Microsoft puts the kibosh on 2009 Vienna rumors
By Paul Miller 
posted Feb 15th 2007 3:31AM
posted Feb 15th 2007 3:31AM
Aw c'mon Microsoft, why you always gotta ruin our fun? We were perfectly content to push around vague rumors of a Windows Vista followup in late 2009 and whatever features it may or may not have, dangling all our hopes and dreams off of a thin and potentially out-of-context quote from Ben Fathi, and now you've gotta come along and disown the guy. According to Kevin Kutz, Director of Windows Client: "The launch of Windows Vista was an incredibly exciting moment for our customers and partners around the world, and the company is focused on the value Windows Vista will bring to people today. We are not giving official guidance to the public yet about the next version of Windows, other than that we're working on it. When we are ready, we will provide updates." Ars Technica conjectures that the original story might've even gotten Ben wrong, and the 2.5 years might be how long it takes for for Vienna to make it out the door after the Fiji service pack. Of course, the word from Mr. Fathi was evidently not "official guidance," so who knows. What we can be certain of is that there are two mistakes Microsoft doesn't want to repeat with this OS: taking forever to release, and drumming up false hopes of any sort of launch date earlier than the actual one.[Thanks, Mike]
Stop calling it Vienna, its just "Windows 7" internally. I know because I've got a close relative who is a higher-up at MSFT.
What do you call Windows Vista? "Windows 6". If so then they are right by calling it Vienna since everyone calls "Windows 6" Vista.
Let's call it "Yet another $300 upgrade"
"incredibly exciting moment for our customers and partners around the world"
yes, thanks Miscrosoft, we did have some good laughs around the world, keep it on
Yeah, and vista was supposed to be out about 4 years ago...
Im bettin 2014 for Vista SP1 and 2020 for the next bloatware OS
Vienna? When am I gonna get Windows Cairo? I was promissed Cairo in '94 as I recall at the Windows NT launch. Where is it? Oh, well, back to NeXt.
Vista is a product name.
Cairo, Chicago, Vienna, Blackcomb, Whistler were/are internal project names for various Windows releases.
when bill gates was on the Daily show Stewart asked him if there would be another windows before 2010, and Gates' answer was "Absolutely." Seems pretty clear to me.
Yeah, but Bill likes to, uh, dream. I honestly can't fault the guy for loving his damn company, but... well, for example, remember when he said Halo 3 was coming out the day the PS3 launched? Same kind of thing, I think. He had to take that back later, and he may well have to take the "new Windows before 2010" comment back too. Or maybe not, but I think you have to take what he says with a grain of salt.
To be honest, I hope they focus more on improving Vista instead of getting a new Windows ready for release. My logic for buying Vista was that it is something I would use nearly every day for several years, so it was easily worth the price. If this Vienna thing comes out in 2009 (only two years after Vista compared to the 4-5 years I used XP), I'm going to feel a little screwed.
Cairo was broken up a bunch of times. The UI became Windows 95's UI. RPC was taken and placed in the first NT. Indexing Server became IIS. The only part left of Cairo is the file system which was renamed WinFS (yeah 10 years in the making).
Vienna is still Blackcomb to me. Funny how they tell them to stop making the revolutionary Windows OS and make the perty one. Vista is mostly a skin and with some Blackcomb things patched on. Still waiting on Fiji before I give it another try.
While I am unable to locate the document that details this, I recall a Microsoft presentation I attended outlined the following plan for operating system releases:
* A major release every four years (XP, Vista)
* An initial service pack (fixes only) the following year after a major release (SP1)
* An R2 release (feature pack and fixes) every two years after a major release (XP SP2, Server 2003 R2). These releases may or may not be charged
While roadmaps are necessarily dynamic to accommodate the changing landscape, this roadmap does seem to make sense from a development point-of-view. To expect a major new release only two years after Vista I would expect to be too optimistic. To expect an R2 release to re-introduce the features that didn't make the cut so that Vista could actually make it out the door before 2010 sounds reasonable and would be what I would expect.
Thinks back... "The final release date of the product [Longhorn] firmly in 2005"
So 2010 = 2014?
misquoted, 2003
"What we can be certain of is that there are two mistakes Microsoft doesn't want to repeat with this OS: taking forever to release, and drumming up false hopes of any sort of launch date earlier than the actual one."
Metallica said the same thing once, about five seconds before they completely jumped the shark...
I'm firmly placing money on "Chinese Democracy" and "Duke Nukem Forever" being released before SP2 for Vista is released, let alone Windows Vienna or Frankfurt.
Hey Microsoft...follow apples lead.
"Man are we excited about Windows Vista! It is great and has over 700 million new features.
oh yeah...one more thing!
Our next OS due out in 2009 is going to be an upgrade from the vista OS. If you are afraid to upgrade, then dont be, because the transition will be easier/smoother."
i don’t get it. how long did it take to make vista, 6-7 years. uhh look a new shinny UI, and a lot of extra (badly written, resource hogging) shareware like programs running in the background. wow let me pay to get that. man strip the sucker down, get it working right, and let people chose there own crappy software. (why is MSN and IE so hard to get rid of, what the h.. would i need telnet for, why does print spooler start up when i don’t even have a printer installed, dump the crap and make a stable and fast OS, and let people download (or write there own) software for things like that. and what justifies an OS taking up 800MB just too boot, and still run everything worse then an os from 2001 (XP) when i take this OS appart, i bet im gonna find buckets of lagasy software, that only serves to hamper my machine.