• The Windows 7 ship date guessing game

    Posted on December 6, 2008 at 04:56 CST by • Comment in the Forums

    Paul Thurrott has weighed in with a surprising prediction for the release date of Windows 7:

    It’s pretty widely known that Microsoft will ship a beta release (and a public one at that) of Windows 7 in January. This beta will be the only beta and it will be followed by a single release candidate build, and then the final version, all in quick succession. I expect Windows 7 to be finalized by April 2009 at the latest, and to be completed simultaneously with Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2), which is also due in April. (Windows 7 and SP2 share more code than people realize as well, by the way.) Windows 7 will be made broadly available to consumers and business customers no later than June 2009.

    Many months ago, I guessed September 1 as the shrinkwrap-box-on-store-shelves date. Now I’m not so sure.

    Steve Sinofsky shipped Office XP before it was fully baked, and he still thinks he did the right thing. He has a history of shipping early on all of his products: he puts them through very rigorous internal testing, but doesn’t worry too much about testing outside of Redmond. The result is lots of incompatibilities, which he promptly patches – consumers turn into beta testers – and his sales don’t suffer. I expect he’ll do the same thing with Win7.

    The move to unlink the Live Essentials was brilliant. Many of the cantankerous Windows programs can be released four or six months after Win7 ships, with new “beta” versions every month. Sharing the code base between Vista Service Pack 2 and Windows 7 means we get more glitz with the same old plumbing – but it’s new plumbing.

    The current pre-beta of Win7 is remarkably stable. I wouldn’t be surprised if Win7 went gold in June.

    Windows News
DON'T MISS OUT!
Subscribe to the Free Newsletter
We promise not to spam you. Unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

View the Forum

  • Recent Replies
  • My Replies
  • My Active Topics
  • New Posts in the Last day
  • Private Messages
  • Knowledge Base
  • How to use the Forums
  • All Forums

    • Recent Topics

    My Profile

    June 2025
    S M T W T F S
    1234567
    891011121314
    15161718192021
    22232425262728
    2930  

    Remembering Woody

     

    Want to Advertise in the free newsletter? How about a gift subscription in honor of a birthday? Send an email to sb@askwoody.com to ask how.

    Mastodon profile for DefConPatch
    Mastodon profile for AskWoody

     

    Home • About • FAQ • Posts & Privacy • Forums • My Account
    Register • Free Newsletter • Plus Membership • Gift Certificates • MS-DEFCON Alerts

    Copyright ©2004-2025 by AskWoody Tech LLC. All Rights Reserved.