Microsoft's summer update will be called Windows 8.1 Microsoft has thought long and hard about what to officially call the forthcoming Windows 8 upgrade package codenamed "Windows Blue", and the verdict is ... Windows 8.1. So sayeth veteran Redmond-watcher Mary Jo Foley, who cites an anonymous tipster. Lending credence to the rumor, Foley directs us to a Twitter post made by …
"The marketing name has nothing to do with the internal version number.
Same as with Linux."
Very true... I was actually going to mention Patrick Volkerding jumping the version of Slackware from 4 to 7, just to match the version numbers used by other Linux distros of the era.
But then, what's going to happen when Windows marketing name goes through another 87 number changes... will it skip from Windows 94 to 96?
<-- facepalm for me not noticing the 6.3 staring me in the face in the screenshot in the article.
So version 6.3 of windows NT is called Windows 8.1
If Microsoft are going to charge for this service pack then it needs to be cheap and introduce something that people really want (full time desktop mode).
All the real criticism of Windows 8 comes from TIFKAM, if that interface was moved into the background so that it was available for tablets and touchscreens but unseen on desktops and laptops then Windows 8 would become the best windows ever, it's a perfect incremental upgrade to 7.
They just need to add a classic mode checkbox (with AD control) to make desktop/start menu the default (still let you run not-metro apps, and in a window for high resolution screens).
But as long as they think putting TIFKAM on computers will sell phones it's not going to happen.
They could call it Windows Crap, and Windows Still Crap, but then what would they call 8.3?
It can't just be unseen, the hot corners and swipes and keyboard shortcuts to get to TIFKAM have to stop working, two or three old but important desktop keyboard shortcuts that were overwritten with TIFKAM keyboard shortcuts have to come back, things like wifi configuration and popup balloons have to return to the way they've are in Windows 7 instead of in a huge slab of colour, the start menu has to come back, file type associations have to always point to the desktop versions, even Notepad and Flip 3D have to come back as they do have some use.
Oh, and make it easy to get into safe mode because explaining to ordinary users that they should wait until the BIOS screen goes away then repeatedly hammer shift-F8 is also impossible.
It's an utterly jarring non-intuitive fuck-up of an experience. Until they work out what they're doing with TIFKAM which I doubt will happen until the next major release, the least they could do is bring back a proper desktop with the next point release and put TIFKAM mode as an option in the start menu where everyone could just ignore it.
OSX does use a different kernel versioning, but at least the 10.x versions usually match a major version in the Darwin Kernel.
Sun would use the second decimal for Solaris, so SunOS 5.10 is Solaris 10. They also do this with Java, with 1.7.x being "Java 7".
MS however seems to be unable to standardize versions. Windows 7 is actually NT 6.1. Ow!
For all the hate it generates I think most of us would agree that Vista > Windows 8.
At least this is my hope. Vista was actually a pretty decent OS if you managed to run in on decent Hardware. Which was the problem, given that the OEM thought that they could run it on any old Hardware. You couldn't run XP on a Pentíum 75Mhz, w/4mb or EDO RAM either. Nobody cried back then either. The fact is if you can run 7 your machine probably could run Vista as well, and Vista had some pretty cool stuff in it that got dropped in 7.
And, Windows 2003 Server is 5.2. Makes a hell of a difference from XP in some drivers (and no, just changing that version string in the INF file often doesn't get the job done - some kernel API's really are slightly different).
Makes me wonder what the 2008 reports (no live machine at hand).
To be honest I'm not overall impressed with what Ms. Foley has to say. I still remember the El Reg chat in which she claimed how Windows Server should stay in sync with the development cycle of Azure, apparently completely unaware that Azure was suffering from major outages at that time which had already lasted nearly a week.
However, this makes sense; we all know and realize by now that Windows 8 isn't exactly the great success Microsoft was hoping for. However it seems that Microsoft invested quite heavily in this new infrastructure and really wants to make it work.
So what other option is left /but/ to introduce a minor update?
Windows 8 SP1 would make it clear with admins and such that an update has been issued, but for the common crowd it would still be "Windows 8". Think about it; I'd want no less but Windows 7 SP1 and XP SP3. However, for common users these are simply "Windows 7" and "Windows XP", maybe for some who keep a bit more track of it all its "Windows with a bunch of updates" but that's about it.
So what other options would Microsoft have to make it well known, even with the common users, that Windows 8 has been updated into something (hopefully) less bad ?
Though I wouldn't bet on it; unless they come up with a decent replacement for the start menu, and I'm not referring to some TIFKAM update, I'm keeping clear from this mess.
Microsoft still think that MS-is-forever, and people will adjust to its inconsistent interfaces like an armchair that doubles as a wheelbarrow, they won't.. Unless they come up with something that actually works consistently they'll be as dead as one dominate Cullinet.
the secret source is.. er.. windows.. specifically windowed TIFKAM applications.. and a start button
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