Bringing Clarity to Your Digital Waiting Room

According to an article in VarBusiness Magazine it is looking like the much anticipated January release of Microsoft's "Next Big Thing" aka Vista, (or Longhorn) won't be available to the general public until second or even third quarter of 2007!

Something tells me in reality it probably will be closer to the 4th quarter.

Maybe its the fact that I have been beta testing Longhorn Media Center as part of my membership in the Microsoft Beta program, and from my results so far, this puppy is not ready for prime time. 

More Bugs than a Roach Motel !

It is also giving a new meaning to the term " Resource Intensive".
I have the latest build 5365 of Vista Media Center Ultimate installed on a 3.4 GHz P4 , running a GeForce 6600 GT with a gig of DDR2 and it constantly prompts me to turn off the " desktop composition" feature..which when done basically turns the GUI into XP with a Longhorn desktop theme. I won't even get into the lockups, system freezes etc.

While the newest User interface additions to Media Center are somewhat impressive, when compared to the stability I have experienced on my 2005 MCE in my living room the past 18 months , there is a lot of room for improvement.

The Long and Winding Road

I definitely see where they are going with the next incarnation of Windows. I do not think , based on the betas, that they are there yet. Not by a long shot. I say delay it as long as it takes to make it right . Approach it differently than the XP release process. Do that Service Pack 1 development now , before the OS is released, or at least approach the betas with that mindset. Do not , as is unfortunately M$'s historical modus operandi, rush a product out to market when it is " good enough" , then deal with the recurrent fallout by hastily throwing together patches and service packs that ineffectively plug the leaks in the dam. Otherwise Apple will be as poised as ever to pounce with Leopard. On second thought, that would not necessarily be a bad thing.