yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows 8 General] SharpnShiny:
Microsoft said it will never let a major release stretch beyond a 3 year cycle, that that aspect of XP-Vista was a huge mistake. Windows 8 has passed one year so it would have a max of two before we see Windows 9, if they stick to that 3 year comittment. They are rumours, but reliable ones if you've followed certain individuals who've covered this in the past, but Windows 9 is due next year, so they say. I'm inclined to believe them because they've proved so reliable in the past. If you don't follow Paul Thurott or Mary Jo Foley then I can understand healthy skepticism.

As for the Metro UI, the indications were that the (Windows 9) different SKUs wouldn't share the same UI but turn off parts (which isn't a bad idea at all if you ask me). It sounds like a divergence. Though everything is still on the table they said. The big change sounds like the update of the start menu (Windows 7 but probably updated).

I was listening to Mary Jo Foley of ZDnet in a podcast last night and she says that the committee for deciding the next CEO has agreed that the next CEO must broadly support the 'One Microsoft' strategy. So, it seems that any chance of overhauls are out. If the 'insider reports' about 'Windows 8.2' (following the naming scheme that Julie Larson Greene gave in an interview) then the need for an overhaul may not be so necessary. It looks like all the updates and modernizations of 8 but in the manner and seperate environments of 7. Now that sounds like the Vista-7 jump that is so successful. :D

I'm still surprised that the lead advocate of Metro and shunning desktop users was the person with so much Windows experience - Steven Sinofsky, while the person now in charge urging gentle re-divergence and specifically addressing desktop user concerns is the former head of the Windows Phone Division and current executive vice president of the Operating Systems group, Terry Myerson. The ex Phone chief repairs the damage of the former Windows chief, in his division? :eek:
[Windows 8 General] e.mote:
>Microsoft said it will never let a major release stretch beyond a 3 year cycle

Past track record no longer matters when the future is in flux. MS is at a crossroad, and is undergoing a major upheaval. The priority is to decide just WHAT THE HECK it's going to do as a company, and a major or minor Windows rev is rather trivial in comparison.

We already know what MS will do in the near term, as MS execs have made many intimations. The present "integrate & iterate" effort will continue apace, and has been stated by the man in charge himself, T Meyerson. RT will roll into WP, XBox will be more PC-like (read: apps). There'll be more Surface hardware. x86 will see more concessions to the desktop crowd. And there'll be one big happy storefront for everybody. Etc etc.

>she says that the committee for deciding the next CEO has agreed that the next CEO must broadly support the 'One Microsoft' strategy

Was there any doubt? MS can't afford another do-over when the first do-over isn't even done. As I've mentioned earlier, neo-CEO dude will be a caretaker for the present makeover, which is likely why they're having a hard time to find a willing body. Meanwhile, MS peeps are sitting out twiddling their thumbs until new boss shows up, even if he's going to be a puppet. It's just one big hairball.

My interest is in seeing how the nascent Windows tablet crop have fared over the holidays. Prelim sales indicators are pretty expected, ie better than the Win8 launch, but still marginal, and won't get Win mobiles out of the single-digit cellar. We know enough of MS' actions to gauge that 2014 will be largely the same as 2013, with it fighting for relevance in the consumer market. More important is what Google will do for Android/ChromeOS to broaden its reach, of which we don't yet know.

>I'm still surprised that the lead advocate of Metro and shunning desktop users was the person with so much Windows experience - Steven Sinofsky

Apple has had a long record of forsaking backward compatibility, and Apple users are fine with it. It's fine to dump old stuff, but the new stuff has to be compelling, and Metro-on-Win wasn't. That's it, in a nutshell.

Now, can MS improve Metro to the point where it's palatable? As a mobile platform, probably--although I note that WP7 & 8 w/ Metro is still going nowhere after 3 years (under Meyerson), so optimism is unwarranted. As a desktop replacement platform, I've yet to see any evidence of. Read: Show me some good productivity software in Metro. MS can start with Office Touch some time this year.

Bottom line is that I don't expect much from MS until at least 2015, or even further out. It's basically dead man walking, albeit still a very rich dead man. I see the mobile mass market as Google's to lose, with Apple content with staying inside its premium niche. So, the question isn't so much what MS will do, but what Google will do.
[Windows 8 General] Scripts:
I agree with the first comments. I could care less what the name is. All I really care about is having security in a system I'd rather not hear on the news what has been leaked.
[Windows 8 General] Anonymously_Unknown:
I don't think we are arguing about the name. I just want a guestimate as to when it will be released.
[Windows 8 General] SharpnShiny:
More news on the future of Windows. This comes from Paul Thurott, as I mentioned I find he's one of the two sources that gets reliable information.

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/threshold-be-called-windows-9-ship-april-2015

- Windows 8 branding to be ended. Considered internally as a failure

- Windows 9 branding almost certain, instead of the other possibility of removing numerical indications

- Future of Windows to be given in 'Windows Vision' talk at Build

- This 'mini-start' is mini related to a full start screen, but for all intents and purposes is the Start Menu as we know it, and is returning

- Windowed metro apps

- Metro 2.0 coming

- Final realease aim for April 2015
[Windows 8 General] e.mote:
>Windows 9 branding almost certain

Interesting that the Win rumor spigot is flowing so quickly after the 8.1 launch. Not only do we get info of the update to 8.1--which is barely 2 months old--now we also get dirt on the "real bug fixed" version coming RSN. A cynic might be tempted to think that 8.1 sales is probably none too great, that MS PR flacks need to work overtime to create new buzz with controlled "leaks." Just sayin'.

Speaking of 8.1 sales, if it wasn't bad before, it certainly will be once these "rumors" get into wider circulation. Upgrading Windows is still a PITA, so why would I buy an 8.1 box now when its update is 3 months out? Unless I need a PC today, why wouldn't I just wait till next year for Win9, and just skip all this Win8 beeswax?

Ditto for OEMs. Why would partners put major marketing dollars into a product that is disavowed by its own maker?

Osborne Effect, redux. If you weren't sure of 8.1 sales before, now you are.

On Win9: The piece says that work on Win9 won't get started until Apr, and RTM is next Apr, so MS has 6-9 months (not counting testing and HW validation) to get it done. That's barely enough time for an incremental refresh, so whatever it is called, don't expect miracles. I assume most of the changes will be UI improvements, likely better desktop+Metro integration. I don't expect structural changes to Windows.

Then, the best that MS can hope for Win9 is that it will stem the PC bleeding, ie that more desktop users will migrate to it. Win9 won't improve mobile's prospects. x86 Win is still a full desktop OS, with a heavy footprint (2GB RAM, 32GB flash) and high complexity, and is ill-suited for tablets. Androids are dropping to the $100 mark, with even supermarkets getting in on the action. Regardless of how much Intel optimize the Atom, Win tablets won't be able to compete. Succinctly, x86 Win can't carry tablets. That rests on the ARM effort, and RT is for now a non-factor.

One may argue that Windows' best chance in mobile isn't tablets, but 2n1's, ie "tablets w/ attached keyboards for productivity." If so, then MS has failed to prove its case after two launches, and the next launch will be another makeover, not an overhaul. On the hardware side, we've yet to see any compelling 2n1 design.

When all else fails, compete on price. My safe prediction for MS in 2014 is that WP/RT (ie ARM-based) will be free to license. More tentative is the prediction that Core (x86) Win will also be free to OEMs, although this is likely for 2015 or later. MS can recoup some of the revenue by stripping the Core version, and reselling functions (eg MWC, security updates, etc) as add-ons or services. But Win licensing revenue will undoubtedly take a hit. The cash cow can only last for so long.
[Windows 8 General] FloatingFatMan:
Umm, if there's one thing Paul Thurott is not, it's a reliable source of information.

Take anything you read on his site with a huge pinch of salt; or better yet, a truckload.
[Windows 8 General] GoodDayToDie:
The bit about "work will start in April" is complete bullsh<REDACTED>, at least from any perspective but those of a marketing flack. Microsoft has always had multiple versions of Windows in simultaneous development, and usually moves the primary development effort onto the next version before the "current" one even hits public markets (i.e. just after RTM). I guarantee that Threshold has been at least in design and prototyping since well before 8.1 went RTM, and probably in active development for months already.

You may have an argument about the Osborne Effect, although since in this case it's a discussion of software rather than hardware, that's not a fully valid analogy. Software can be upgraded, however little some people might want to (in the case of 8.1, it was made pretty painless), and Microsoft has already demonstrated a willingness to make software upgrades available for free (going well back to the service packs in the 90s, and possibly before). OEMs have for years been selling hardware with "<CURRENT VERSION>, <NEXT VERSION> upgrade ready!" marketing for a decade or so, at least.

I'm not so sure about the free licensing, though. Possibly for Phone/RT (although I question even that; unless Google has changed their tune, even they do not actually give Android - the OS on smartphones most people would buy, as opposed to the Android Open Source Project used by folks like Amazon Kindle and CyanogenMod - for free; they license the Google services that they add to it) on the basis of hoping to make up the lost revenues through store licensing costs... Making Core free, even "only" to OEMs (who provide the lion's share of the cash flow there, for all that they pay a lower price per unit), seems unlikely though.

As for the accuracy of WinSuperSite, I'd say it is, relatively speaking, pretty reliable. In the absolute sense, it is of course not perfect, but that could very easily be as much because Microsoft has a history of changing course (occasionally dramatically) even fairly late into their development cycles. Care to highlight any examples of why Thurott is untrustworthy? I take his stuff with no bigger a grain of salt than any other unofficial, pre-release announcement (as opposed to speculation), and this seems to work out pretty well.
[Windows 8 General] FloatingFatMan:
Easily enough done. I'll quote from a forum discussion over on Neowin as it saves me a load of typing. Feel free to check the numbers yourself though!

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1196677-fact-checking-paul-thurrott-bad-info-in-the-echo-chamber/

Basically, much of his article is just hyperbole surrounded by faulty maths. Thurrott has been known to do this sort of thing quite a lot since his site got going. Sure, he gets the scoop on some things, but he's not as reliable as some would have you think, and he's prone to exaggeration.
[Windows 8 General] GoodDayToDie:
Good point on the upheaval. I'm quite sure they've nonetheless already started work on Threshold - actual development work, not just planning - but it's possible that a lot of the big decisions were being held off until they had a chance to observe the market reaction to 8.1, in which case they still have a lot to do.

[MENTION=244082]FloatingFatMan[/MENTION]: Your quoted post absurd (for reasons that are in the hidden section) but I took the effort of actually reading the page you quoted from, which claims that Thurott made a different (and more unreasonable) claim than the one the post itself describes. It's still likely that his numbers are simply out of date (rather than being outright inaccurate) but he should have pointed that out himself.

I'll go one further than e.mote and say that your statistics not only are likely full of faulty numbers, but that they flat-out do not support the position that you're arguing. Here's the thing: the tip you're talking about, and claiming makes Thurott unreliable, only covers people who upgraded for free from 8.0 to 8.1! Not a single one of the statistics you quoted counters this claim in any way. For example, if all 3.6% of the world that uses Win8.1 (I'll permit the assumption that the dates of when that tip comes from and when those statistics come from are close enough to be meaningful) got there by upgrading for free from Win8, that would mean that not a single Win8.1 machine had been sold. That is obviously utter BS. In fact, you (or the post you're quoting, which I will henceforth refer to as your words as you chose to re-post it without refutation) later point out that 315M PCs were sold last year; if you assume (pessimistically) that November and December sales together were only 1/6th of the PCs sold last year (which fails to account for the incredibly busy holiday season) and round down to 300M (to account for almost half of October and for the handful of Macs), that means there were 60M Windows computers sold between the release of Win8.1 and the end of the year. If an additional 25M users had upgraded, that would actually put the number of Win8.1 machines well above the 3.6% of 1.6B you claim. Of course, a lot of those PCs are going to be business machines which probably ship with Win7 instead, but still, the supposed 57.6M that the numbers claim is entirely reasonable.

Now, granted, 25M as of early January is not very reasonable, but as of, say, 24 Dec (which would have been the last day a lot of Microsofties would have been at work until just a few days before Thurott's article was posted) I could believe that only 25M Win8.1 PCs had been activated yet while the rest sat under Christmas trees or in boxes waiting to be unpacked and set up for the new year, or just some such things. There would have been a surge in use following that period, which (combined with a general downturn in computer use around the new year while people are on vacation) could easily skew NetMarketShare's stats for the month pretty badly.
[Windows 8 General] SharpnShiny:
I did read the posts and I agree on all points, which is why didn't initially reply!

BUILD 2014: sold out in 24 hours. It seems devs are forgiving, there is definitely life left in desktop dev and the future of consumer notebook / enterprise PC type Windows. Wherever the leaks are coming from (these days I also think a great deal are likely officials) the interest in Windows 9 is huge.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/microso...rs-devs-anticipate-windows-9-windows-phone-81

Disclosure: I don't work for any of these companies by the way! :victory:
[Windows 8 General] dazza9075:
It could mean nothing at all but the name "Threshold"

is in itself revealing, Suggesting that this is just another stopgap before something new or different. It also implies that its likely a relatively small change before something much larger. The naming of Windows 9 is also the very edge of a nice fat round number 10, people are attracted to these numbers, apple did a very successful job of promoting OS X

I know its all guess work and completely baseless but purely from a discussion point of view, It would be very interesting....

what's the bets on some kind of unified OS model, apps usable across all three platforms etc after Threshold I mean.
[Windows 8 General] e.mote:
>BUILD 2014: sold out in 24 hours. It seems devs are forgiving

Build 2013 sold out in 3 hours. Build 2012 sold out in under an hour. MS has been reaching for the "sold out" play for a sundry of things, including the Surface launches. It's just PR.

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-build-2013-conference-sells-out-in-under-three-hours-7000013411/

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-build-2012-developer-conference-sells-out-in-an-hour-7000002350/

>Threshold...Suggesting that this is just another stopgap before something new or different

I was surprised by the sudden MS willingness to downplay Win8 and create buzz for Win9. It's probably office politics. The new OS group (where all of the principals involved with Win8 have been purged from the team) is apparently willing to cut bait on 8.x, which wasn't its baby, and recast Win9 in its own image.

Win9 is itself a stepping stone. Win8 was to be the bridge (or crowbar, depending on your interpretation) to get MS into mobile. That didn't work, so MS is set to try again, because it has to. Presumably it'll be with a kinder, gentler approach as versus Sinofsky's "eat your damn veggies and like it" decree, but the goal remains the same. I think those hoping for the logical solution of two separate interfaces--Metro for mobile devices, Win7-like for desktops--will be disappointed. Metro will standardized on all MS UIs. Best to think of Win9 not as Plan B, but more like Plan A Update 1.

Windows needs a major overhaul to compete as an actual mobile OS, and Win9 isn't that. The Windows code base carries with it 20-years of cruft and legacy code. It is itself a one-size-fits-all product that serves everything from enterprise to SMB to consumer and now mobile devices. It is way too heavy and complex to maintain for mobile. But overhaul means breaking backward compatibility--even Windows RT is basically a straight port of x86 Win. Hence the FrankenOS aka Win8. Win9 will be Frank 2.0 with a more "natural" look.

We've heard of the few MS OS projects going, Midori and MinWin and whatever else. Common sense would dictate that one or more of these is being fast-tracked to be the next-gen OS, while the transitioning continues.

Timetable for OS-NG? Here's my guesstimate timetable:

3-5 years to build OS from scratch

-2 years for existing work on skunkwork OS(es)

+2 years for transition to fit OS into existing MS ecosystems

start time: when Windows RT was confirmed to have flopped, say, 2013

So, my SWAG for OS-NG click-to-clunk is between 2016 to 2018. I'd wager Win9 will get a couple of point releases, then MS will intro its new baby into the world, Damien 1.0.
[Windows 8 General] mcosmin222:
There is so much you can do to keep legacy compatibility.

And this is out of microsoft's powers. Hardware builders are the one who dictate the way software goes. Since ARM has no compatibility with x86, and arm is the architecture of choice for mobile, windows has to support it and it has no other choice but to keep the ARM platform clear of any x86 programs.

It would be too confusing for users to actually have an unlocked desktop on ARM and expect all programs to work like they do on their x86 machine. It is not like the x64-x32 problem.

There are ways for MS to keep backwards compatibility even on ARM, through emulation layers, but ARM is simply not powerful enough for this kind of thing, and it would drain battery way too fast, thus defeating the purpose of mobile.

All in all, windows RT has done OK, given the very bad odds it had to face. Merging windows phone and windows RT seems to be a logical next step, remains to be seen which one will provide the dominant programming principles.
[Windows 8 General] SixSixSevenSeven:
Was even available on Alpha and demoed on PowerPC in the days of old.

It now being available on a non x86 platform is nothing new.

EDIT: that was more meant to be a backing up of your point rather than a contradiction or something
[Windows 8 General] GoodDayToDie:
Hence the "designed from the ground up to be portable" part. They've *always* maintained a non-x86 (or even x64) version. First it was things like MIPS, then Alpha and PPC, then Itanium, now ARM.
[Windows 8 General] mcosmin222:
The biggest "meh" with .net framework is that many software giants with good old developers still think C++ has some magic advantage over JIT languages such as C#. (even though you can compile C# directly to native if you really wish to)

While there are great many programs written under .net, there are probably even more written in C++ x32 (hell, most of the programs i use don't even support x64, and you want them to compile again for arm, blasphemy!)

And microsoft also wants to do botched up things. For windows 8, right now, you have like 3 different APIS which all call into the same underlaying structures: you have .net, you have win32, and you have windows runtime. And the funnies thing about them is that neither one can do anything properly without the help of the other(well, win32 might, but it just takes ages to develop with that).

They should have focused on .net, improve performance for x64 (the new JIT for x64 is still in beta) and add built-in features which right now require COM interop (damn the funny moments when the generated interop assembly doesn't work properly and you need to fix the marshaling problems manually).

SO the problem we are in right now is party due to microsoft's mind blowing decisions of late, and the laziness of developers. Microsoft only did this to attract developers to the windows store. But I don't see why they can't extend the windows store for desktop apps as well, since you can already register them, but you can't download them the same way as winRT apps.

But I do agree they should have allowed the use of desktop on windows RT, and just face the problem like x64 vs x32 issue.
[Windows 8 General] SixSixSevenSeven:
That would defeat the purpose of .NET, its meant to be platform agnostic, including native COM interop then destroys that. Microsoft themselves use .NET on non win32 systems.
[Windows 8 General] mcosmin222:
Yeh, I am pretty sure they were thinking about portability when they created WPF. I mean, one can totally run WPF on windows CE.

There is only a fraction of the .net that is actually platform independent and that is the core of the CLI standard. Implementing the CLI did not prevent .net from using mechanisms which are specific to windows, like windows forms.

Many functions in .net are COM wrappers. They did it up to a point, then they stopped. Just about the time they created async and await to fit with winRT.

.net is not meant to be platform independent. The CLI is, on which .net is based.
[Windows 8 General] SixSixSevenSeven:
WPF and Winforms, both of which are non integral libraries...

.NET is simply a selection of class libraries atop the CLI. Nothing more to it. Some of java's class libraries dont work on all platforms. What you proposed (increased interoperability) would be a component of the CLI not a library, and would therefore break the CLI or require a seperate implementation of the CLI hence defeating the point of the cross platform execution environment.
[Windows 8 General] mcosmin222:
Since you can already interop with COM (but you have to fix things manually, and there is like close to no documentation), I don't see how you think this would break the CLI. All the components are there, we just, you know, need the optimizations and stability a company like microsoft can bring to bare...just like they did with some win32 APIs and the windows code pack.

And if there is a "standard" implementation of the interop, there would also be no incompatibilities across different clients. There is not a single difference between what I said asked them to do and what they did in the past. They did release high interop code libraries ontop of .net then they stopped.

And the best proof of this is the entire windows runtime interoperability. They changed the CLR big time in order to make interop with winRT seamless. So they did it in the past. They just don't want it to be available to systems older than windows 8.