Windows Vista has been released for a month now to business, and is going to be released to the general public in a month (January 30). For those who haven’t been following Vista’s development, it is worth noting that even though Vista comes 5 years after XP, it is a rushed product.
Originally set to be a relatively small update to XP, to be released in 2003, it was re-envisioned as a major release, with revolutionary technologies such as WinFS (a new file system), Palladium (security system), Avalon (graphics system) and Indigo (communications system).
As the years went on, the folks at Microsoft found out that they are in over their heads with it, and following numerous delays and feature-cuts and slim downs and a complete development restart in late 2004 - early 2005, they finally got on track of a much simpler OS. Nonetheless Windows Vista is a huge improvement over previous versions, and has many great features that makes it a must have (despite what many might say).
It doesn’t really matter if Vista is a success or not, Microsoft cannot wait another five years to release another Windows. People are becoming more aware of the choices they have, and Linux is no longer a hobbyist OS, and that day isn’t far away when it becomes simple enough to be a viable alternative to Windows.
And that is why Microsoft is planning a “Vista R2″, codename ‘Fiji’. From what little information is available we know that this will be a minor release sometime in 2008.
Windows Fiji
-The UI will be updated with things that were originally promised for Vista, along with a more powerful sidebar, which will be more than just a dock for widgets (a.k.a. gadgets)
-.Net Framework will be updated to 3.5 (or maybe even 4)
-WinFS will be applied over NTFS to give us Virtual Folders
(or maybe just Saved Searches)
-All bundled application will be updated to newer versions
-Tighter integration with Windows Live. Probably through ‘Codename Nemo’, a media center application that’s integrated with Messenger, Spaces, and probably lots of other Windows Live Services.
- We might see Monaco, a music authoring tool, similar to Apple’s Garageband.
- Default playback of HD-DVD (maybe even Blu-ray), Vista currently identifies these disks but cannot play them without an external decoder.
-A more advanced Speech Recognition
-NGSCB will be implemented to make the system more secure.
-New themes, icons, wallpapers, games, and minor tweaks to almost everything.
Although Fiji doesn’t sound too exciting yet, new features are bound to be added. Still, it might just be a way to keep us quiet while they work on Vienna.
Windows Vienna (formerly Blackcomb) will be a huge departure from current incarnations of Windows, Similar to the transition from OS8-9 to OSX. It will break compatibility with all applications, but the newer, more flexible, richer and secure platform will be incentive enough for applications to be re-written for Vienna.
Windows Vienna
-The current interface will be completely stripped, no more explorer shells, and taskbars. No start menu. Probably no toolbars, or menus (which already started with Vista).
-Speech Recognition will become a major input device (though it will not replace the keyboard and mouse) and will be supported by most third party applications
-Many projects from Microsoft’s R&D will come into play, especially from their VIBE research center. A pie-menu is rumored to be used.
- A new version of NTFS wrapped in a more powerful WinFS. No more drives, or files/folders location to worry about. File Management will be done through applications, which will automatically index and sort the files they support.
- Even bundled applications will evolve a lot (compare WMP6 with WMP11).
- Search will part a huge part in Vienna (like it does in the control panel of Vienna)
- Applications with non-managed code will run in a sandbox mode (like IE7 does in Vista), so that security exploits in a single application doesn’t affect the entire OS.
Facts are hard to come by about Windows Vienna but it has 15 years of R&D to borrow from, and one thing is for certain, Vienna won’t be just an operating system, but a new generation in computing.
