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Oct 13

Sinofsky (Barely) Discusses Windows 7

Posted in: Microsoft, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, windows 7

This article was written on May 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has been very quiet on what to expect from Windows 7, and that’s to be expected after they over-promised on Vista thereby leading to a lot of disappointment. Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to keep things under wraps they still have a hard time dealing with leaks, and if rumors are right there’s yet another milestone right around the corner.

The person in charge of the Windows 7 development, Steven Sinofsky, decided that it was time to come forward. He did a very lengthy interview with CNet that talks a lot about nothing. There’s hardly any information regarding Windows 7, and this interview was primarily about how Microsoft intends to communicate during the development cycle. If you actually take the time to read through the interview you’ll notice that Sinofsky stressed the fact they he was not there to talk about Windows 7 features, and here are some quotes to that effect:

“Well, why don’t we stick at a higher level today, because I think that I don’t want to really dive into the implementation details today.“
“Again I don’t want to talk about any more specifics today, because we’re focused today on how we’re going to communicate things.“
“Right now, today, we’re really focused on just making sure everybody understands how we’re going to talk about all of the things that we’re going to do in this next release of Windows“
“I think we’ve talked enough about the direction that we’re heading with the specifics of the product today, since we really did want to focus a little bit more on just talking about how we’re communicating with partners and customers and the ecosystem at large.“

There are only a handful of things that are worthwhile in the interview:

Microsoft is “committed to” delivering Windows 7 “about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista.” 2010 here we come!
The driver model will work exactly the same as it does on Vista, which should help “not introduce additional compatibilities.“
Windows 7 will be offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

The Windows Vista Blog also published an article to the same effect, letting people know that they still want to keep any details on Windows 7 as concealed as possible. Well, they didn’t say it like that, but that’s the impression you’ll walk away with.

This is all completely understandable actually, because it’s not like Apple pours out details as they roll in. Companies need to keep information like this from getting into the hands of their competitors, and Microsoft is no exception. But don’t worry, Microsoft still has plans to make pre-release copies of Windows 7 available just like they did with Vista.

Please, keep your excitement to a minimum.