Bill Gates says Windows 7 will be out within the next year.

Posted on 4 April, 2008 by Les

Looks like Vista will be joining the ranks of past Microsoft OSes such as Windows ME as a short-lived and much reviled release as word from the Big Man himself says that Windows 7 will be out next year:

MIAMI—Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Friday indicated that Windows 7, the next major version of Windows, could come within the next year, far ahead of the development schedule previously indicated by the software maker.

In response to a question about Windows Vista, Gates, speaking before the Inter-American Development Bank here, said: “Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version.” Referring to Windows 7, the code name for the next full release of Windows client software, Gates said: “I’m super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways.”

[…] Unclear is whether Gates was referring to early testing of Windows 7 coming within the year, as opposed to a widespread release or debut. An early test geared toward developers would be conceivable. The company has repeatedly said that it will accelerate the development of new Windows versions, largely as a response to Vista’s roughly five year gestation period.

Of course Windows 7 will be using Vista as its base to begin with so it’s not like Vista is really going away, but this news may be enough for a lot of folks to skip right over Vista as it currently stands in hopes that the next version of Windows fixes a lot of the perceived flaws. It’ll be particularly interesting to see how businesses react to this news considering that last week Microsoft started pushing harder for businesses to adopt Vista.

19 thoughts on “Bill Gates says Windows 7 will be out within the next year.”

lapojoynt on 4 April, 2008 at 8:06 PM said:

And yet at the same time, XP gets a reprieve for ultra low cost PC’s, to ensure they play the entire spread…must really be concerned about Linux distros to move so quickly on Win7 and string along XP on life support.
Bog Brother on 4 April, 2008 at 8:46 PM said:

God I hope they get rid of that !*#&@(&!(!!!!()##)_#_@@@@$()*#(!!)@)@@@@ UAC !@(!*@**%^$$&@!!
elwedriddsche on 4 April, 2008 at 8:47 PM said:

I still haven’t so much as touched a Vista system.
***Dave on 4 April, 2008 at 10:16 PM said:

Of course, given that Vista slipped … how many scheduled releases over how many years? … I wouldn’t bet a plug nickel that we’ll see Win7 next year. Not unless that’s what they choose to label the next SP for Vista.
Webs on 4 April, 2008 at 11:51 PM said:

I still haven’t so much as touched a Vista system.

I forced myself to use it at work in case I would have to support it there or at some future job. Looks like I won’t have to worry too much about that.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to see a RC for Windows 7. I doubt they will have a full blow OS.
udx on 5 April, 2008 at 12:37 AM said:

If Windows 7.0 does improve over Windows 6.0(Vista) and is proven to be the better product, allows me to run alot of my old PC games, then I’m up for buying a new computer with that in it.

Otherwise, I’ll stick to XP and/or buy a new computer with Linux in it.
decrepitoldfool on 5 April, 2008 at 8:42 AM said:

I doubt they will have a full blow OS.

If they can make an OS that will do that, it will be very popular.
Julian on 5 April, 2008 at 8:54 AM said:

Is Vista really that bad? I’ve only used it a few times but it seemed fine to me. Is it really as horrendous as ME?
elwedriddsche on 5 April, 2008 at 8:54 AM said:

If they can make an OS that will do that, it will be very popular.

It would be a welcome change if it doesn’t suck, but blows.
Les on 5 April, 2008 at 9:52 AM said:

Julian, I don’t think Vista is as bad as it’s perceived to be, but then there are some folks out there who will tell you the same was true of Windows ME:

I have a confession to make, I used Windows Millennium Edition and I liked it. That doesn’t stop me making fun of it however.

At a time where there was still a separation between consumer and enterprise operating systems, Windows Me was at the top of its class.

What a lot of people forget or don’t even recognize to begin with is that Windows Me is actually a rather innovative and forward-looking operating system. Instead, almost everyone focuses on its reliability problems which can be largely attributed to the flaky and inherently unstable Win9x kernel.

[…] Could you imagine the security problems if Windows XP didn’t ship with Automatic Updates? Or if WIA was never introduced – how difficult it was to install a scanner in Windows 98? What about having to download a third-party utility to view a JPG? Or not having to plug in a USB drive and just have it work.

In spite of this and more, people continue to draw comparisons between Windows Vista and Windows Me as if it were as hip as writing Microsoft with a dollar sign in the late 90s.

I don’t think this is fair at all. If anything, it means Vista has a bunch of new and improved features that we won’t realize the full potential of till a couple more Windows releases down the road. But that doesn’t mean it’s destined to a be a ‘failure’.

Personally I like Vista a lot, but it does take a beefer machine to run it. I’ve been running it with 1 gigabyte of RAM and for most uses that’s enough, but being a gamer I really need at least 2 gigs to smooth things out a bit. Something I intend to fix. My wife loves Vista and is upset that we had to move her back to XP for the same reason of not having enough RAM on her machine.
elwedriddsche on 5 April, 2008 at 10:08 AM said:

To state the obvious, there are non-technical reasons to reject Vista and Micro$oft products and services in general.
zilch on 5 April, 2008 at 11:59 AM said:

It would be a welcome change if it doesn’t suck, but blows.

Or maybe both? Gee, are we silly…
elwedriddsche on 5 April, 2008 at 2:48 PM said:

Gee, are we silly…

It would be nice if Micro$oft would limit itself to the company’s core competency—building mice and keyboards. The thought of Micro$oft adult toys is perhaps too much too bear.
zilch on 6 April, 2008 at 2:32 AM said:

The thought of Micro$oft adult toys is perhaps too much too bear.

But think about the possible features- automatic updates, tracking of preferences in an international database, commercial intercourse with strangers…
swordsbane on 6 April, 2008 at 10:59 AM said:

Holy Major Stupidity Batman!
elwedriddsche on 6 April, 2008 at 12:08 PM said:

Holy Major Stupidity Batman!

That version of Windows was released a long ago.
zilch on 6 April, 2008 at 1:53 PM said:

You’re not referring to Windows 3.0, the last stable OS from Microsoft, are you, elwed?
Julian on 6 April, 2008 at 2:11 PM said:

Viagra – the only solution for Micro-Soft
Ragman on 6 April, 2008 at 3:27 PM said:

elwed: It would be nice if Micro$oft would limit itself to the company’s core competency—building mice and keyboards. The thought of Micro$oft adult toys is perhaps too much too bear.

I’m not putting my junk in anything built by a company who brought us “The Blue Screen of Death.”

I’ll bet Win7 will be a Vista upgrade. Most of us should be able to afford the hardware to run it by then, and Daniel_K can get more drivers written for it.