Windows 7: Windows 8 Will Be the Beginning of the End for 7

True. The problem was people became far too comfortable with XP and then didn't want to leave due to the long development schedule of Vista and then its awful reception. Anyone remember "The Wow starts now!" Oh yeah, people wowed alright. All in all, I like Vista and it improved over time with SP1 and then SP2 made it really solid.

In my personal opinion, I think Microsoft is going to have an uphill battle if they plan on releasing Windows 8, especially so soon.

Pretty much only the enthusiast crowd will upgrade their systems. The rest of the sales would be reliant on new PC OEM licenses.

If they are finally getting businesses and such to finally ditch XP, and move on to 7, there is absolutely no way Microsoft will have success moving Windows 8 to that market.

I'm hoping they wait five years, and really put out something special.

If they do rush Windows 8 out on the market, it will be interesting.

Will it get the free downgrade to Win XP

Vista turned out to be far more stablle but wasn't what people had expected right off the bat! The less then actual system specs required also hurt the sales since people were still running 1gb or less memory wise on many old systems.

Just for XP it takes 2gb to see that run smoother overall. Many were adding the 3gb in when first getting into Vista and with board capacities running as high as 32gb. With 7 more are leaning towards the 64bit flavor of the edition they are running in order to take advantage of that.

One thing W8 will have to do however is match what was seen with a fast 32bit install of 7 on an old clunker and run off of XP drivers! Vista often lacked where 7 picked on the backward capatibility with the older version's drivers seen there as well as programs that will run on the 32bit 7 but not on the 32bit Vista. Take a step forward MS!

From what I understand, 32-bit will probably go by the wayside though they may do 32-bit Windows 8, tough to say right now. But Steve Ballmer did say they no longer plan to ever have such a long development cycle for a new version of Windows like they did for Vista; they want to do a release approximately every 3 years. The problem is that if you keep people on an operating system too long, then they become comfortable with it and don't want to let go, hence the problem with XP. They also don't want a repitition of that problem. That OS is also why Internet Explorer 6 is still not dead.

That's one MS was planning getting back to their original time frame of seeing a new version every 2-3yrs. mainly from all the headaches seen with Vista's development. This way if any other new version fails to win people over like they have been filling the airwaves with 7 ads they can recover later and soon with another next version.

It's not only the particular version that suffers but all of the MS Office products developed to work with that version taken into consideration when a new one bombs on them! MS has many branches in that sense where a flop can be a big setback.

Yup, same here. I have actually taken quite a liking to Windows 7, even though I was a bit hesitant to purchase it at first, I was leaning more towards a Mac, but for now, I'm happy with my decision.

Vista had a hard time being accepted, thanks to all the unsuccesstully Vista stories each and every sites were reporting. And yes, those who got a brand new computer pre-loaded with Vista -- back in pre-SP1 days -- got a huge OS in a humble hardware.

In fact, if we get today's hardware and load Vista on them, they will run pretty comfortable. But hey, we can't go back in time (yet). Vista was indeed sluggish. Should we blame Intel and other hardware manufacturers by not keeping the pace and then creating all this Vista fiasco?

Now, even after SP1 and SP2, companies still avoided Vista completely, may be because of their current "outdated" hardware, may be because of the past bad experiences. Or because Windows XP was doing just fine, thank you. And by lefting Vista aside, companies played the biggest role in killing Vista: (regular) users tends to have at home what they use at work, because, well, they are used to. The exception are us, enthusiasts, which get betas, developer previews, and aren't afraid of a "format c:" once in a while.

Back in the topic, I find too early for a complete Windows 7 sales halt. Windows 7 did not made yet to vast majority of companies, even with XP being declared dead. Windows 7 will yet live a long life, and Win8 may not show up unless it is a real game changer. Or, if Microsoft really wants, as many posted above, to create "ME III: The Revenge of Vista". I hardly believe that.

Only time will tell.

I have no problem with MS releasing a new Windows every 3 years, as long as they standardize the core components of Windows like Apple has done with OS X. If MS is going to release a completely-changed-around, totally-reworked-from-the-ground-up version of Windows every 3 years, compatibility is going to become a nightmare and Windows will lose significant market share.

I don't think they expect someone upgrading and existing PC that has Windows 7 (or even Vista). It is about new PCs and laptops that come with an OS. and of course that almost always will be the current OS.

In case of vista, they offered free XP downgrades when the hardware wasn't good enough.

vist alos was a flop because people upgraded existing systems (that weren't up to speed, and hardware didn't have good drivers). Reputable PC vendors would have sold Vista with appropriate hardware and drivers. not the fault of MS