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Live from PDC 2008: Day 2

Oct. 28, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

Latest updates are on the top….

10/28/2008 3:28 PM – In a session with Raf and Stephen..

10/28/2008 2:53 PM – Here we go.

10/28/2008 2:44 PM – I’ll try to get a better one later, but here’s a shot of the Windows 7 boot screen.

10/28/2008 2:07 PM – Stephen Chapman has published a Q&A with Steven Sinofsky.

I’m playing around with some of Windows 7’s virtualization features. More info soon, I hope…

10/28/2008 1:13 PM – Some pictures from today…

First, the All-Star Bloggers live-blogging from the press room.


Todd, Raf, Tom, Maarten, Bob


Mary Jo

And let’s not forget “the goods”…

10/28/2008 10:20 AM – Bob Stein is here from Activewin and he just pinged me about his massive Windows 7 M3 review. Check it out!

10/28/2008 10:08 AM – The Windows 7 part of the keynote is done and my content is up. I’ll have part 2 of my Windows 7 preview up later today. But check the front page. There’s a lot there already. :)

10/28/2008 8:29 AM – OK, here we go. Get excited. Get very excited. Live coverage on the live blog throughout the keynote.

10/28/2008 8:01 AM – Our Liveblog is now available for today’s keynote. Check it out on the PDC 2008 page.

10/28/2008 8:01 AM – OK, we’re in the press room. Time for breakfast. And time to prep today’s big site update. :)

10/28/2008 7:03 AM – What’s shiny and new, and going to make a lot of people really happy today?

10/28/2008 6:48 AM – And because I never get tired of humiliating myself (and those silly enough to get caught in my blast radius), here are some pictures from the press and analyst party at The Standard Hotel last night.

10/28/2008 6:43 AM – Good morning from a still-dark Los Angeles. Keynote starts at 8:30, I think, but there should be a deluge of info then or soon thereafter…

Discuss this Article 56

dovella
on Oct 28, 2008
it.s Time GO!!! Windows 7 prebeta are coming :D
Englez
on Oct 28, 2008
Good morning! Hardly wait to hear any news about Windows 7. Great job, Paul, and all the other bloggers...
RaggieSoft
on Oct 28, 2008
And I look forward to 12:15 PM (eastern) when I get out of class so I can read Windows 7 :-)
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
Now, THAT was a busy keynote. 2 1/2 hours of pretty solid new stuff.
kalewallace
on Oct 28, 2008
Too bad I'm not following this... I'm still watching the Macbook refresh keynote address. 'Cause you know that is so much more important. (jk)
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
Or, as James Senior put it on his blog... http://blogs.technet.com/james/archive/2008/10/28/microsoft-change-the-w... Change the world or go home. How about we change the world. Just some of what was shown this morning: Windows 7 features Office Web Applications Office 14 features Live Framework Live Mesh Beta Live Mesh Dev Platform Live Mesh on the Mac Live Mesh on Win Mobile Visual Studio 2010 WPF Visual Studio Editor extensibility Windows Live ID and Open ID
Master3
on Oct 28, 2008
One thing I thought was amazing was that Windows7 could run perfectly on a 1ghz machine with 1GB of ram. That alone will make me sign up for the public beta next year. btw, has the video for the keynote been posted anywhere?
Waethorn
on Oct 28, 2008
"All-Star Bloggers" That's an oxymoron, Paul.
Waethorn
on Oct 28, 2008
"One thing I thought was amazing was that Windows7 could run perfectly on a 1ghz machine with 1GB of ram." Surprisingly to some, Vista can too. Will your apps though? Office 2007 can, and it runs faster on Vista than it does on XP on that level of hardware (trust me, I've tried it already). Just don't try Maya on it.
chuckb84
on Oct 28, 2008
Mary Jo sure likes stickers on her computer. I don't know if it's age, gender, using a Mac, or all three, but I just don't DO that. So, on Windows 7--and I mean this as an honest question---what's the compelling reason to move to Win7 from Vista, or for that matter, from XP? I'm tempted to say "sucks less", but you guys can't take a joke. I would truly be interested to know.
shark47
on Oct 28, 2008
"I'm tempted to say "sucks less", but you guys can't take a joke." You've already said it. Anyway, I missed most of the demo and the live blog but it seems like all the bloggers were impressed. MJF wanted more business stuff - naturally. For a minor upgrade, this looks pretty big. The UI improvements are all pretty amazing. It looks like MS is definitely on the right track with Windows 7 and the final product might have the "wow" factor that some people feel Vista missed. Of course, none of this would've been possible if the framework hadn't been laid in Vista.
Waethorn
on Oct 28, 2008
Absolutely nothing on Wally, Dave, or even Goober's page about the PDC announcements. Phenomenal. Wally is still talking about the aluminum in the MacBooks though. For anyone that's still blind to their pro-Apple bias, it should be pretty clear now.
Master3
on Oct 28, 2008
@Waethorn "Surprisingly to some, Vista can too..." Oh yes that's right. My computer is only 2ghz and has only 1gb of ram. I just assumed that a new OS would need a new PC. Thinking about that, It doesnt make much sense that it would need a new machine.
redunion
on Oct 28, 2008
Unless the operating system absolutely sucks, there never is a truly compelling reason to upgrade, ME was one of the few editions that just plain out was bad. But you have to remember there are apps that can run with 95/98/ME/XP/Vista So as you can see even if you have a older OS you should be able to use most apps. The thing about new OS's they usually offer better overall stability, better overall internet security, and possibly new features.
shark47
on Oct 28, 2008
"One thing I thought was amazing was that Windows7 could run perfectly on a 1ghz machine with 1GB of ram." No one is going to believe me, but I did run Vista on 1 Gig of RAM for the longest time. I upgraded to 3 GB for two reasons - Media Center and (more importantly) iTunes. I could live with Media Center being a little slow, but iTunes was horrible.
shark47
on Oct 28, 2008
"Absolutely nothing on Wally, Dave, or even Goober's page about the PDC announcements." "For anyone that's still blind to their pro-Apple bias, it should be pretty clear now." Wait for the spin from them...
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
What's really amazing is how much of what's being tweaked in Windows 7 is actually in Vista but downplayed in the UI so that people didn't freak about how different Vista was from XP. Always a tough balancing act, change too much and people say it's too hard to transition, change too little and people think you've stagnated.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
Shark A fair assessment of the "iCabal" effect is Goatberg and company's All Things Digital blog. Of the last 200 stories (what I have in my RSS buffer) during a week which included the PDC and no announcments from Apple, their story tags are: Apple: 39 stories Windows 7: 2 stories (one saying the "Windows geekfest" was coming this week but really plugging their "All Things D" conference and one saying Vista sales are bad There were 4 stories on the Mac Book Air - twice as many as on Windows 7...
shark47
on Oct 28, 2008
I must say, the "All-Star" live blogging was done really well. I missed most of it today and had a couple of silly comments that didn't make it past the moderation queue. Nevertheless, this has turned out to be a lot better than I imagined it would. Hat's off to Long Zheng.
Master3
on Oct 28, 2008
All Things Digital? I rather read Slashdot or Gizmodo. At least they don't try to pretend they are credible. Engadget, which made no real effort to cover PDC like they did WWDC, started out being snarky, but got a huge backlash from their readers, so now their coverage has been decent since then.
shark47
on Oct 28, 2008
Here's arstechnica's take on Windows 7: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-first-look-at-windows-7.html "These UI changes represent a brave move by the company. The new UI takes the concepts that Windows users have been using for the last 13 years and extends them in new and exciting ways. Windows 7 may not change much under the hood, but the extent of these interface changes makes it clear that this is very much a major release." Windows 7 seems to be getting positive feedback. Hopefully, none of the features will be scrapped.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
"Hopefully, none of the features will be scrapped." UI changes rarely get scrapped this late in the process. More likely they'll decide they hate the OS for exactly the reasons they're praising it now. Probably right after Steve Jobs copies them and then they'll consider whatever he did to file off the serial numbers "an essential part" of the whole concept...
whiplash55
on Oct 28, 2008
Between the wrist straps and the glassy eyes looks like a psyche ward. Nice coverage hope she looks as good in the morning. Have fun, and thanks for all your hard work!
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
So Vista IS dead?
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
shark To me, the really silly part of the ars preview is "The user interface has undergone the most radical overhaul and update since the introduction of Windows 95 thirteen years ago. " I'd say it's a minor tweak on the Vista shell and nowhere near as big a change as XP had over 9x or 2K or as Vista had over XP. Their preview pretty much exposed that they'd never really spent a lot of time with Vista since things like organizing virtual folders by search result was something they didn't know about and seemed surprised was possible without WinFS. (It's been in every release of Windows Vista). And that's from Ars Technica which while generally critical of anything out of Redmond, is at least technically competent. Seriously, this does look like maybe Microsoft could have gotten almost as good reviews if they'd sent out a reviewers' guide for Windows Mojave. Seriously. I expect somebody soon to praise Windows 7's new ability to change the color of the glass in Aero... Still, it saves face for them and gives them a way to praise features that have been unjustly ignored.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
Ocean Vista is less "dead" than "Leopard". Both are the current versions of the respective OS and both have had their replacements announced. Since Microsoft has a much longer support lifecycle for their OS customers, Vista will be around for at least another decade unlike Leopard. So, would you say "So Leopard IS dead?" Let us know.
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
Ars is not 'generally critical of anything out of Redmond'. They are equally pro and con all technology platforms. MS is burying Vista; may she quickly be forgotten. >>In his keynote Tuesday, Sinofsky said Microsoft is learning its lessons from Vista, which was widely criticized by users and the press, and spoofed famously in humorous television advertisements by competitor Apple. Sinofsky acknowledged that some of the criticism was deserved, particularly around Microsoft's lack of preparing its hardware, software and peripheral partners for Vista's release, even though it was more than five years in the making. Early Vista users experienced incompatibility with applications and found that devices and peripherals would not work with the OS because drivers weren't available upon the release of the OS. Microsoft won't repeat this mistake with Vista, Sinofsky said...<< http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/152942/microsoft_vows_wind...
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
>>So, would you say "So Leopard IS dead?"<< I'm a happy XP user who has looked at desktop Linux but found it not quite ready. I run Linux in a VM waiting for the day it's fully baked, but that day appears to be a ways off.
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
I say all that to answer your question with: "don't know".
.Chris1990
on Oct 28, 2008
Paul is jumping with joy eating at mcdonalds and having a mcskillet burito and chickin biscuit (chickin for breakfast, big deal! who cares)
.Chris1990
on Oct 28, 2008
Paul quit your apple bashing. didnt your mom tell you to treat mothers with respect?
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
Azure opinion: MS has the big picture right. >>Microsoft says that Azure is the result of three years' work. That may be true, but from what we've seen so far, it's still an immature product. MS has the big picture things nailed down, but the actual details—APIs and specific features—are still very much in flux.<< http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/10/27/more-on-windows...
shark47
on Oct 28, 2008
Mike, The problem is that for most of these tech journalists, a UI refresh is a much more major change than a rewrite of the entire kernel. By the way, do you think the new touch interface will spawn a new type of netooks without keyboards? I cannot see any other reason for that kind of an on screen keyboard.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
shark I actually don't think we'll see touch be that big of a thing on netbooks because with the smaller screen the resolution of touch is limited (hence the issues of typing on a touchscreen phone that doesn't have a physical keyboard). Now we may see a new class of tablet netbooks that have larger screens and look more like the HP version of Microsoft's UMPC (Origami) products. I think we'll see it first on specialized tablets for the vertical markets (like, something Doc would use at work instead of the $400 laptop) and in larger displays for conference rooms and kiosks and then it'll become more and more mainstream for the upper end of the conventional desktops and laptops.. The problem with touch only devices is that the keyboard is really an excellent way to enter text if you're past the learning curve and we've all past that so we don't notice the problems. Having multi-touch universal in the OS rather than requiring app developers to write specifically for it will help in adoption but I suspect it'll usher in a new class of devices.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
shark The problem is that this demonstrates just how many tech "journalists" never even took the responsibility to read through the Product Guide or even sit through a simple demo of Vista. For Ars to treat Search Folders as a surprising new feature of Windows 7 is just a stunning display of how people in the industry are willing to write about things with little to no basic knowledge. . Search Folders was in the demos of Vista. It was in the Product Guide (Section 3.05 on page 46). It was in the Reviewer's Guides. It was in the FAQ. It was brought up in every discussion about how search was still there even though WinFS was pulled. OK. I could understand them not knowing about the snipping tool or the command line utilities but not knowing about Search Folders? After 3 freakin' years with the product? After writing who knows how many articles about it? As a supposed "expert" who people are supposed to listen to?
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
>>For Ars to treat Search Folders as a surprising new feature of Windows 7 is just a stunning display of how people in the industry are willing to write about things with little to no basic knowledge.<< Mind linking to your complaint...or else we''ll just assume you're making stuff up again... Going back to your utterly silly earlier quote, Ars did a review of Vista that was easily one of the most thorough on the Web... http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/pretty-vista.ars/1 http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/vista-under-the-hood.ars
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
Ocean First off, I assume by "we'll just assume you're making stuff up again" refers to you making that assumption (incorrectly) yet again and that you're not accusing me of making things up. If I'm wrong about that, either cite or apologize. From the article linked earlier by Shark47: ----------------- Libraries provide a view onto arbitrary parts of the filesystem with organization optimized for different kinds of files. In use, Libraries feel like a kind of WinFS-lite; they don't have the complex database system underneath, but they do retain the idea of a custom view of your files that's independent of where the files are. ----------------- A custom view of your files that's independent of where the files are is called a Search File in Windows Vista and has been a feature of the OS since it was released. What Libraries actually do is allow you do have a shared view of specific file types that exist on your entire home network rather than tied to a specific computer. Not getting what a new feature is about in a rich OS like Windows 7 is not only forgivable it's clearly understandable. People will get overwhelmed. What isn't forgivable is not knowing the previous version and not knowing it so badly that you think that something that's in the old OS is a featured new feature of the new one. Now I suspect you've never heard of Search Folders but Ars should have since they actually claim to know what they're talking about.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
(oops) read "Search File" as "Search Folder" in the above. btw: Even in the big Ars review you cited, they only talk about Search Folders as magic things prebuilt for certain searches. That you can create and save any kind of search as a virtual folder is completely lost on them back then and apparently now.
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
As I suspected, this was not the clear-cut, black and white issue that you made it out to be.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
Actually, it's absolutely clear cut. I suspect you know less about Vista than they do. Now, are you going to apologize for "we'll just assume you're making stuff up again" or do I just ignore you as a bozo like everybody else does?
Ocean
on Oct 28, 2008
Oh, I have no problem admitting I'm wrong...it's just that I'm unclear that your argument has much merit. IOW, that Ars perpetuated some malfeasance by not mentioning in their first review and by acting like it's new in their second...
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
Not malfeasance, just garden variety hubris and incompetence.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Oct 28, 2008
And, once again, are you going to apologize for "we'll just assume you're making stuff up again" or do I just ignore you as a bozo like everybody else does?
benjwah
on Oct 28, 2008
Shiver me timbers, I really, really, really hope that they don't turn the taskbar into the Dock. I honestly hate the Dock. It's one of my main reasons for not buying a Mac. Next thing you know, they'll be keeping applications running after the application window has closed. When that happens, I'm taking my XP box into the woods.
gorath
on Oct 28, 2008
Has anybody mentioned whether multi-touch APIs will work with, for example, two mice (one for left hand, one for right hand, simultaneously)? I've often thought of a few situations in audio editing in particular, where being able to 'grab both ends' of an audio clip could speed up editing. And Mike, I agree with you on the search folder issue. People really should know about that feature, and that Libraries is an extension of that. Even though there's a big "save this search" button in vista's search results folder, people are always surprised when I show them what it does. The reason for common user misunderstanding, I suspect, is that most stick to using the start menu search, and never actually used the advanced search facility (especially since it was taken from the start menu in SP1)
chuckb84
on Oct 28, 2008
Mike, "Vista is less "dead" than "Leopard". " Hmmmm. The NYT says "Microsoft Introduces Windows 7, Ending Vista Brand" "Microsoft introduced what it said would be a slimmer and more responsive version of its Windows operating system on Tuesday, while unceremoniously dropping the brand name Vista for the new product." Perhaps this doesn't correspond to "dead", but it will certainly do for "terminally ill". "After almost two years, Windows Vista is still getting a lackluster reception from consumers and facing a relentless marketing barrage from Apple. The problem was highlighted last week when Microsoft reported its financial results for the most recent quarter. Its Windows unit reported just a 2 percent rise in revenue against a 4 percent decline in operating income. " http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/technology/business-computing/29soft.html Like I said in an earlier thread, "Vista" is a dead brand, (And, for the nth time, let me repeat two things: (1) I don't use it, so have no personal experience with it, because the IT dudes don't ALLOW it at work, (2) a "dead brand" is a statement of market perceptions, not technical quality.) However, with those caveats stated: Vista is a dead brand. I just wonder how the marketplace will react to this in the interim before Windows 7 goes on sale? Obsorne effect even with Microsoft? And I can't help reflecting on the irony of Paul's comments---repeated many times--that OS X would be in huge trouble once "Longhorn" shipped. Enderle said the same. Didn't quite turn out that way.
Mum
on Oct 28, 2008
"The problem is that for most of these tech journalists, a UI refresh is a much more major change than a rewrite of the entire kernel." That's not "a problem". it's the practical approach. A UI change at best turns a feature from completely useless to a time-and-money-saving killer feature. That's why feature counts make absolutely no difference anywhere else but marketing and that's why software developers and tech geeks so often have no clue what's good and what's bad. A kernel rewrite for an operating system is a major change to ~99% of users when it dramatically improves performance and security and makes software development easier (the effects of which a regular user will only see in a few years time). In Vista's case security was greatly improved, but performance got worse and so far compatibility problems have been more visible to the norm user than possible software development benefits.
shark47
on Oct 29, 2008
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081029/windows-7-dwm-cuts-memory-cons... "Because Windows 7 can take better advantage of the GPU and uses the Direct3D 10.1 API, it is able to reduce reduce memory consumption (in the graphics system) by 50% per each window rendered. On top of that, this is also what enables the much richer animation and styling of the interface like the “color hot-track” feature. Pretty cool huh." This is possible because the hard work was all done in Vista. Regarding compatibility problems, what can you expect when the entire kernel is rewritten? Also, significant performance improvements are not usually seen immediately. It takes a few years for that. Anyway, Vista is now still the most secure Microsoft OS out there. It's definitely no Me, as Mac fans (who haven't used it, I may add) love to call it. Vista, at least for me, is a pleasure to use, compared to XP. And I'm hoping Windows 7 continues that.
Master3
on Oct 29, 2008
""Microsoft Introduces Windows 7, Ending Vista Brand" "Microsoft introduced what it said would be a slimmer and more responsive version of its Windows operating system on Tuesday, while unceremoniously dropping the brand name Vista for the new product."" Unceremoniously dropping the brand name Vista for the new product? IT'S WINDOWS (NAME HERE)! They never keep the name from OS to OS. Until recently Apple didnt do that either. I wonder what tech journalist would have been brave enough to risk the wrath of the Apple Mob by saying something like this about their OS? This is just lazy journalism, and the titles use phrases that were the domain of moronic iTrolls. Thank goodness I dont get my news from a newspaper.
lotsamystuff
on Oct 29, 2008
It's so much fun to watch y'all argue over minutia. I guess that's all you've got.

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