Ashutosh Nilkanth's Blog

At PDC 2008, Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 7, its next generation operating system.

I’ve been following the state of engineering behind Windows 7 for a while, both architecturally and UI, and after looking at the simplistic look, I hope it delivers a more secure, more stable, and less fussy OS.

Update: Windows 7 Walkthrough, Boot Video and Impressions

Windows XP is the most popular, and in many ways more reliable, than any other computer operating system offered by Microsoft. Windows XP is also one of the largest consumer software applications.

But, let’s face it, Microsoft has had a hard time selling Vista, their most recent operating system. The sales have been lower than expected because XP is still the preferred choice by home users in particular. When Microsoft stated that it sold more than 20 million Windows Vista licenses in the first month of availability, more than twice the initial sales of Windows XP, but that doesn’t sound quite right.

Anyways, to make things worse for XP users, Microsoft will officially end the lifecycle of Windows XP in June 2008, to make way for their future operating systems. That means there will be no more XP security updates, no more XP technical support, and no more XP on new computers. At some point you’ll be “forced” to upgrade to Vista, which is slower (on most computers that are 2-3 years old) and incompatible with many hardware devices.

If you love Windows XP, considering that you are not yet an open source junkie and still stuck in the Windows world, and would like Microsoft to hear you say, then join the “Save XP” movement. Close to 200,000 people have already signed the petition to show their support for Windows XP, but the petition needs more substance, from you and your friends.

Coming over to some breaking news, CrunchGear has released screen-shots of Windows 7, Microsoft’s next major OS after Vista. Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky was interviewed by CNET about Windows 7 sometime back.

Windows 7 is expected to be released by 2010. Go figure!

Update: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates will demonstrate Windows 7, tonight at Dow Jones’ D6 conference. Checkout the D6 Highlights blog for more details as they emerge.

Update-2 (29/05): Ballmer And Gates Demo Windows 7: Multitouch, Pie Menus And a Piano

Microsoft has released to manufacturing (RTM) its Visual Studio 2008 software development platform and the accompanying .Net Framework 3.5, meaning these technologies are available for download on MSDN to subscribers today. Among other things, Visual Studio 2008 is Microsoft’s development platform geared to building Windows Vista applications. More information…

Also noteworthy is the highlight that Vista sales have hit 88 Million, up 47% since July 2007.

Vista’s successor, earlier codenamed “Vienna“, now known as “7″, due out within three years.

While Windows Vista no longer has the Windows File System (WinFS) feature and its core has been built starting from the Windows Server 2003 kernel, the Joejoe group have gone back to the pre-release Build 4074 of Longhorn and took it from there. Microsoft has so far failed to react to the project officially, but the Redmond Company did state that the end users license agreement for the beta build of Longhorn does not allow users to modify and redistribute the code. More details …