Will they also confirm that this is the least significant release of their Windows ever? It contains so little more compared to Vista, even its name signifies a lack of creativity.

FWIW, I confirm that I will not buy it.

Still keeping the breadcrumbs?
Still keeping the lack of an 'up' green arrow button?
Still keeping the lack of a 'folders' button
No sale.

Please Microsoft, Please Please Please don't release it if it's not done just to make a deadline. Take the extra month or two to polish it if you need to. We'll still all buy it, and be all the much more happier with a finished late product than a buggy ontime product.

#4, #11, #15, #17...it's called marketing, get over it. Apple caters to the plug-it-in-and-it-works crowd. Yeah, it's a premium prices, so what.

MS is bigger and wealthier than Apple; they have the resources to be all things to all people, from the retail plug-it-in folks, up to the enthusiast or gamer.

Win 7 should reflect this reality. Mac OS doesn't have to. I am personally quite happy with my mix of XP and Vista boxes, see no reason to upgrade unless there is a new killer app.

Vista works flawlessly for me, but it's very important for Microsoft to put out a new operating system because of all the misinformation about Vista. Look at that Mac commercial about fixing Vista. It's almost slanderous, anyone watching it might think that installing Vista will cripple their computer, with constant crashes, and not being able to do anything.

What I find alarming, is Microsoft is not beta testing Windows Mobile or letting much out about that, which is a far more important area of development for the FUTURE than Windows Desktop Operating systems.

Look at the trends. More people buy laptops than desktops. In the future, the OS will absolutely require to be mobile. Where I work, we will buy no more desktops after 2009, and half our users access and manipulate data via iphones, because WM was not cutting it.

None of these Windows 7 technologies address core mobile issues, seriously still screwing around with the GUI, and gushing about it?

Seems crazy. Apple is positioned to overtake MSFT, and I don't make that statement lightly, I do not like Apple.

Win7 is pretty much Vista SP2 with some UI minor revisions. That's fine, because there's really nothing wrong with Vista.

I thought I read somewhere (some time back) that Windows 7 will finally have native virtual desktops. Unfortunately, I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else, so I'm not sure if this was misinformation, or a dropped feature, or tech sites don't see this as an important feature to mention.

I hope Windows 7 finally has it built in. Pretty please, MS?!?!

My impression is that Windows 7 is to Vista as XP was to 2000. That is, the underpinnings will remain the same but the UI will be tweaked.

Windows 7 is more than just Vista with UI tweaks. After watching the WinHEC video they've made a number of changes that a fundamental operating system should do like managing the system memory, processor clock cycles, and device drivers.

- The boot time has been decreased because they now have parallel instead of sequential loading device drivers (probably due to mass multi-core processors) and less services on startup (on demand instead of automatic).

- Faster shutdowns from locating and terminating timeout services

- Better power management from running tasks at only the required frequency / power state needed from the CPU

- Less memory usage when opening new windows because of a fixed set, and the memory is managed by the video card instead of the main memory.

Wow what a shocker, SP2 will be released in 2009. Oh and they will charge for it.

They cant ditch that name fast enough.

I think the main reason could be that companies have been slow to adopt vista. They often have machines that are not so high end so performance could be an issue. Also they need to deploy it widely at the same time so compatibility is very important. My company is at least still using XP and as far as I know has no plans to switch to Vista. So they really need to bring in the Windows 7.

Windows 7 should have just been a service pack. However, they need to remove the stigma that is Vista.

Hopefully at least some of this will get into a Vista service pack.

I find it somewhat amusing that techies who have bashed Vista are awaiting for Vista+minor ui tweaks with bated breath.

Me, I don't have much use for it, really. I've found Vista's user interface changes very uncomfortable, compared to XP (bar the useful rename function change), so I won't be switching anytime soon.

Is that how Microsoft "acknowledged" Vista's shortcomings, by the way? By prepping Vista plus insignificant tweaks and calling it "Windows 7"? Someone call Stardock! They've come up with Windows 9, already!!

boy I'm happy I didn't pay for Vista. one MSDN license for Vista business and one of those 'all-in-one' ISOs were more than enough to tide me over until windows 7.

It's clear from the picture with this news article that Vista = Sarah Palin.

Any idea on how many editions of Windows 7 would come out?

Hmm, now I was planning on upgrading my Vista laptop to a 64-bit version when I upgrade the RAM as well, around about that timeframe.

I might well just upgrade the Operating System instead :-)

Edit: reply to #33
___________

Apple is wealthier than Microsoft:

Apple has "$24.5 billion in the bank, Microsoft is hovering around $20.7 billion when factoring cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments".

http://www.macblogz.com/2008/10/24/apple-has-more-cash-than-microsoft/

This news blurb pretty much nails my Windows 7 = Windows 98 2.0 and Vista = Windows 95 2.0 analogy.

I wonder how cheap Core i7 motherboards and CPUs will be then...perhaps I'll make an upgrade.

I'll never buy it until they bring back Program Manager!!!

Whooo. I'm not seeing to much in W7 right now. Vista 64 and is really where I want it to be so I'm skipping 7. I'll go Windows 8 with either Intel's Sandy Bridge or AMD's MSPACE design.

I like how 7 is coming together but time will tell if Windows 7 is worth getting. Even so, XP users like myself will have to get it eventually after mainstream support is cutoff.

I just want there to be a XP UI (with tweaks) to choose from.

Running the 6801 release. Easy to see Win7 going gold in 6-9 months. This works out well for me. Running Vista32 and enjoying it. Win7 will be my first 64-bit version.

Meh