Microsoft CES ninja booth tour: hello Windows 7

It was already a fair bet that Steve Ballmer will be talking about Windows 7 during his CES keynote tonight, especially after the beta keys leaked but we'd say the odds just got better: we just hit up the Microsoft booth a little early and spotted a prominent 7 display. We were hustled out before we got a chance to dig further, but we were certainly intrigued by the black cloth covering up the Windows Mobile display -- we doubt it means anything, but maybe Ballms has some WinMo 7 action to show off as well. Check it in the gallery!

Gallery: Microsoft CES ninja booth tour

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[vvtopkar @ Jan 7th 2009 9:15PM]

Awesome!
But arn't those computers running Vista?

[Jesus Valadez @ Jan 7th 2009 9:18PM]

You mean Mojave?

[Paul Chapel @ Jan 7th 2009 9:21PM]

There really isn't a difference.

[Moorio - XBL: peacebyanymeans @ Jan 7th 2009 9:22PM]

It fucking says Windows 7 on the wall above it.

[bk7 @ Jan 7th 2009 9:27PM]

Alas the *fucking* graphics showing on that screen sure do look like Vista in comparison to the Windows 7 screenies weve been seeing on Engadget elsewhere..

[Chase @ Jan 7th 2009 9:45PM]

wow...windows 7 looks just like vista. you probably think that just because it has the vista taskbar and not the new square one, it isn;t windows 7 but the truth is you can pick what task bar you want.

[Ruben @ Jan 7th 2009 10:55PM]

Yes, they are.

That booth is for the live services. I don't know why they didn't do a double whammy and host that on Win 7, but whatever.

[Brian @ Jan 7th 2009 9:23PM]

I spy with my little eye a white notebook in the background of pictures 2 and 3 :)

[Jayayess1190 @ Jan 7th 2009 9:25PM]

Acer Aspire One maybe?

[digitallysick @ Jan 7th 2009 9:24PM]

Since windows 7 looks exactly like vista you can't tell the difference

[XGM @ Jan 7th 2009 9:51PM]

Really ? Man i must be blind because i swear the taskbar is bigger, and apps only show up as their icon without text on it.

Seriously from far it does, but with some use it actually works much better then Vista. MS is on the right track, if they optimize it and take most of the issues itll be what vista was supposed to be (good and fast).

[MioTheGreat @ Jan 8th 2009 1:32AM]

There is some degree of customizability with the new taskbar. However, based on the quicklaunch bar shown there, and the fact that Microsoft disabled the 'letterboxing' Aero-goes-opaque effect in 7, we're looking at Vista.

[decapitor @ Jan 7th 2009 9:26PM]

I hope good SSDs are cheap enough when Windows 7 comes out. Upgrade to 8GB Ram plus a nice SSD is gonna make for a nice clean install. Can't wait.

[Ruben @ Jan 7th 2009 11:06PM]

I hope so too.

I have been on my current Vista install since summer 2007 when i bought raid drives and re-installed (first was when it came out) and would love to start Win 7 on a pair of 32GB SSD's cheap.

There was a deal for OCZ SSD's over the Christmas holiday for 50 bucks each. I think being on the website 5 minutes early was too late to actually get one.

80 dollars for 32 GB is my point of entry.

[Hamidxa @ Jan 7th 2009 9:30PM]

Windows Mobile 7 would be nice.
Im waiting for it before I upgrade my phone again.

You couldn't pay me enough to use an iPhone and Android is simply too lacking in terms of apps at the moment, besides I already have over a $1000 worth of software for WM that would go to waste, so come on with WM 7.

[wud_e @ Jan 8th 2009 1:37AM]

I was hoping to hear about WM7 also. I like Sprint and WinMo so no Iphone for me either. Also I can't stand Google so Android is out of the question for me also. Android looks like it has potential but I'm a WinMo fan.

[go seki @ Jan 7th 2009 9:35PM]

I'd like to say at this point that Windows 7 runs really nicely on a Mac
.. they almost seem made for each other
.. "Fueled by dreams and powered by imagination .."

[aMac @ Jan 7th 2009 9:40PM]

Really? How are the Mac drivers on Win7? Do the normal bootcamp drivers work just fine?

[Mark @ Jan 7th 2009 9:48PM]

Any drivers/software that works with Vista should, by the release date and now with very few exceptions, work with Windows 7. And no, they're not made for each other - Apple doesn't know how to write drivers for their own OS properly, much less Microsoft's.

[lef @ Jan 7th 2009 9:57PM]

microsoft gets an “F” for innovation. where’s win FS? why do we still have this ridiculous registry at all, and what’s something relevant to the OS in windows 7 that wasn’t in windows 2000. somebody go install windows 2000 on a core 2 duo with 2gb of ram and see how its performance destroy’s redmond’s latest bloatware. they need to stop worrying about all the random UI changes and bundling of shareware class ‘features’ that their focus groups are telling them will sell software and make a good product. booo

[Sergio @ Jan 7th 2009 10:19PM]

Its those days of the month for you correct?
Thats whats causing all that bad temper correct?

[lef @ Jan 7th 2009 10:27PM]

correct. unfortunately. when you support microsoft's attempt at software for a living every day is like that.

[MioTheGreat @ Jan 8th 2009 1:36AM]

>where’s win FS?

The idea was cool, but the overhead that kind of abstraction layer adds just isn't worth it. You can acomplish very similar things for the end user with an indexer like the new Windows Search in 7.

>why do we still have this ridiculous registry at all

Just because YOU are not capable of understanding it doesn't mean it should be removed.

>and what’s something relevant to the OS in windows 7 that wasn’t in windows 2000.

They broke the dispatcher lock on the kernel. This means that 7 is capable of scaling to many more cores than 2000 is (ie: 2000's kernel is simply not capable of recognizing or even possibly considering be able to manage as many cores as 7 can)

[lef @ Jan 8th 2009 1:54AM]

i'm pretty sure NTFS has outlived it's heyday. piggybacking an awkward indexing service on top of the FS to facilitate searches doesn't seem necessary at this point. don't other OS's use DB file systems?

I am totally familiar with the registry. but it seems like an antiquated implementation like the config files it replaced. i've seen people install and remove apps on a mac, no ccleaner or crap like that needed over there...

don't nerd out on the last one, i was alluding to the fact that MS hasn't done much for us in terms of making a lean mean OS for business use... i'm sure they're working on stuff under the hood but it doesn't seem to culminate into a much better user experience for most people. i don't think it's difficult to argue that MS has been resting on it's laurels for too long... with the resources they have it's astounding that they're not cranking out much innovation.

[giuliop @ Jan 8th 2009 5:19AM]

">why do we still have this ridiculous registry at all

Just because YOU are not capable of understanding it doesn't mean it should be removed."

This is odd because, you know, what Microsoft have been saying since the inception of .NET is that the registry is crap, so they decided to get rid of it where they can - unfortunately for them (and for us) it's too late to remove it from the OS as too many apps rely on it. So that means that, in addition to lef, Microsoft themselves aren't able to understand it, and the leaves only YOU as the one who's able to, and believe me, that's frightening.

[MioTheGreat @ Jan 8th 2009 8:17AM]

>i'm pretty sure NTFS has outlived it's heyday. piggybacking an awkward indexing service on top of the FS to facilitate searches doesn't seem necessary at this point. don't other OS's use DB file systems?

ALL filesystems are databases. And of the 3 'main' filesystems used (ext3, HFS+, NTFS), NTFS is easily the most modern. HFS+ is a hobbled together piece of inconsistent crap, and ext3 doesn't even support modern features like extents, compression or encryption.

Alternatives to those, like reiser and zfs add features that NTFS has had since its inception.

Further more, WINFS WAS NOT A FILESYSTEM. It was a database that sat on top of NTFS, and provided abstraction away from files.

>This is odd because, you know, what Microsoft have been saying since the inception of .NET is that the registry is crap, so they decided to get rid of it where they can - unfortunately for them (and for us) it's too late to remove it from the OS as too many apps rely on it.

They've given other methods for configuration, sure, but the registry can do stuff and has advantages that no other method has. It's fast, something you'll never hear someone dealing with XML say. It has per-key security. It's immune to DOS attacks. It's really the ONLY way to handle COM (Anything else would be essentially reinventing the registry).

[lef @ Jan 8th 2009 11:16AM]

mio clearly you are knowledgeable on the internals and design of the OS. i think you misunderstand the motive behind my frustration though; the point is that in practice, all of these technologies are riddled with frustrating and time consuming problems. the current indexing service is forever needing to be reset on different computers that i've had to work with because it can't find stuff that is in the folder or in outlook that's right in front of my face. then it works for a while and something breaks it again.

and again, see the mac os if you want a great way to have apps not use a registry. i'm not looking for a technical argument about the theory or programming being anything, i'm just saying that a typical mac user probably doesn't ever have to call their app vendor for some utility to manually remove all kinds of artifacts of an old app so they can re-install. or for that matter to do something as simple as remove a print driver.

if you need to support a large number (or probably even 10) vista machines and guarantee any kind of predictable and stress free behavior for users you have to make sure the machines are way vanilla and even then stuff just flakes out before long (typically due to some over conceived product from HP, ATI or some other 3rd party driver, app or peripheral)- but the issue never seems to stop at screwing up that isolated procedure, the whole system gets jacked up most of the time. troubleshooting quickly goes back to the registry or digging through thousands of KB articles or vendor support sites. it's never a matter of anything most non-savvy users could dream of fixing on their own. while that keeps me a line of work to a certain extent, it definitely diverts resources from anything else, like selling new MS server products for example. even if it's not an MS issue, MS needs to exert some control over this to make the end result that their print spooler doesn't uncontrollably puke all devices at the sign of a single bad printer driver.

as someone who worked with xp in the same capacity for it's entire life cycle (so far anyway) i see a STARK decrease in the reliability and consistency of user experience in VISTA. every time we go to partner events we are wowed with the theory and concept behind the product design, but the execution these days has been depressing. customers expect things to work at least as reliably as XP these days and sadly this is not what we have observed or really even been able to provide after excessive amounts of hours trying to make nice with the vista ecosystem.

so again, boo to microsoft. if they released RDP 6.1 or even active-x/IE for the mac i bet there would be a mass exodus from their desktop platform post haste since most PC users only have a handful of apps that need a PC anymore. it's not like user's can't get used to a complete new interface for their productivity apps... -cough- office 2007 -cough-

[CLShortFuse @ Jan 7th 2009 10:09PM]

CHECK THE BUILD NUMBER!
(start, run, winver)

[Gad Get @ Jan 7th 2009 10:54PM]

iEye? Is that you?

[Sev @ Jan 7th 2009 11:38PM]

There are a few things Microsoft can do for Windows 7....

1) They can scrap everything they've ever done with Windows and design a completely new OS. Of course, then everyone would have to start developing for this new OS, and for the most part, they would lose most of their software support (by that I mean people would give up and not bother re-developing their software for a whole new OS.) But on the bright side, Windows viruses wouldn't run on it.... viruses such as Windows Explorer, or Internet Explorer (boy, they like exploring, don't they?) and trojans that pretend to be useful software but slow your machine to a screeching halt, such as... well, anything with "Microsoft" on the packaging....

They could sell a new OS very easily, provided they make it user-friendly and stable, unlike its predecessors. All they would need to do is say "Our new operating system is less like that accursed, bug-ridden Windows garbage, and more like the stable, user-friendly Mac OS X." Of course, the Microsoft brand should be enough to scare off most people after Vista.... so that probably wouldn't work anyway... much like the OS they would no doubt botch.

2) They can ignore the failure of Vista and keep on the same road (which these pics seem to indicate.) Of course, this will lead to ultimate failure (assuming one doesn't already consider Vista to be the "ultimate failure" that it truly is.)

3) They can run a really engaging and funny ad campaign like Apple. Oh, wait, they already tried that and screwed it up. That's right....

After a little under a year on Vista (until the computer literally burned up inside,) I must say, OS X was like a breath of fresh air, and still is to this day.

Hello, I'm a Mac....

-Sev-

[NewsGuy @ Jan 8th 2009 1:25AM]

Vista is so bad there are more Vista computers sold in 1 year than every single Mac computer ever sold. Don't bring up the argument that people are forced to buy Vista when they can go into Walmart and BestBuy and buy a crapintosh. People don't want CRapple, they want Microsoft. Deal with it and keep crying buddy.

[Jack Storm @ Jan 8th 2009 1:47AM]

Most useless comment ever.

pshh just because you own a mac doesn't mean you're a mac, you wanna-be!

Hello, I'm a Mac-user....

[JRockDetroit @ Jan 8th 2009 3:42AM]

Is it me, or is it finally comforting seeing a Microsoft development that people are generally excited about? Bring on Windows 7!

[adam hartung @ Jan 8th 2009 11:52PM]

How can anyone be excited by an announcement, after 2 years, to fix the weaknesses in a product that was launched two years late? Microsoft's Windows 7 is more of the same, and that's not going to drive sales. Read more at http://www.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com