Microsoft reconfirms Vista's January ship date

"Aw, shucks guys, we were just foolin' around." After years of successive Vista delays, and keeping the computer world on edge for the past few months about even further delays, Microsoft is once again settling into their January launch window for Vista's consumer launch, with OEMs supposed to receive the OS in November. Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) should be out early September, though the word on the street is that Microsoft isn't planning on finalizing Vista until October sometime, making RC1 a bit of a misnomer. What RC1 should be is light years ahead of Vista Beta 2, and it sure better be if Microsoft isn't kidding this time about a January launch.

[Via CrunchGear]

[ottavio @ Aug 22nd 2006 6:27PM]

I hope they do.

[spil @ Aug 22nd 2006 6:32PM]

January '08, right?

[ipodman715 @ Aug 22nd 2006 6:50PM]

I really hope RC1 is good.

[Kevin @ Aug 22nd 2006 6:51PM]

The longer it takes them the happier I will be.

[Khuffie @ Aug 22nd 2006 7:02PM]

Build 5472, still labelled Beta 2 but is 2 builds down, is way ahead of the Beta 2 build released to the public. What most of the naysayers who are complaining about Beta 2 don't realize is that there have been builds since, not released to the public, that have shown marked improvements over what was released.

[par @ Aug 22nd 2006 7:04PM]

I hope it runs on mac minis. Anyone know if the intel 950 graphics chip is good enough for vista?

[RayMetz100 @ Aug 22nd 2006 7:12PM]

I want Flight Simulator X.

I don't think the 950 will run aero. not sure though.

[Juaquin @ Aug 22nd 2006 7:41PM]

I'm running Windows Vista Beta 2 right now. It's ok, but I don't see anything ground breaking. The user interface is a little nicer, file systems are sort of revamped, but really the only updates I see could be solved with third party programs already available for XP. Not to mention driver support sucks - it took me two days to get my Audigy 2 soundcard to even work marginally (still no full support).

Besides that, Vista freaked out when I changed the size of my XP partition (I didn't touch Vista's partition). I had to completely reinstall Vista, and really, it should be more stable than to lock up when a different partition on the drive is resized.

Also, multi-monitor support is minimal - the second screen blinks off then comes back on whenever one of the excessive "security" alert things comes up.

Really, I don't plan on shelling out for Vista until either the prices drop or it becomes necessary for some program or game - it just doesn't have any great upgrades to justify buying it.

[Blaine @ Aug 22nd 2006 7:45PM]

Here's to paying hundreds of dollars for eye candy and no innovation... which most systems can hardly run!

[dave95 @ Aug 22nd 2006 8:07PM]

Yeah - Some reason I don't see hundreds of fans camping out for this at midnight as they did XP.

Don't be an early tester for Microsoft, at least wait a year if you must. I anticipate massive complaints after release.

[Mini @ Aug 22nd 2006 8:12PM]

Juaquin, talk about being a dumb ass. Just to quote your first sentence - "I'm running Windows Vista Beta 2 right now."

Go figure.

[Juaquin @ Aug 22nd 2006 8:41PM]

Mini, what's your problem with me running it? What's your problem in general?

I decided I'd like to take a look at it to see whether I would be interested in upgrading or not. Also, I like to be on the bleeding edge and figured this might be an interesting project.

As you would guess by my earlier post, I've found out Vista really isn't worth the upgrade.

However, I'm curious as to what you run that makes you so much better than me. Do you run XP? So do I. Do you run Linux? So do I. Do you run Tiger? So have I.

Maybe you have a pre-release of Leopard, which I guess would give you a leg up on me. Congrats.

Dumbass is one word, by the way.

But to make you feel better, I'm on my laptop running good old XP right now.

[Mini @ Aug 22nd 2006 8:48PM]

I was just pointing out that since you are running beta software, you should know not to expect it to work perfectly or be fully featured.

[t-diddy @ Aug 22nd 2006 8:55PM]

hmmm, scary. I sure do feel sorry for all those early adopters. *shudder*

[Jarod @ Aug 22nd 2006 9:15PM]

This is going to be hilarious watching so many idiots pony up money for a cheap theme.

[Alex @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:10PM]

Is it still true that there are still lots of people running Win2k on their computers instead of XP? I wonder if those people will upgrade to Vista, and if there may be people who refuse to upgrade from XP to Vista, like those who didn't upgrade to XP...

[Brent @ Aug 22nd 2006 10:57PM]

^ When I went to Guidant/Abbott Vascular for training this week I noticed they're still running Windows 98... was shocked.

[_man1c_ @ Aug 22nd 2006 11:22PM]

cant wait, but wont buy at launch. dont have the $$$$..

[dhruv @ Aug 22nd 2006 11:50PM]

guess what. here in India nearly 50% of the computers are still running windows 98 or in some cases windows 95. can u dig that. i though have a XP , am runnin Vista Beta on my second comp. i am also runnin tiger on my mac and have just installed a bootlegged copy from WWDC of the Leopard. I really must Leopard is pretty cool and i dont think i shall really switch over to Vista. I Will probably use Leopard permanently. It will probably have virtualisation features to support Vista which i might install 4 gamin. but then hmmm. do i really need a PC 4 gamin after all i do have an X-Box 360 and am also gonna buy the PS3 and the WII

[Shunnabunich @ Aug 23rd 2006 12:56AM]

I'll be trying out the Leopard beta soon, so I'll see how that goes.

But really...why is Microsoft even bothering to release Vista? Do they somehow not get how pathetic they are?

[srw985 @ Aug 23rd 2006 3:29AM]

I use vista beta 2 all the time as my main OS. its good but not exactly amazing. Driver support is much better than XP, with internet connection it found drivers for everything I had, exept for my wi-fi USB stick, which i dont need anymore becuase vista automatically figured out my wifi card, something XP could never do, even with countless downloads from the Medion website, and my sound card, which took me a quick download from medion website to set up.

cant wait for RC1

[PeteC @ Aug 23rd 2006 5:50AM]

I installed Beta 2 and was going to stick with it, install RC1 and then get Vista when it came out. Unfortunately things just got too much having issues burning cd's and dvd's and not being able to use my USB soundcard and reverting to my laptop's internal one was stopping me being able to listen to a lot of my music properly. I had to go back to XP again for a bit. Still after some new operating system action, I installed Ubuntu which I've been checking out since. I may try and install RC1 when it comes out but I have no idea how this will fit in with sorting out dual booting either it with XP or it with Linux. If people report major improvements I'll give it a go, if not I guess i'll wait till the proper release.

[sdsdv10 @ Aug 23rd 2006 7:19AM]

Possible typo.....

In the second sentence I think, "After years of successive Vista delays,..."

Should read, "After years of successful Vista delays,..."

[Shadyman @ Aug 23rd 2006 3:44PM]

"Microsoft reconfirms Vista's January ship date".

January... 2008?

[Poke ya @ Aug 29th 2006 3:39PM]

hence we established meaning of the word Vista- windows. Gone out of windows, as a garbage. Vista is the grabage. Catchy eh ?.. maybe