Longhorn, aka Windows VISTA?

[BooTx]

Yeah I don’t have any problem running the Thief games in XP.

[XPav]

@Igor Murashkin

We’d all be better off if game developers would just realize the superiority of OpenGL and write games for that… Anyways, unless there is a crack for Vista’s DRM “features” then there is no way I am touching that OS with a ten-foot pole.

OpenGL was superior. Nowadays? Not so much.

[Bren]

Yeah, really. The committee needs to get their shit together in a big way.

[XPav]

@Bren

Yeah, really. The committee needs to get their shit together in a big way.

And sully their academic reputation by catering to “game” developers? Hah!

[Chris_Nahr]

Amazingly, the business analysts at Jupiter Research and Microsoft Monitor that used to lambaste MS over their poor marketing think Vista is a fantastic name!

@Michael Gartenberg

Windows Vista is a product that will be a challenge to market well. This is a product, as I’ve said before, that has to appeal to the CIOs of the fifty largest companies in the US and my mom. And me. And you too. I like the Vista name because I think it does just that. Much more than prior efforts (Like Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Service Pack 2 for example) this branding drives home a powerful lifestyle message that’s been sorely lacking at Microsoft in recent years. It invokes a message of clarity and contextual relevance that the product will attempt to deliver that the market needs to hear. Remember, this is a different time from that of Windows 95 and Windows XP. Consumers are different, IT is different and there’s an awful lot of folks that will view XP as being “good enough”. The Vista message will need to be strong enough to get those folks past their overall inertia to stay with XP. The name is a good place to start.

@Microsoft Monitor

I’ve taken a highly critical view of Microsoft marketing, from poor evangelism to wacky product names. So, it’s surprising to see fresh nomenclature that makes sense. Sure, some people will scoff at the name, but this is a new approach for Microsoft no one should casually brush aside.

Vista is pleasant sounding, evocative of freshness and lightness and full of good connotations, particularly for marketing and branding purposes. More importantly, Vista has an aspirational quality that Microsoft must make a priority in marketing new products. […]

FedEx just delivered a package, and I couldn’t resist asking the driver about the name. “Vista, as in view, huh?” She paused. “I like it. It’s very clever.”

I checked several dictionaries, and the typical Vista definition is something like a pleasing view, as seen through an opening. Secondary definition is about awareness of times and places, kind of like my remembrances of living on Vista Drive.

Vista also stands for VISTA as in Volunteers in Service to America.

I see the connotations as appropriately fitting Windows Vista. Consider the known features like pervasive search or “glass” user interface; or view on life, like using the computer to enjoy digital content, such as music, photos or movies; or creating a new view on life, through social networking. From watching the video this morning, Microsoft’s tagline is something like “bringing clarity to your world.” […]

Finally, Microsoft has picked a name that connects. Windows XP was a good try, but Windows Vista is it.

[Midnight_Son]

How about:

Windows Edsel
Windows Pinto
Windows Shizzle
Windows Longtime
Windows Bad Marketing Edition
Windows Fisher Price Edition
Windows Windex
Windows Tinker Toy
Windows Xtreme Spyware Edition
Windows Your Call is Very Important to US Edition
Windows Furby
Windows Special DVD Lockdown Edition
Windows You Don’t Own Your PC
Windows Dell Will Preload It Edition
Windows Viruses Insecurity Script-kiddies Trojans Adware

[extarbags]

@Gordon_Bleu

Vista will feature translucent windows, faster file searching, a browser with tabs, better protection from virus’s… you know, like what Mac users have today. ;)

Also all things that clueful Windows users have access to today, if they want them.

[awdougherty]

I watched the little announcement video and got a good laugh out of it. Two high up nerds on stage looking awkward from being thrusted into the role of"rock star." Then a purely cliche corporate video trying to make PCs the center of action. Then back to the nerd “rock stars” giving each other a nerd high five (where the whole thing happens from the elbows, not the shoulders). I don’t know, I got a kick out of it.

[Xaroc]

@XPav

[quote=Igor Murashkin]We’d all be better off if game developers would just realize the superiority of OpenGL and write games for that… Anyways, unless there is a crack for Vista’s DRM “features” then there is no way I am touching that OS with a ten-foot pole.

OpenGL was superior. Nowadays? Not so much.[/quote]

I tend to agree. Much like with anything MS makes after a number of iterations it catches up with the competitors.

– Xaroc

[shift6]

@Justin_Fletcher

[quote=shift6]Of course in a textbook example of irony, Thief 1 and 2 don’t run in XP.

[b]Sure they do[/b].[/quote]
Hey, awesome! I knew about points 1 and 3, but point 2 in that FAQ is a kicker and is where I got frustrated before:

When I try to install Thief nothing happens!
Start the installer and leave it! On some configurations of Windows XP it can take up to an hour for the installer to start.

Anyways, thanks Justin!

[Jose_Liz]

This site has a lot of articles on it including a review and pictures the latest build and a FAQ.

[Editer]

Note that 5048 was released a while back at the hardware developer’s conference. It’s representative of only a fraction of what you’ll see in the final product.

[JustinFletcher]

@shift6

Anyways, thanks Justin!

Anything for a fellow taffer.

[Igor_Muravyev]

@Xaroc

[quote=XPav][quote=Igor Murashkin]We’d all be better off if game developers would just realize the superiority of OpenGL and write games for that… Anyways, unless there is a crack for Vista’s DRM “features” then there is no way I am touching that OS with a ten-foot pole.

OpenGL was superior. Nowadays? Not so much.[/quote]

I tend to agree. Much like with anything MS makes after a number of iterations it catches up with the competitors.

– Xaroc[/quote]

Although feature-wise it’s now not really better than DirectX (OpenGL 2.0, once implemented, will fix that…), there are other important things about it:

~ Cross-platform, gaining easy entry into the niche markets is a good idea for a small company
~ Open-source, add any features to OpenGL that you want with ease while DirectX is proprietary and if there’s something it doesn’t support, too bad!

Plus I’ve been hearing rumors that the PS3 will be running OpenGL instead of something proprietary from Sony ;).

[Bren]

@XPav

[quote=Bren]Yeah, really. The committee needs to get their shit together in a big way.

And sully their academic reputation by catering to “game” developers? Hah![/quote]

Ha ha. Really. I mean, what has game development ever done to advance 3D technology???

[mouselock]

@extarbags

[quote=Gordon_Bleu]Vista will feature translucent windows, faster file searching, a browser with tabs, better protection from virus’s… you know, like what Mac users have today. ;)

Also all things that clueful Windows users have access to today, if they want them.[/quote]

A) Windows doesn’t make it’s money by being the best or most innovative product, it makes it’s money by being a product that has what you want if you’re a common computer user, when you want it, without requiring you to need to jump through all sorts of hoops to get it.

B) Show me a capable window manager that runs with translucent windows, please. I’ve seen hacks and kludges left and right, but actual multi-level translucency isn’t something that any of the programs I’ve looked at can do in a stable fashion. Blitting the entire screen to memory then building an alpha-blended window atop that, and redoing it every time you move the window isn’t stable. It also fails spectacularly with multi-deep windows.

[Midnight_Son]

How are translucent windows going to help me be more productive?

[selfnoise]

Yeah, seriously. That seems totally pointless.

[Qenan]

With any luck the new consoles will eliminate my need to run Windows…

[Duality]

@Woolen_Horde

Why not call the damn thing “The Homer”…
I hate marketing people.

Hell, I’d definitely buy it if they called it Microsoft Homer!