Longhorn official name = Windows Vista

So there's been some buzz on this and now it's looking confirmed by a few insider sources — the official name for the new Microsoft Longhorn operating system is going to be Windows Vista. As in "a view into the distance" which surely refers to the prolonged development timeline of the OS (ouch, we had to.). Look for the official announcement tomorrow morning.

[Thanks, Mitch]

[Mitch @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

hell yeah thanks guys!

[Kevin Chow @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

and we all thought XP was bad...

[Side Step @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Stupid name

[Kevin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Aww hell no! What kind of name is that?! Longhorn sounds better lol should have stuck with that.

[Will @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Asta la Vista Baby...

[Engadgeter @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Is it really as bad as Tiger or Panther or Jaguar?

[Fuzz @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Wow, MS , you just got served by engadget

[Scott @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Obviously trying to get away from 'Longtooth' jokes.

[Ryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Sad, just sad.

[Andrew Stone @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

I personally love mac's method of operating system naming for two reasons... 1)The names are cool and 2)Eventually, after Cougar and Puma are taken, it'll be drama trying to figure out whats next. OSX Housecat? OSX Sphynx would be cool, but all i'd think about every time i heard it was Dr. Evil.

[Billy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

How could you say that Mac OS is bad, it's at LEAST better than Windows. Microshaft can go shove it with Longhorn or "Vista". I'm stickin with Mac OS.

[Jason Paterson @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Windows V! Not bad.

...well, it could be worse.

[crysalis @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

no. it's worse. windows vista?

[Cooper @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Vista? Is this what the marketing wizards have come up with? Although in acronym form... MSV...WV...Windows V

[010111 @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

vista isn't bad... i thought longhorn was sorta dumb honestly.

btw... Puma has already been taken. 10.0 was Puma. 10.1 was Cheetah. those first 2 just didn't have the 'codename' become the advertised name like Jaguar / Panther / Tiger.

[XeroX @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

just call it Windows XP SP3...because that's basically what it is.

[Rohan P. @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Wait... why not keep Longhorn. It was already in the OS (star menus, splash screens, etc.). Besides, vista sounds kinda campy if you ask me. And what about the logo? Are they gonna keep it and still call it vista?

Even as a Mac user, I should care. We all know about half of us buying the Intel Macs will have Windows running on a partition for those idiot game devs who are too lazy to port fast enough.

[OfficeDespot @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Longhorn's codebase is pulled from Windows Server 2003, not Windows XP. I know it's a small victory, but it's a victory nonetheless.

[Charlie @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Puma has already been taken (10.1), but Cougar is a likely name for 10.7

After that, there's Lion (most likely for 10.6), Lynx, and Ocelot (although admittedly less catchy). But apart from Lion, they are not strictly speaking big cats. Then again it'll be three years from now and that's way longer than our attention span.

[granny down east @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

aw crap. 'cause i just upgraded to Windows 95.

[redoc @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Who are the Ad Wizards that came up with this one? (i hope someone catches this SNL reference)

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

This is too bad - now Apple's OS can't eat Microsoft's : (

[Kramer. @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Del Boca Vista!

[pancake @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

That name blows ass.

[cream0fcow @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

As a mult-platform user, I could never remember what animal the Mac is on, I'm just old school and like to stick with numbers and decimals -- which I'm glad Apple is not dropping. Now with Vista... um, at least they dropped the year names... that made no sense at all. It's 2005 and I just got my Win98 to boot, though I can't run MS apps. Hilarious.

[jason @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

I don't think it's bad. Who the fuck cares anyway?

[General Bork @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Are you sure this wasn't named by Frank Coztanza? "We're moving to Del Boca Vista first thing in the morning." Nonetheless, it's refreshing ......"Behold the all new Windows Vista."

[IMWeasel @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Vista? What brain dead marketing person came up with that one? It sounds stupid.

[Matthew Bell @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

ACK! GAG! I'd much prefer saying "I hate XP" vs "I hate Vista" That just sounds really lame.

[Eddy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

That's pretty bad.

[Hellmaster @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Well people though 'Xbox360' was a stupid name for the Xbox 2, but people got used to it and frankly it was a brilliant marketing move. How much do you want to bet the same happens here?

[brett @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Tomorrow's news, Microsoft sues Alta Vista for trademark infringement.

[Cyberwhore @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Microsoft release the name for the new OS and a large percentage of people talk about and compare OS X build names or take the piss out of the new name.

Keep up the good work guys.

[Tom W @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Vista? Sounds like someone spent 10 minutes browsing thru a dictionary, for a $100K fee no doubt.

How about "Microsoft Macrohard"

[tim @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

There's already a software company named Vista, a software alliance called vista with a system called vista, and ticketmaster has a software product called Vista. I would be surprised if MS uses it.

[eric @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Now I know the name of the OS I'm never going to install, more or less buy!

[Ryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Lets make this 300 comments, kk? Vista just sounds retarded in all ways, except Alta Vista.

[Ingen Ra @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Y'all whining now about the name now, but I doubt in 5 years you'll be calling it Longhorn. Submit to the forthcoming marketing, and zombified usage of the OS now and accept the name.

[Charles @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

All extensions of the domain windowsvista.* appear to be registered - with an anonymous whois.

[Fred Monroe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

I was expecting it to be called...
Windows "This time we litteraly stole code from Apple"
or
Windows photocopy edition
or even
windows 10.4 longtiger

[Jonathan N. @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

*yawns rolls over and goes back to sleep not giving a crap on a OS that isn't going to be out for more then a year and will have more bugs out of the door then a roach motel in a Florida slum*

[jimmy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

nice... wv

[bazald @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

#35, Fred Monroe - As opposed to OS "We literally took 99% of our codebase from FreeBSD and don't have to give anything back in return"?

[Joe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Vista means "Chicken" in latvian language.
Latvians all over the world are laughing.

[Tupper @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

My sister had an Eagle Vista (car), and it barely ran. I hope this is not an omen for Microsoft.

However, if you follow the good one / crappy one rule of thumb (it is very scientific, dontyaknow)
WinNT - good
Win95 - crappy
Win98(se) - good
WinME - crappy
Win2K - good
WinXP - crappy
WinVis - good (well, unless you consider XP-SP2 to be good, meaning it is a different OS than XP, making WiVi crappy)

[DanAmpX @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Are you kidding me?

[Ben Hou @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

AHHHG! MY EYES/EARS/NOSE ARE BURNING!

Good old Macs,

[Daily @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

#37
Umm... Apple is not entitled to give anything back to FreeBSD.. its a freakin BSD license!!
They have contributed back(not enough though) to the community. Lunchd(?spell) is pretty slick

[chris @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

i like it.
plus none of you ever seem to have installed the 10.9. update to osx server and had all their users... ahm... optimized to not existing. same shit, different box.

[cab ron @ Dec 19th 2005 1:24AM]

Well, Vista shmista and macheads, what happens when all of the big cats have been used up and then their smaller relations - Tabby, Kitty and Pussy???

In the end they're just marketing names - i'd be more worried about how well/crap these all turn out.