I wonder which rights they'll take from us with this one
They already took away the right to share your software with others, and your right to modify your computer's software.
Wonder if they found a way to wipe your memory of drm music you've played

Great news.. Now i am sticking with XP for one more year...

Still on track? Everything stays on track until the last 3 months or so when things get pushed to a later release.

But I'll give MS a little credit. I think a lot of their OS code was rewritten well (performant & extensible) and now it's more incremental development so they may be able to get most of their desired features in Win7.

So Vista SP1 first half of this yr, SP2 sometime next yr if needed, Win7 end of next yr.

If you ask Me, If Microsoft were truly committed to a 64 bit OS, They'd drop the plans for the 32 bit OS.

WTF? I might not even have moved to Vista by then...and that's assuming I will at all.

I guess this is the way they want it though. Windows 98 was supposed to be Windows 97. Windows 2000 was supposed to be consumer-grade, but that was put off 'till XP. Obviously, they're *trying* to do 2-3 year intervals to keep us upgrading.

We're still on track for passing on Windows Vista, as well.

32-bit ... screw M$.

Windows 98 called it wants it role as being patched version of previous version of Windows back.

Unless they release WinFS with it, I'll keep XP and wait until it's added.

faster releases = incremental updates to the same OS -- something other vendors have been doing for years..... = faster revenue (in smaller amounts) -- I for one don't agree with this strategy -- just when Vista is fixed and stable they are going to release a new version with new problems. XP may have it's issues but we (business) customers had a stable platform for years and now software makers are going to have to be faster on support for newer OS....

Mojo

64bit better be the primary one.

I think linux will see a surge in new users.

lets hope ms learned from their previous mistake...
and also not put Win 7 on a BD disc with a massive footprint.

It's sort of amusing to keep seeing people complaining that Vista "took too long" out of the gate while simultaneously complaining about the theoretical release of the next version of Windows coming too soon...;) No matter how irrational they may become on the subject, people love to bitch about Microsoft.

As far as Microsoft's "commitment" to 64-bit OS development goes, that's pretty easy to see: if Microsoft didn't want 64-bit OSes they'd never have written and published them. Besides, isn't Intel still actively making and selling the original Core cpu, which won't do 64-bits at all? IMO, if 64-bit adoption on the desktop has taken too long you can hang it all on Intel's doorstep as for years the only thing Intel had to say about "64-bits on the desktop" was "You don't need it" (quote, unquote)...;)

AFAIK, Microsoft was actively supporting 64-bit desktops long before Intel got in the game. I think it goes without saying that such 64-bit desktop OS support as we have today is chiefly the creation of AMD and Microsoft. Intel came very late to the party and that, imo, is the main reason we aren't much further along insofar as 64-bit desktops are concerned.

lol so what does this mean for vista? no DX 11? :P

I agree... MS should be going 64 bit only for the next OS - but they are obviously not interested in helping accelerate the process of transitioning to 64 bit

Huh. I've been wanting to go with Vista for quite some time now, but being a student with no job, my first priority is food and rent, leaving me little spare change to buy a new OS. (I want to buy Office 2k7 first). I was thinking once I get my career started this summer (I'm done school!), I was gonna pick up Vista to replace XP, but with this news, I think I can hold onto XP for another year and a half. Seriously Microsoft? what's up? Vista seems like a good platform, just tweak it (much like they had to do with XP).

Why are they still offering 32-bit versions? I'd bet the only PCs capable of running this future OS would have 64-bit CPUs, anyway.

Well I will still be running xp when this comes out. I will think about an upgrade then. Hopefully it will fix the problems with vista

I imagine MS is hanging onto the 32bit versions to keep corporate customers happy (some of whom have software that actually won't run on 64bit, and some of whom don't want to deal with a heterogeneous client mix, validating hardware to replace things that don't have 64bit drivers available, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if, by the time this actually ships, even those sluggards have finally got on the 64bit train and MS quietly drops the 32bit version.

as well as "the ability . . . to handle a heterogeneous graphics system consisting of multiple graphics cards from different vendors."

no doubt a side benefit of getting the graphics system out of kernel space and in to user land