back to article Windows 7 to ship October 22

Windows 7 will hit store shelves on October 22, Microsoft confirmed today. The successor to Windows Vista was originally slated for a 2010 roll-out, but last month, Redmond admitted that the OS would arrive in time for the crucial holiday shopping season. Microsoft said Tuesday that Windows 7 code will be finalized and sent …

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  1. E

    Yawn

    Unless MS arranges for crowds of screaming kawaii girls waving win7 boxes in the big intersection in Shinjuku. That would be interesting.

  2. Scott K
    Alert

    Hope they don't do a Vista

    The "upgrade" program for Vista was an absolute joke. I wouldn't rely on it again. And I hope they are not rushing it out again without properly testing it. Oh hang on it's MS cancel that last one.

  3. Colin Wilson
    Linux

    Take your pick;

    a) Broken compatibility with the software you want to use $200 for the "ultimate" variant

    b) Broken compatibility and a move to linux $free

    c) Stick with XP

    Difficult one this, i've been playing with linux for a while now !

  4. Jimbo

    to @Colin

    I've been using it for past 6 months and it rocks. I did not find any program so far which would not work, my hardware is 3 years old $350 ACER tower with 1GB ram and Win7 is really fast

    yes linux is good, if all movies would play in full screen all the time and I could use iPhone as a remote control for playing music in my whole house (using remote speakers), I would switch to linux. Because this is not possible and because OSX is 2x more expensive, I will stick with Windows and will roll to Win7 after RC expires.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    MS alternatives...

    Ubuntu and PC-BSD are excellent alternatives, especially for home usage or businesses without specialty software.

    I'm writing this from my wife's laptop with Ubuntu as the OS, but I'm learning toward PC-BSD as my favorite desktop OS.

  6. Dana W
    Jobs Halo

    @Jimbo

    Leopard "assuming snow Leopard comes out in October as well" will have cost me a total of five US dollars a month. A grand total of $120, which is what I paid for it at release day. This as opposed to $300-$400 for the top version of Vista or Windows Seven. It looks like Leopard itself costs about 1/3 of what Windows costs. I bought my new OS X 10.5 install disk and a used G4 server for what MS fans paid for Vista Ultimate alone.

    My two year old Macbook Pro is still running that Leopard install flawlessly and securely, and the G4 tower "with a few mods" is still happily being my media center at an age when most Windows PCs are either running Linux or in the garbage. . And they both work fine with the Apple iTouch/iPhone remote.

    As to linux movie playing, if a MAC USER has to tell you how to use sudo apt-get, maybe its best you stick to Windows and leave the reliable computers to the grown ups. Even My Ubuntu Netbook plays all my Movies full screen.

  7. Herby

    Windows "07"??

    Maybe it should be called "Windows 07", as it is based on a 2007 version of things. This marginal 2009 version is a bit late if you ask me.

    So, Windows 07 is the name!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Nice

    Have been running 7 since early beta and just got it on a little netbook last weekend. Wow it is so much better than XP for the average user.

    And sexy. Like a high end hooker sexy. Costs a bit, but she'll take care of you until you run out of booze and she needs to find a fix with someone else.

    I don't knwo where this is going, but I'm pretty stoked to get all my home computers on this. I think those that love linux/Apple/MS can agree that having 3 strong competitors duking it out is good for everyone. There is more competition in the OS market today than there has been for 20 years. Enjoy it all you haters, it's good for everyone.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    54/32 bit versions as well?

    No need for comment.

  10. George
    Flame

    Should be good

    This will be the most tested version of Windows yet, 1 year of Alpha under code name Vista, 1 year of Beta under code name Vista SP1, 6 months of RC. M$ should have this one right.

    The free upgrade should go for all genuine Vista owners.

    Too bad the alternatives are too expensive or too complicated.... Ubuntu 9.04 is now my best friend and I will live with the extra complications to make what I want work properly.

  11. s

    Why oh why

    The 6 flavours...

    Home and Professional. That's all that's needed!!!!

    Other than that I love it (been using it since the Beta and it flies both on DTR laptops and netbooks)

  12. WinHatter
    Flame

    Home Basic for developing markets

    How thoughtful ... and well phrased to say that M$ wants a share of the third world money.

    At least every Linux version/flavour makes sense Light, Workstation & Server (the number of distributors seems a bit too much though) and Linux distros don't make a point to make you feel you belong to some sort of inferior caste and therefore you need the cheapest (features mainly & monies in a lesser measure).

    <SNIGGER>

    "Windows 7 code will be finalized " as if!!!!

    </SNIGGER>

  13. Aaron Singh
    Gates Horns

    The sily versions again...

    What is it with Microsoft and their OS versions. This makes it difficult for the consumer and I think that sales assistants in shops will be forced to sell the more expensive Ultimate version for more money ,when Home premium is what most consumers need.

    On a lighter note

    The Windows 7 RC in 64bit has been brilliant for me. However I am also worried about the lack of testing.

  14. Doogs

    I'm with Jimbo on this one

    Windows 7 actually seems slightly faster than Kubuntu 9.04 on my ancient P4 512MB machine. Had to manually find a driver for my old Freecom DVB stick, but apart from that everything installed perfectly, running two different browsers with 3-4 tabs each and watching telly in Media Centre on a second monitor was fine.

    Only thing I wasn't keen on was the amount of disk space Windows took up, but hey, disk space is cheap.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Ah, the memories

    Of the excitement felt waiting for a release of a Microsoft product. I haven't felt that since W2000 launch, which was a merge of the 95 UI goodies with NT robustness. It will be the third major Windows release that I simply ignore and the thruth is that I'm starting to feel a bit worried about the people that are keeping with this upgrade madness - first XP, then Vista and now W7

    Perhaps the reason lies in people like the poster that says

    "yes linux is good, if all movies would play in full screen all the time and I could use iPhone as a remote control for playing music in my whole house (using remote speakers), I would switch to linux. Because this is not possible and because OSX is 2x more expensive, I will stick with Windows and will roll to Win7 after RC expires."

    This is probably possible. My Ubuntu boxes play all movies I throw at them. And I bet someone could script the iPhone remote control bit to a Linux media player. All the pieces are there.

    Ah, by the way, the hardware is seven years old (and it was middle spec when I purchased it) and I've yet to see a "kernel panic" (Linux equivalent to BSOD) And no, I don't have any plans or need to upgrade HW or go back to Windows.

    The problem, as the poster says, is that this is not available as a consumer level package. But I'm sure that building this under Windows is not trivial neither. What with all the drivers that have to be installed, the DRM crap, and the antivirus/malware/shielding. How long can MS keep enticing people to shell out money for this endless upgrade cycle?

  16. Shaun
    Pirate

    Free Upgrade?

    Did I read that right? Because I bought Vista Ultimate x64 M$ will potentially *give* me Windows 7 for free...............

    That can't be right. What's the catch?

  17. Stef
    Gates Horns

    Better the Devil...

    Much as I hate M$ Windows7 isn't (bites lip) all bad.

    The latest version of Ubuntu has just given me endless problems and stills feels distinctly 1980s - it's still what most business/government/educational users ought to choose though!

  18. Dave

    @Jimbo

    "OSX is 2x more expensive"

    so Windows 7 will cost £41.50?

    http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC094Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDAzOA&mco=MzgxMTQxMA

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Who cares when

    I only care "how much are they going to stiff Vista users for the upgrade"

  20. Tim

    @ Jimbo

    What processor is that box running? I happen to have a spare pc with a 1.4ghz athlon & a bag full of ram (literally) - is it worth a try on Win7 or would I be wasting my time? Presumably the freebie trial version of Win7 is still available from MS.

    Tim#3

  21. Doug Glass
    Go

    <yawn>

    BFD

  22. Trevor
    Happy

    @Jimbo + Colin

    Agreement here on win 7

    On a modified AA1 with 1.5gb ram and an HDD as opposed to that shocking SSD they had in there.

    My only complaint is that I dont need what feels like 14TB of sodding drivers. I have these things called installers that come with my devices.

    Agree with Colin too on linux, in order to get the same functionality it takes literally days to research which of the 3084759845243 apps for one particular function is the best, and works well with the 'flavour of the month' linux.

    I will be going to Win7 as soon as its released

  23. Daniel Harris

    @shaun

    The free upgrade will be for people that buy a new machine running Windows Vista after 1st July 2009.

    They did the same when Vista came out, if you had bought a machine running XP within a certain amount of time you qualified for a free upgrade.

    I don't know if it counts if you buy an off the shelf retail version of Vista, but if it did then it has to have been after a certain date (stated as possibly being 1st July in this article). If bought before that date then you don't get anything unfortunately.

  24. Trevor
    Thumb Up

    @Tim 09:00

    Go for it :)

    Just check that vista drivers are available for your hardware. Also be aware that the INTEL chipset installers _do_ know the difference between Vista and 7, so make sure that MS have the drivers, or Intel have Win7 installers for your kit.

    Ram wise, 1GB should be fine, if you are going to run it in anger, get 2gb in. I've tweaked my services too to free up some ram. 512mb isnt worth toying with now TBH.

    Processor wise, should be fine. I ran Vista (I know!!) on that processor with not too many problems.

    Win7 install is about 15gb all in.

    Hope that helps

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  26. crypt
    Linux

    Why so serious? OS's are not religions.

    @Colin Wilson @A Baird

    Its called virtualbox (or quemu or kvm etc etc) - run xp on that (takes about 1/2 hr to set up)

    for all the stuff you cant run using wine and you wont need to touch the command line.

    then you have the best of both worlds

    (virtualbox's ability to take snapshots of the OS means that if you fsk up xp you can roll it back in seconds)

    I certainly do -- listining to 20's, 30's music on amarok while playing fallout3 :D

    and if you think thats too hard to do - then stick with paying for a OS .

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    @A Baird

    ..I'll pay attention to your pointless post when (if) you grow up and stop playing games.

    Until then, STFU. :)

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I installed the RC recently...

    Was very impressed.

    It runs on my old laptop perfectly (2Ghz single core AMD with 1.5Gb ram) with the full aero interface. Not only does it run faster than WinXP but it runs all of my old games perfectly. I've not found anything that doesn't work, which is more than can be said for Linux. It has all the support for my hardware "out of the box" and setup from my flash drive took about 15mins.

    If the retail version is as good then I would defiantly shell out for it...Once the RC expires in 2010.

  29. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Thumb Up

    Great O/S - Best of luck!

    OSX/Linux user I am, I only used to play one game on Windows, Fallout 3. It would occasionally crash on XP, so I gave the Win7 demo a whirl.

    Very impressed and a big step, credit where credit is due. I wish them all the best of luck, but MS you got my money for a 360 console so I could play F3 without Windows and so I switched to Mr Torvalds and Mr Jobs, I can do all need with their toys from now on.

    Best of luck though and thanks for all the fun, it was good while it lasted!

    PS. Try to get rid of that rather unpleasant Mr Ballmer or least send him on holiday for the duration of the release, eh?

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  32. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Try the Penguin

    Windows 7 looks like a good attempt to produce an improved Windows experience, but I jumped ship after a coworker gave me a "Warty Warthog" CD some time ago and then tried it 6 months or so later after another Registry Cancer event forcing a system rebuild.

    Why should the Home User Try the Penguin ?

    1) No DRM

    2) No Phone home spyware

    3) No Crapware on you new machine

    4) You need not touch the command line anymore on many distro's

    5) Run's on more vintage hardware, probably you can get 2X the life out of your machine

    6) it actually has some really cool games (OpenGL), yes

    7) Most distro's come with a very full suite of applications by default (writing a techical thesis in OpenOffice as of now)

    8) Package managers, they make the IPhone AppStore look like an amateurish late to the party attempt - think of all your applications coming down the wire

    9) Very little, if any, malware

    10) installation is easier in recent years than Win or Mac (LiveCD's), driver support is amazing no more looking for that 3-4 year old dusty CD when the latest reinstall from a corrupted registry hits you

    11) The release cycle of many distro's is blazing, it seems every week there's something added to the system

    12) No more migration treadmill

    13) VERY easy to network, I tried for a solid week of evenings to get some WinXP and Win98 machines to talk and share to one another, achieved that same with

    14) Community support is GREAT, have heard most paid distro support is very good and knowledgable

    15) Periodic system rebuild every year or so to "clean up" registry is in the past, the filesystem of the machine am typing this on is 4 years old now, despite OS core and applications upgrades.

    It goes on but will leave it at that.

  33. Trevor
    Stop

    horses for courses

    I have tried many linux distros, but I just can't be arsed.

    I even tried dual booting for a while.

    but I found that I couldn't be bothered to reboot to play games, so I'd just boot into windows anyway.

    Deleted the partition in the end.

    I like the shiny desktop in Vista and 7. I don't like the desktops on linux, shiny looks better!

    I have loads of Ram and Graphics power! Give me shiny! Not this "we dont waste resources" shit. USE my GPU dammit!

    I can play *real* games on windows. I can only play crap on linux, even if I can get (3d)drivers.

    Open Office/Firefox/etc is on Windows. It's on linux too. I use windows, why reboot?

    If I never played a game in my life, never watched a vid, then yes I would use linux, because it's free. But because I do, I'll pay the MS tax. For now.

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  35. Big Bear
    Boffin

    @danlab

    Many dinosaurs would happily survive a tsunami, either being flight-capable or aquatic, and the land versions reached such immense sizes dues to amazingly light bone structure via such means as internal air pockets, like modern flying birds, so their "floatability" would also be up for debate. For those out there wanting to add that they would have the in-built survival awareness of modern animals to run to higher ground (many documented cases show this but are unscientific), that is up to the jury as we just don’t know enough about the wiring of their brains.

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