Microsoft Windows 7 on track for the holiday season

Well, we thought this might happen -- especially after the news that Acer's Z5600 all-in-one will be shipping with Windows 7 pre-loaded, come October 23rd of this year. And now it's official: Windows 7 is on track to be released this "holiday season." Now, this announcement may be officially vague, but it is official. Sometimes in this business (as in life) we take what we can get.

[yes @ May 11th 2009 2:38PM]

looks good.

[El Capitan @ May 11th 2009 2:51PM]

I hope so. I'm just worried they're rushing it....does anyone else think so?

[dtatgenho @ May 11th 2009 3:09PM]

@ El Capitan:

Rushing it? Umm, no. Windows 7 has been rock-solid even since the first Beta, and has only gotten better.

[hexydes @ May 11th 2009 3:11PM]

No, they are not rushing it. I've used pre-builds of Windows since Windows Neptune (precursor to Whistler, itself a precursor to Windows 2000). I can honestly say, I've never seen such a solid beta/RC project from Microsoft. They could release Windows 7 today and be in at least as good a situation as they were with Vista. Give them a few more months, and I think they're really going to have it on track. I would be VERY surprised if Windows 7 didn't push early and release by October, using the holiday season to sell pre-loaded versions of the OS.

[OneLove @ May 11th 2009 3:43PM]

Big surprise...Microsoft recycles product and gives itself a recession bailout.

[jguilb @ May 11th 2009 3:44PM]

New Windows 7 hack purports to be "unfixable"

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/23/new-windows-7-hack-purports-to-be-unfixable/

[OneLove @ May 11th 2009 3:45PM]

P.S. I would hold out on the celebration till we see the pricing on said windows 7.

[Frankenstein Black @ May 11th 2009 3:47PM]

@ hexydes
"solid beta/RC project from Microsoft"
Agreed!

For those that have been endlessly mauling Vista since its release, what happened is not that unusual for consumer targeted Microsoft OS:
- Windows 3.1 - good
- Windows 95 - bad
- Windows 98 - good
- Windows me - bad
- Windows xp - good
- Windows Vista - bad
- Windows 7 - good (we think ;^)
- Windows (next?) - probably bad
- Windows (after that) - probably good

See a pattern? Well, “the more things change; the more things stay the same”.

[Lefty K. Monahan @ May 11th 2009 6:29PM]

I did not find any of the pre-RC builds stable. I regularly experienced crashes. Glad to finally have stability with the RC> :)

[tom @ May 11th 2009 3:51PM]

@Frankenstein Black

hum...make sense.

[Stacky @ May 11th 2009 3:59PM]

What happened to 2000?

[Jon Acheson @ May 11th 2009 4:12PM]

@Frankenstein Black:

I think it is a mistake to attribute any kind of regularity to Microsoft's quality control. Sometimes they manage to put out solid product, credit where due. But if they have any pattern, it's bad release version, fixed at the second or third patch.

And products apart from their operating systems follow different trends. For instance, Word has been getting steadily less usable since Word 6.

[Alex @ May 11th 2009 4:30PM]

tom:
He missed out 2000 because it didn't fit his pattern.

[jguilb @ May 11th 2009 4:34PM]

@dtatgenho "Windows 7 has been rock-solid even since the first Beta"

guess you didnt see the article entitled "New Windows 7 hack purports to be "unfixable"
Yeah .. rock solidly broken !

[Frankenstein Black @ May 11th 2009 4:45PM]

2000 (like NT) being business/enterprise OS's
The key words in the rant were "consumer targeted OS" ;^/...

[michaelportent @ May 11th 2009 5:39PM]

I agree wholeheartedly with @Frankenstein Black's timeline of evaluations for Windows versions.

It seems they put out a usable product, experiment (and ham-handedly fail) with the next version, and learn from their mistakes on the one after it. It's a good pattern for a company to evolve on, albeit frustrating for the users.

[dtatgenho @ May 11th 2009 6:05PM]

@jguilb

From the post you mentioned (Windows 7 hack "unfixable"), I will simply quote bob, a commenter from that post, who put it best (and many others who pointed out the same in the comments):

-----------------------------------------------
bob @ Apr 23rd 2009 7:06PM

Dumbest hack ever if it can't be deployed remotely. That's like saying an ERD Commander or BartPE are deadly exploits.
-----------------------------------------------

*ANY* machine that can be *physically* accessed can get owned. UNIX, Linux, Windows, OS X, whatever...


Go back, read the comments, learn something, and stop wasting everyone's time...

[richard @ May 11th 2009 6:38PM]

I have been using the beta since it came out and now into Win7 RC. I am really impressed! It is Way better than vista. Vista I did not care for at all. It is running really well on my HP 6510b laptop with no serious issues.

[ED @ May 11th 2009 7:00PM]

@hexydes
"They could release Windows 7 today and be in at least as good a situation as they were with Vista. "
Even if it was just Hitler with flashing eyes it would be better than Vista.

[Neoprimal @ May 11th 2009 7:05PM]

People complained about XP for years of it's initial release. It was touted as a pretty horrible OS...then SP1 came, and poof, many problems seemed to vanish. SP2 and bam! even better. While the SPs were awesome and SP1 indeed fixed some pretty bad bugs, I'm going to wager a bet that more powerful computers being released with SP1 molded the 'general' view. Now, XP is looked at as oh-so-wonderful. It runs great on little underpowered netbooks and most people that use Windows, like XP. If Vista got 1/2 the chance (aka a few more years) that XP did then I'm pretty absolutely sure that people would understand that it's not horrible by any means. So much of Vistas pain right now is through word-of-mouth and from people that 'hear' from other people about how 'slow' Vista is.

Alas, go Windows 7. I like it. You have to be purposely set or on the extremely dim side to crash it or get into ANY kind of problems and in general, I can't really find anything to complain about regarding the OS (with Vista, you could at least say that it took up quite a bit of hard drive space and RAM). The sooner it's released, the better the 'Windows' community will be as a whole.

[Major4Play @ May 11th 2009 7:32PM]

@Frankenstein Black, You don't really remember 98 or XP do you ?

Windows 98 - Crap
Windows 98 SE - Very slight improvement
Windows 2000 - Pretty good product
Windows XP - buggy and crap
Windows XP SP1 - Slightly less buggy
Windows XP SP2 - Stable and almost completely bug free (only took 5 years)

I personally quite like Vista but 7 is excellent, I've got my HTPC and work PC both running on it.

[Oscarv77 @ May 11th 2009 2:38PM]

No more unicorns?

[Templarian @ May 11th 2009 3:00PM]

Anyone notice that the paper he is holding reads "Shut Up".

[GON @ May 11th 2009 3:12PM]

Also looks a bit like "start up", but you're probably right.

[Templarian @ May 11th 2009 3:22PM]

Yea you actually might be right, it probably does say "Start Up", never can be too sure with Engadget. lol.

[John @ May 11th 2009 2:39PM]

Oh good. I can put this on the "if you buy this for me i'll disown you" list.

[Jon Doe. @ May 11th 2009 2:45PM]

Promise?

[kjb434 @ May 11th 2009 2:48PM]

Let's all by John Win 7. Then he'll never post here again!

[telepheedian @ May 11th 2009 3:03PM]

Then, he can send me the copy if he doesn't want it.

[TRS @ May 11th 2009 3:14PM]

he wont even be able to post on here because microsoft windows sucks and he'll never even make it to the internets :P and if he does, he'll contract a virus immediately and his computer will crash, and he'll never make it on the internets again.

[jguilb @ May 11th 2009 3:18PM]

hahahah ... windows ... hahahah

[jguilb @ May 11th 2009 3:45PM]

New Windows 7 hack purports to be "unfixable"

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/23/new-windows-7-hack-purports-to-be-unfixable/

[MED @ May 11th 2009 4:48PM]

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[Templarian @ May 11th 2009 2:40PM]

I can't wait.

Not that we all don't have it free for a year.

[holycow @ May 11th 2009 2:40PM]

this kinda sucks... I was hoping to get Windows 7 laptop before school starts in September. Hopefully, we'll get a free upgrade like people did with Vista.

[Templarian @ May 11th 2009 2:44PM]

Rumor is that the free upgrade period will be pretty long due to Microsofts want for people to use it over Vista.

(the date on a few blogs is after July 1st the upgrade is free).

[Sam @ May 11th 2009 2:46PM]

You couldn't give Vista Second Edition to me for free. More hassle to format my drive, install, install my programs etc... than any hassle that I get from Vista.

[Templarian @ May 11th 2009 2:55PM]

@Sam, you can just do an upgrade.

Took me around an 2 hours to get everything back to normal, and I have a lot of software that I use. I keep all my programs in ISO on an external drive though. Actually upgraded two computers to Windows 7.

[Sam @ May 11th 2009 3:02PM]

@Templarian:

That's still more time than I have ever spent fixing any problems I have had with Vista :)

[Cody @ May 11th 2009 3:04PM]

they should make it free for all people who bought a vista machine from January 1, 2009 on.... i say this because i bought my Vaio on like the 2nd of January.

[John Doe @ May 11th 2009 3:06PM]

Just dual-boot 7 with Vista...works great!!! Can't rely upon a RC for all the work?

[Templarian @ May 11th 2009 3:16PM]

@Sam, I've never actually had a problem with a vista personally. My work computer is running it right now, shadow copy is the greatest.

My laptop use to be dual booted, but trust me there is little reason to go back once one has upgraded to the RC (unless they don't plan to buy Windows 7).

[Keebler Rockwell @ May 11th 2009 2:42PM]

Well a low cost upgrade option SKU will be coming out according to my microsoft rep.

but holiday season is the projected release timeframe

[B3astofthe3ast @ May 11th 2009 2:42PM]

I've never gotten an OS as a gift before...LOL.

[d889 @ May 11th 2009 3:46PM]

lol i remember getting windows 98 second edition for christmas once .... no more locking up in internet explorer on my 56k!!

[Lefty K. Monahan @ May 11th 2009 6:29PM]

I suppose giving the gift of a Linux distro would be the equivalent of shopping for gifts at a dollar store or thrift store?

[maveric101 @ May 11th 2009 8:13PM]

no, but people will get it preloaded on the laptops they get for the holidays.

[mbentley @ May 11th 2009 2:44PM]

who needs an official red ryder carbine-action two-hundred-shot range model air rifle when you can get windows 7 for christmas!

[kjb434 @ May 11th 2009 2:50PM]

At least Win7 won't poke your eye out!

[neodorian @ May 11th 2009 2:54PM]

But they both have this thing that tells time.