Windows Vista: Delays Upon Delays

On October 21st, 2001 Microsoft took center stage when it launched Windows XP. It was the amazing new operating system that was to be the be all and end all of computer operating systems. In fact, by 2006 400 Million copies were in use according to an IDC, and it was released only two years after their last great release of an operating system, Windows 2000. However, here we are, five years later and Windows Vista has now just finally been completed.

We even heard that in 2001 before Windows XP was launched that Microsoft employers were already working on their next generation operating system, called Windows "Blackcomb", which was to be released in 2004. How do we jump from a 2 year development cycle to a 5 year development cycle? How did we get from there to here?

In 2002, Gates described longhorn as a complete overhaul of windows featuring a new consolidated storage scheme (WinFS), technology that protects users from distractions such as phone calls and emails, software that forwards calls and emails to you automatically wherever you are, easy website updates, and a new advanced graphics sub-system (Aero). In 2003, Microsoft announced longhorn would add a low level antivirus, a new command-line interface (PowerShell), a new display driver model, a radical new user interface, and hardware accelerated desktop graphics. The feature set kept growing.

In 2003, Microsoft focused on promoting Windows Longhorn (Vista) and touting all of its new features, it was a year of excitement and intrigue, but it would only go downhill from there. In 2004, internal technical documents stated to use Longhorn well users would need a 4-6ghz processor, 2GB+ of ram, and 1 TB+ of disk space, of course we do not even have such advanced technology in 2006. In second quarter of 2004, Microsoft was supposed to release an alpha copy of Windows Vista called Milestone 7.2.

However there were early reports that Microsoft bit off more than they could chew and would have to scale back the Longhorn feature set. On April 19th of 2004, Business Week reported that Microsoft would be scaling back many of its features so they could have it done by 2006. A public beta was released in May (4074), and that was the last one beta testers would get for the entire year. CEO Steve Ballmer told us that Longhorn would be a lower priority so that they could get Windows XP SP2 and Windows XP MCE out the door.

Microsoft then announced it wouldn't be able to include WinFS, its advanced new file system in Windows Vista,. The dropping of WinFS was huge, it meant that Windows Mail, Internet Explorer 7, and Office 12 had to be re-worked since they were being developed on WinFS.

After the release of build 4074, we finally received another release 5074 in early 2005. There were almost no new features since build 4074 and was actually a step back technologically. None of the new features such as Aero were included yet. Microsoft had to spend quite a bit of time undoing some of the groundwork they had laid for a lot of the features that had been taken out.

Finally on June 30th, 2005 we were finally given Beta 1 of Windows Vista, which was to contain the "core functionality" of Windows Longhorn. Beta 1 finally contained some of the features that we had all been waiting for, such as the Aero graphics and improved user shell. Later that year Microsoft added additional user interface features and newly added RSS support. In all of 2006 Windows would work on minor interface enhancements, and worked on removing the numerous bugs being released, finally in November of 2006, Microsoft finally completed Windows Vista.