Sunday, October 21, 2007

Microsoft Windows 7 revealed





Still hesitating about the big move to Vista? Maybe you're best off waiting for Windows 7, the successor to Vista, which Microsoft is already hard at work on. Where's the proof? Long Zheng, the Australian hacker behind the blog istartedsomething, has posted a clip from what seems to be the first public demonstration of the forthcoming operating system. Sure, it's not scheduled to be released until 2010, but still, when it arrives, it'll be super neat-and well worth the wait! Let's cros our fingers that the software is not bloated as always since the kernel has been stripped down to only 25MB.

So what can be gleaned from the video? The portion Zheng highlights is a discussion of the Windows 7 core, which turns out to be a relatively lean machine. In it, engineer Eric Traut shows off a streamlined app called MinWin, not a product itself but probably the basis for future products, he points out. The Windows 7 source code is about 25MB on disk, an interesting comparison to the 4GB that the full Windows Vista takes up. Oh, and there's no graphical system yet, which explains the ASCII logo.

There's also an interesting walk through the history of Microsoft's operating systems. You knew Vista was OS 6, right? And that XP was 5, and NT 4.0 was 4, and Windows 3.1 ... well, you get the picture. If Windows 7 doesn't interest you, watch the clip for a quick walkthrough of Windows 2 and 1 as well.

Source: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071019/eric-talk-demo-windows-7-minwin/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All I can say is that the facts here are in great disarray. First of all, the space Vista takes up, ranges from between 6-15GB of HD space, without illegally stripping it down. Next, according to my source within Microsoft, Windows 7, as it has come to be called, is still in the planning stages, and may most likely use MinWin as a base for the architecture, but may change depending on the array of features, still to be determined. If MinWin does become the base architecture, It will certainly not take up less than at least 250MB, (the aproximate size of Windows ME) due to the fact it must have some sort of GUI, even if it is bare-bones, and not nearly as flash as Vista is now, so keep dreaming... especially in a world where computers are taking on Terabytes of HD space, over 8GB of RAM, and 1GB of Graphical memory (specs underway for late 2008, according to Hewlett Packard) Also, Windows 7 will incorporate a more advanced user interface, yet to surface, the ever increasing use of touch technolagy... (i.e. Apple's iPhone, and our Microsoft Surface) which will redefine computers today, to the dream computers of tomorrow. And the last thing i can say, is that Windows 7, may not be the official Operating System's name, unless it were to "publically stick," so it may or may not change, but for now, it remains as Windows 7, Codename Blackcomb, or Vienna. Next time anyone decides to steal information, don't take things out of context, to get the public excited for nothing, say it as it is, and be patient, because I guarantee you, "Windows 7" will not disappoint, and if you thought Vista's features were brilliant, "Windows 7" is going to redefine your life. signed, "DeepDrive"