Windows 8 Will Be the Beginning of the End for 7

Ok. It's not coming out 'til 2012 but will we start seeing betas next year?
I sincerely hope so. The beta and leaked builds period for 7 was just one long party

I'll be running it on a virtual pc

Lemur said:

I'll be running it on a virtual pc

Not if you are unable to assign enough video memory and OpenGL support.

From what I heard lately someone was able to get a Source game running on a VM but the environment is suitable for gaming to start with. Most VMs see a max of 128mb of shared video memory not direct access to the actual hardwares.

neo101 said:

What you all seem to have forgotten is it takes about 2 years for majority of companies to get their drivers right for completely new OS & if i'm not mistaken that's another main reason why companies didn't go for Vista! Billions of printers and cards were not supported properly

Tweaking the drivers ready for Win7(a 'Vista' #2/upgrade) was simple!

And M/soft want to go to 3 year cycle major release. Fancy buying a new laser printer every 3 years for home use coz there are no drivers?

That's why I said, a 3yr cycle is unacceptable if every single release is going to be so far removed from the last one that each release breaks compatibility. With a 3yr cycle, they need to shift development style so that fundamental parts of the OS are not drastically altered every 3 years.

I never saw where MS has said a "major" release every three years. The tradition has been for there to be major release, followed by on or two minor releases. Just look at the kernal numbers for the various versions of Windows. Keep in mind the 9X series, 95, 98, and Me, are 4.0, 4.1, and 4.9, respectively. 2000, XP, Vista, and 7, are 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 6.1, but are based on the more stable NT kernal. It's more likely to be a major release every six years, with a minor release in between.

Petey7 said:

I never saw where MS has said a "major" release every three years. The tradition has been for there to be major release, followed by on or two minor releases. Just look at the kernal numbers for the various versions of Windows. Keep in mind the 9X series, 95, 98, and Me, are 4.0, 4.1, and 4.9, respectively. 2000, XP, Vista, and 7, are 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 6.1, but are based on the more stable NT kernal. It's more likely to be a major release every six years, with a minor release in between.

I think when they say "major release" nowadays, they mean "Windows 8" as opposed to "Windows 7 SP1". At least, I hope so. I do think Windows 8 should be 6.2 rather than 7.0, as far as the kernel is concerned. Neither developers nor users need another massive change so soon.

Well surprizingly to some I will say I tossed 7 on a 6yr. old build and simply loaded the "XP drivers" for both chipset and onboard sound as well as the GeForce FX5200 AGP video card amd all went nicely! Later when an older Audigy 2 sound card tossed into the mix the web updater was the only thing to anything newer then XP installed.

Backwared compatibility is the key term! The drivers there would not work on Vista if tried but worked well for 7 two versions newer note!