Report: Windows 9 Being Prepped For April 2015 Launch

[Steven Bogos]

Report: Windows 9 Being Prepped For April 2015 Launch

Microsoft will allegedly unveil its vision for Windows 9 at the company's Build 2014 developer conference this April.

Have you made the switch to Windows 8? If not, you may just want to hold out another year. Windows watcher Paul Thurrott reports [http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/threshold-be-called-windows-9-ship-april-2015] that work is already well underway on Windows 9, which is currently being prepped for an April 2015 launch. Thurrott claims Microsoft will reveal the new operation system, currently code-named "Threshold", at the company's Build 2014 developer conference this April.

Windows 8, the successor to Windows 7, was released just 14 months ago, in October 2012. Suffering from the "even-numbered Windows curse", it faced some pretty harsh criticism, particularly in relation to its radical "Metro" re-design of the start menu. Some of these criticisms were addressed in its first major update, Windows 8.1, and a planned "Update 1" for the OS should address more.

Nonetheless, it seems Microsoft is very keen to distance itself from Windows 8's negative feedback, and start over with a whole new number. "This is the release my sources previously pegged as being the one that will see the return of the Start menu and the ability to run Metro-style apps on the desktop alongside desktop applications," says Thurrott.

According to a recent Steam hardware and software survey [http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/directx/], just 11.58% of gamers use a version of Windows 8, and 9.17% a version of 8.1, compared to 65.84% still using a version of Windows 7.

I'm still using Windows 7, and unless Microsoft literally forces me to upgrade, I'm quite content to stick with it. I was also one of those people who completely avoided Vista, jumping straight from XP to 7. How about you?

Source: The Verge [http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/threshold-be-called-windows-9-ship-april-2015]

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[sb666]

It will be interesting to see if it will follow this cycle.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'm with you 100%. I wouldn't touch Windows 8 with a ten foot flaming torch.

Hopefully the trend of the odd-numbered Windows OS's being good will continue with Windows 9.

Side note: "it seems Microsoft is very keep to distance itself from Windows 8's negative feedback"
Very keep to distance? Am I dumb, or is this a typo?

 

[Roxas1359]

It will be interesting to see if it will follow this cycle.

Let us hope that the picture doesn't lie.

OT: That's actually pretty early I think. I mean Windows 8 became available to the open market in 2012, and it's barely 2014 right not. But then again maybe it isn't too early I suppose. Hopefully I might like Windows 9, if not then looks like 7 is staying with me for another decade or so, just like XP stayed with my family for a decade.

Well then again, I did have a laptop with Windows Vista Home Basic on it, but it was once my sister's. Was the worst OS I ever had the pleasure of dealing with. Vista was such a resource hog for the stupidest of reasons, and when I jumped to Windows 7 Home Premium I loved it. Now I'm rocking Windows 7 Ultimate so I love it even more.

 

[Steven Bogos]

I'm with you 100%. I wouldn't touch Windows 8 with a ten foot flaming torch.

Hopefully the trend of the odd-numbered Windows OS's being good will continue with Windows 9.

Side note: "it seems Microsoft is very keep to distance itself from Windows 8's negative feedback"
Very keep to distance? Am I dumb, or is this a typo?

just a typo

 

[A-D.]

It will be interesting to see if it will follow this cycle.

That picture is wrong, its missing Win98 Second Edition, Win NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, though the curve would still be correct for the most part.

That being said, it smells like another case of Vista to 7. So maybe Win9 will be the good Win8 essentially, like how 7 is essentially the good Vista version ;P

 

[SecondPrize]

I wish microsoft wasn't like an abusive husband I keep coming back to.

 

[unstabLized]

I just got Windows 7 a few months ago, the Professional edition which is supposedly being supported until 2020, so unless Windows 9 somehow redeems the.. whatever Windows 8 was, than I'll gladly stick with Windows 7 which I'm enjoying very fondly after upgrading from Vista. Should've upgraded sooner but I was too lazy to back up all my stuff until my computer literally gave up >.>

 

[Maxtro]

I've been using Windows 8 since it was in beta and never had an issue with it. Granted I'm a fairly computer savy person so I know how to modify the OS to be useable for me.

I would not recommended it for my mother or grandparents.

Maybe Windows 9 will be more layman friendly.

 

[Vie]

Fairwell Metro, you god awful attempt to tabletise a desktop OS.

A rememberance service will be held on July 10th 2015, starting at 10am. Guests are advised to bring a bottle, and that access to the dance dance revolution machine atop of the otherwise unmarked shallow grave will be limited to one muinite per person.

 

[votemarvel]

I've been using Windows 8 since it was in beta and never had an issue with it. Granted I'm a fairly computer savy person so I know how to modify the OS to be usable for me.

I would not recommended it for my mother or grandparents.

Maybe Windows 9 will be more layman friendly.

The biggest irritation for me with Windows 8 was that functions were split between the Metro and classic sides of the OS.

For example managing user accounts. I could create an account in the Metro control panel but to delete it I had to go to the classic version.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

considering microsoft is determined to push the tablet interface on people ill be skipping windows 9 as well. hell if i didnt get a new pc id still be using xp

Considering that Windows 9 is still over a year out (and probably won't be out until at least Q3 2015), I think your judgment of the OS is a tad premature.

Still, a step back to a Windows 7-style interface would probably be a step in the right direction. While I can't call Metro a failure, the primary interface should have remained the button menu, especially since a lot of laptops, much less PCs, don't have the necessary touch interface to fully utilize the functions. Perhaps this really is just the even-numbered curse. It would make sense given the propensity for the odd numbered ones to essentially be what they promised the prior even number ones to be (remember Vista? I do).

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

I don't really see anything inherently wrong with Windows 8, it's just that it was made for TABLETS and basically told anyone without one to go fuck themselves.

But maybe they've learnt from their mistakes this time like they did with Vista.

 

[matrix3509]

I see Microsoft is attempting to imitate Activision's standard operating procedure. I wonder if they'll have the balls to actually start releasing an OS with minor UI changes every year. Linux and SteamOS is looking more attractive with each passing month.

 

[webkilla]

I dearly hope that Microsoft goes 'back' and makes something more akin to Windows 7

Early in 2013 I worked a government IT job, and they were tearing their hair out in dispair because they were due for an OS upgrade across all the local departments where I worked.

But they really didn't want to touch Windows 8 - because it was such a radical departure from what everyone there was used to...

and not even everyone in the IT department there seemed able to figure out how to use Win8.

See, the issue was re-training: They'd need to spend an awful of government money on retraining quite a lot of workstation users to use win8.

I know it doesn't sound like that much, and I've seen and used win8 a little bit (Though I personally still run win7 on my computers) - but a lot of the people who worked there were blissfully computer illiterate, only able to use say one single program that was part of their daily routine. The UI changes that Win8 would introduce would freak them out like you wouldn't believe. Trust me, we tested it - it wasn't pretty.

 

[schrodinger]

i REALLY hope Windows 9, if they are making it, follows the pattern because i refuse to go with win 8 after trying to use that frustrating mess of OS. Why make that silly tablet metro when it's a step back in user friendly UI; i mean really, what is wrong to have the damn start button in the left corner of my screen and not been forced into another screen to play scavenger hunt.
Drop the tablet bullshit Microsoft and give us a PC OS.

 

[Pinguin]

For all the windows-haters, I have one word: Linux!

More than half of my steam library is available on Linux now, and with valve working on the steambox thing, that ratio will likely increase. For the rest, there's wine.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It will be interesting to see if it will follow this cycle.

That picture is wrong, its missing Win98 Second Edition, Win NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, though the curve would still be correct for the most part.

That being said, it smells like another case of Vista to 7. So maybe Win9 will be the good Win8 essentially, like how 7 is essentially the good Vista version ;P

It also pegs 3.1 as good and 95 as bad. As someone who still periodically loads those two up in virtual machines (mainly for old Windows games that need 16 bit support), 95 was not bad at all. Yes, it was completely full of security holes, but it also came out at a time before the internet became ubiquitous, a time when files were more likely to be shared via floppy disk than modem. And from a user's perspective, 95 was a huge improvement over 3.1, which was really little more than a GUI that sat on top of DOS. 95 did a number of things that DOS couldn't, most notably from the perspective of a gamer, it introduced Direct X, which was a huge, huge thing. 3.1 mostly just made using a computer a bit more intuitive[footnote]It also wasn't the first version of Windows. As the number implies, there was a commercially released Windows 1, 2, and also something called Windows 386, which from what I understand was basically Windows 2 tweaked to better support the features of the then new and powerful Intel 386 processor. There's probably a few other variations I'm forgetting, not even counting stuff like 3.0 and 3.11.[/footnote].

Basically, the "pattern" has only really existed since Vista turned out to suck, or since ME if you want to ignore that 2000 was a thing.

 

[Alexander Kirby]

Let's hope this new project of theirs is a continuation of the Metro thing and that they keep future versions of Windows as just windows, you know, with actual windows instead of apps. The two interfaces just didn't work together; Metro wasn't all that bad but it really didn't suit the PC environment. Best to keep it and 'desktop' (I think they call it now) separate from now on. As for me I'll likely be using Windows 7 for many a year to come, heck I was using XP until 2 years ago, and in many ways I preferred it to 7.

 

[Li Mu]

Windows 8 is an abomination. It's a foul, degenerate, putrid, cretinous operating system, created by people who had been so carried away with a concept that they never actually stopped to question whether it was actually usable. I get the feeling that Windows 8 was designed purely as an art project and not as an OS for people to actually use.
Every process now requires 1-3 extra clicks to enact. Even after 8 months of use, I still spend ages trying to work out where half of the applications are.

I remember when I first turned on my new laptop. I had been using Windows 7 on my desktop and was really happy with it. Windows 7 had streamlined so much and had created a beautiful, concise and fluid operating system.
My first day with Windows 8 was one of horror, confusion and disbelief. I just couldn't understand how we could go from Windows 7 to THIS. Microsoft said that people just needed to get used to the new system and new way of doing things and that they'd then appreciate it.
8 months later and I am used to the system, but I certainly do not appreciate it's backward, counter intuative system. Whoever headed the project should be severely reprimanded.
Microsoft fell into the trap of arrogance. They were too arrogant to care what the users wanted.