Beyond Vista

Vista is on it's way out. Windows beta testers are being summoned to try out the new and improved OS offering from Microsoft. In an email that went out recently to a select few (myself NOT included) Microsoft stated that the latest version is not available yet, but the Windows squad is assembling a "great team" of beta testers.

If interested you check out what's going on here:

Windows7 - windows 7 beta info

Windows Server 2008R2 - a sneak peak at Windows Server 2008 R2

Beta tester perks:

· Early access to downloadable beta copies of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

· Access to private newsgroups to discuss the beta with other testers and with Microsoft staff

· Access to various online events that will highlight new features and allow you to interact with the development team

· The ability to report bugs and track their status

· An opportunity to help us build a better Windows by assisting us in finding and fixing issues

Beta testing will not start until early 2009, but in an effort to better understand their audience, Microsoft is requesting that prospective testers complete 3 "Participant Surveys" prior to being accepted. Here are the links to the surveys:

Note: You must be an approved participant for these links to work (sorry)

Participant Survey Part 1 - http://connect.microsoft.com/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=7322&SiteID=488

Participant Survey Part 2 - http://connect.microsoft.com/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=7323&SiteID=488

Participant Survey Part 3 - http://connect.microsoft.com/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=7324&SiteID=488

It's well known that Vista was plagued from the beginning. Dave Puckett, a former Senior Director at Sage Software, one of the largest microsoft affiliate software companies in the world, told me in January of 2007, when Vista was released, that Sage was not even going to consider upgrading to Vista for 6-8 months.

Common opinion was that Vista was not necessarily considered an "Up"-grade. I converted many Vista machines back to XP for friends who just could'nt deal with the issues anymore or business owners who were afraid that their current programs wouldn't work properly and their data could be endangered.

Historically, every other release from Microsoft is good. We can't really count 3.1 or anything prior to that release since only uber-geeks were into computers in that era. Personal computing for the masses didn't really take off until Windows 95 was released.

• Windows 95 was great and came packed with FREE features.


• Windows 98 was okay but used FAT32 formatting which is less secure and crashed all the time.


• Windows 2000 was great. Secure, intelligently and used the NTFS format.


• Windows Millennium was a nightmare.


• Windows XP got off to a rocky start but ended up working out really well.


• Windows Vista was nightmare II


• Windows7? Well if my assessment is accurate it should be okay. Keep your fingers crossed.

Peace, out