Right out of the gate Windows Vista was
smeared with bad press. Word spread like wildfire that the latest operating
system out of Redmond was riddled with bugs, both new and old. Testimonials and
word-of-mouth did more to tarnish the Windows brand in those few months than
anything Apple could have cooked up. But now Window’s is gearing up with a new
OS titled, quite simply, Windows 7, with the hope overshadowing its infamous
predecessor. Yesterday, Micosoft made their first public showing of Windows 7 during
a PDC keynote address. The early word? Not bad.
The first thing that jumps off the screen
is the new task-bar with its textless icons representing various programs.
Right-clicking opens a context-sensitive application menu for quicker navigation.
You can actually hover over a web-browser icon in the taskbar and above it will
appear a row of containing all open browser windows, including a screen caption
of each. What’s more, if that caption is too small to identify that window’s
contents, a larger, transparent image of the actual window will appear in the
background as your pointer hovers above each caption. ‘Peeking’ is quickly
becoming an identifying feature of 7, which brings what you’re after into focus
by making others transparent. Gadgets occupy the whole desktop as opposed to
the sidebar.
There was also a demonstration of Windows 7
on a HP TouchSmart PC. The navigation was pretty nifty and intuitive. Though to
be fair, I’m not sure the days of the keyboard and mouse are numbered just yet.
As for developers, a pre-beta was sent out
on Monday, with a more enriched beta due out at the beginning of next year.
A lot of eyes are going to be one Windows
7. It’s not as though Microsoft has never dropped the ball before (Windows
2000, ME, etc) but a strong follow-up could really solidify the weakening
foundation of the OS empire (just as XP). But are people ready for another
operating system? There still hasn’t been an official release date pinpointed
by Microsoft, but this keynote announcement cannot be helping Vista sales.
To see Windows 7 in action follow through
to the PDC 2008 website here.
Source
I think they’ve given up on their Vista sales at this point, LOL. I hope that this new operating system does a lot better than did Vista.
Looks very interesting so far. Nice layout. I decided to ignore Vista and keep XP Pro, until the next one came out. Looks like a good move!
I don’t know why they bothered to release Vista at all in the state it’s in. Seems like they should’ve just worked on it more instead of releasing it, getting bad press, and now working on yet ’another’ one.
it’s all about money… if you buy an o/s and keep it for 10 years, then where will microsh** make their billions from.. they make one, they sell it, they let the ’must have the latest thing* idiots beta test it for them, then bring out a proper working version… like they did with XP…
Stav, I tend to agree with you. I am not a fan of Vista and I have remained with XP for my personal use. I will wait and see how this new system turns out.
good plan justontime, a year or two down the line, when they’ve found and fixed all the bugs, then it’s worth changing!