Windows 7 is here, so how long left for Vista?
The Windows 7 RC is now with us, being made available to the general public yesterday. The final version of the new OS hasn’t yet been given an official release date but the period between August and November 2009 is looking more and more likely. So how long does Vista have left before it’s killed off completely?
Many people would suggest that killing Vista off would be putting the failed operating system out of its misery, and that would be true to a certain point – it would at least bring an end to the general poor public feeling towards Microsoft for foisting a new OS on us all when we were quite content with Windows XP in the main.
But it’s not as easy as saying, “Here’s Windows 7, now Vista is dead.”
On Monday, Richard Francis, general manager and Windows client business group lead at Microsoft Asia-Pacific, suggested that Vista could be booted out of the door as soon as Windows 7 made its first appearance. Not so, according to official word coming from Microsoft.
According to Computer World, a spokesperson would only say, “We have not made any final end-of-sales decisions for Windows Vista,” but anything less than a four-year lifespan for a Microsoft operating system would be most unusual. Microsoft has never offered anything less than a six-month crossover period when both the old OS and the new OS were available to purchase side-by-side.
Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft said:
Windows 7 has the potential to not be met with the same resistance as Vista. But to try to stop Vista or make it unavailable, that would just draw attention. The truth is, few people will be likely to order it once Windows 7 is available.
It would be very unlikely for someone to want Vista once Windows 7 was available seeing as the new OS is essentially Vista but with improvements galore. Asking for Vista when Windows 7 was there for the taking would be akin to choosing to spend the night with your ex-girlfriend when a new date, slimmer, more attractive, better in bed etc was available and willing. It’s not going to happen.
But taking the option away from people so soon would be like admitting Vista was bad. Not something Microsoft is ever likely to do.
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May 6th, 2009
To Hell with Vista and Winblows 7! (Satan deserves the massive punishment, himself). Win XP Pro has finally been debugged by the paying public for enough years to be reasonably well understood and fairly stable.
My question is this: where can I still obtain WinXP Pro and WinXP Pro x64 installation media at a really low price? All of my clients are still using XP Pro and a fair amount of software I’ve written is designed specifically to run under XP Pro (x64). To continue to support existing clients and code, I’d like to be able to build new computers and install one of said OSes.
For my own purposes, after WinXP Pro (x64), it is Ubuntu Linux all the way…
May 6th, 2009
@ Mr Wizard … Check Micro Center for refurbished XP pro machines…starting as low as $99 with a guarantee and even reinstall disc. As for XP 64…dunno…But XP is alive and well despite Microsoft’s earlier attempt to bury it with Vista.
There is a huge demand for XP world wide. Something tells me despite the good reviews for Windows 7…it will be a long time before XP gets replaced especially in the business sector. Windows 7 still has higher requirements than XP.
Almost going back to step one of the problem with Vista. Companies are still have to buy either more ram or faster computers to run 7 properly…especially in “XP mode”. We run XP Pro computers at work with 1.6 Ghz and I kid you not…128 MB of ram.
I do not foresee our company spending big bucks on computer upgrades…forget new computers altogether.
Yes, agree with Ubuntu…wireless works out of the box and it is finally come into its own.
May 7th, 2009
It’s nice that bloggers like Dave have to admit finally that Win7 is good and worth upgrade as it’s based on Vista but many years bad mouthing about Vista doesn’t make a glue to use it. For this kind of stupid bloggers repacked Vista (Win7) is good option to finally install Vista.
May 7th, 2009
Vista will be on sale 2011 so Vista is’t any near close to dead. Sorry.
May 7th, 2009
7 is Vista.
And 7 runs fine on common hardware XP runs on. A gig of RAM and dual core processor works just fine.
November 21st, 2009
Let’s not forget the issue of device drivers and software for Windows 7. You cannot use your existing Vista drivers, and some applications won’t run properly on Windows 7 (Photoshop CS3 for one) so to say that it’s “essentially Vista with improvements” is misleading.
If your existing scanner or printer has no Windows 7 drivers available, and your expensive applications won’t run properly on it, there’s reason enough to want to stick with Vista or even XP, and to be very reluctant to upgrade. I’m in that position right now.
My 6 year old desktop PC is getting near end-of-life but to get a new one with Vista pre-installed I’m going to have to replace it sooner than I would like to avoid having to replace other items. Photoshop CS4 alone costs as much as a mid-range branded PC!
November 21st, 2009
addendum to my previous post – for anyone buying their first PC and peripheral hardware, and as yet haven’t built up a library of expensive applications, choosing Windows 7 instead of Vista (assuming they have a choice) is indeed a no-brainer.
But when you own incompatible peripherals and expensive applications (as I do), Windows 7 is the last thing we need. The same problems were faced when Vista replaced XP as I recall.
Microsoft seem to be incapable of creating a new OS that’s backward-compatible with existing drivers even when the partition type and file system are unchanged. If they could manage that, the initial take up of their new OS would be much higher I’m sure.