Given the popularity of the iPhone, I'd say there's a fair chance of that – though what works for a mobile phone may or may not feel as natural with a larger setup.
Say it does catch on though. Let's look at the little ripple effects. To start with, I think more people will buy screen protectors and/or screen cleaner after they upgrade to Windows 7. There's going to be an increased market for touch screens, too. And screen makers will probably make certain changes in the bases of their screens. For desktops, they'll have to be sturdier, and some customers might like to have the option of laying their screen completely flat on their desk, as it's a more natural position for certain activities. We might even see some computer desks where the entire desk itself is the computer – and the screen is a large touch surface. We're already starting to see some of that. Going in the other direction, depending on how small you could make the rest of the components, we could eventually start seeing laptops that are made up of two screens that fold together, with one screen displaying a “keyboard” when you need that kind of interface.
Unfortunately, neither Gates nor Ballmer talked much about the “guts” of Windows 7. The user interface is beautiful, but it isn't everything. And Sinofsky's relative evasiveness doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Will everything work together appropriately? I guess we'll find out when Microsoft delivers Windows 7.
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