Next up after Vista? Fiji and Vienna

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

Next up after Vista? Fiji and Vienna

by Jordan Running Jan 1st 2007

Though Redmond has been uncorking bottles of champaign lately for the release of Windows Vista, they certainly haven't stopped looking forward. The next two versions of Windows are already on the drawing board, and have been for some time. Their codenames are Fiji and Vienna (Vista's was Longhorn, if you recall), and they're the successors to the Windows throne according to a blog called Unnecessary. Fiji is planned as a "Second Edition" of Vista, which is intended to finally bring some of those promised Longhorn features that never materialized to Vista. Among them: More new UI features, a more powerful Sidebar, tighter Windows Live integration, more advanced speech recognition, WinFS (finally!) on top of NTFS, maybe a music-authoring program called Monaco, and more.

Vienna (formerly known as Blackcomb) is slated to be the next huge leap forward for Windows, "similar to the transition from OS 8-9 to OS X." Vienna will break application compatibility with previous versions of Windows to make room for a "newer, more flexible, richer and secure platform." Among the new features will be a completely overhauled interface ("No more explorer shells, and taskbars. No start menu. Probably no toolbars, or menus."), speech recognition as a "major input device," a new version of NTFS wrapped in WinFS ("No more drives, or files/folders location to worry about. File Management will be done through applications, which will automatically index and sort the files they support."), and more.

Ooh, that all sounds great. But take it with a grain of salt. Preferably the biggest one you can find. I would love to see all of these new features in the next versions of Windows, but Longhorn/Vista has taught me not to hold my breath. Don't get me wrong, I am optimistic about the future of Windows, and I love reading lists like this.. but let's not count our chickens before they're hatched.

[Via Engadget]

Tags: fiji, microsoft, vienna, vista, windows

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mark said 4:29PM on 1-01-2007

Quite frankly, Vienna sounds like something I don't want to see (at least the way it's projected). Much as I enjoy all the new tweaks and ideas they have in Vista (instant searches, saved searches, the new address bar, etc), I still enjoy having the ability to mess around with my files and everything else on a relatively low level. As in actually having the files stored in folders that I can see and not relying on the OS not to screw up.
Breaking compatibility - sort of good? Depends on how it's done, I see no reason to break compatibility with well-coded Vista-grade apps.
I also like my explorer shell, and see no reason to be rid of that. I especially don't see any reason to take away my toolbars and menus. In fact I like the 98-XP menu style, may be it's just me being a power-user, but I like to be able to tweak my settings.
And as I said, I hope the day never comes when I have to let an OS arrange my files for me without me having the ability to arrange it as I like based on folder structure.
Quite frankly, as things are looking right now (though they're going to change immensely knowing Microsoft), I'd take Fiji over Vienna. On the other hand, Fiji's looking awsome.

Alessandro said 4:30PM on 1-01-2007

My office is split appx. 2/3 Mac OSX, 1/3 WinXP (no Vista yet). During the holiday season, one of my
coworkers saw a snowfall screensaver on-display at a nearby Apple
Store and was able to track it down and install it on his machine ('Snowfall' screensaver available here:
http://www.alittlebitofnothingleft.net/snowfall/).

Besides the large, detailed, gorgeous, sultry semi-transparent 3D snowflakes
that spin and fall, the most amazing part is that it requires nearly no CPU
power!! I found out that 'Snowfall' is written for the OSX using its Quartz
Composer framework -- which from my (limited) understanding is based on
OpenGL and Screen PostScript technology originally developed by Adobe/NeXT.
Basically, Quartz forms the foundation for all of Apple's on-screen
rendering, graphics display, GUI presentation, transition effects, and all
that sexy eyecandy that we salivate over whenever we see someone working in
MacOSX.

Seeing 'Snowfall' reminded me of a the more modest animated snowflake
DesktopX object that came out a few years ago
(http://wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=3105&LibID=3), which
featured some nice, small 2D snowflakes that fell and spun. But as I
remember, this would consume about 40% CPU power -- and it was only 2D!

Why does such a difference exist between the capabilities of Mac OSX and Windows? The
hardware is essentially the same nowadays, and yet Mac OSX is able to crank
out the best effects without overly taxing the system. Transition effects
are universally smooth, video and animation are not bothered by background
processes, there's never jitteriness or ghosting of unrefreshed elements
onscreen, and generally, every visual element of the operating system is
finished so nicely.

The above example concerns the graphics system of each OS, but it also serves to illustrate the huge divide between Mac OSX and Windows in terms of usability and the 'finish & polish' of each system. Parallels can be drawn to other functional aspects of the UI and OS.

When are we going to have the same level of performance in Windows? Is it
truly here with Vista, or do we have to wait for Fiji (Vista R2) in 2008, or
Vienna in 2010?

Any thoughts??

Alessandro said 4:35PM on 1-01-2007

My office is split appx. 2/3 Mac OSX, 1/3 WinXP (no Vista yet). During the holiday season, one of my
coworkers saw a snowfall screensaver on-display at a nearby Apple Store and was able to track it down and install it on his machine ('Snowfall' screensaver available here:
http://www.alittlebitofnothingleft.net/snowfall/).

Besides the large, detailed, gorgeous, sultry semi-transparent 3D snowflakes that spin and fall, the most amazing part is that it requires nearly no CPU
power!! I found out that 'Snowfall' is written for the OSX using its Quartz Composer framework -- which from my (limited) understanding is based on OpenGL and Screen PostScript technology originally developed by Adobe/NeXT. Basically, Quartz forms the foundation for all of Apple's on-screen rendering, graphics display, GUI presentation, transition effects, and all that sexy eyecandy that we salivate over whenever we see someone working in MacOSX.

Seeing 'Snowfall' reminded me of a the more modest animated snowflake DesktopX object that came out a few years ago (http://wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=3105&LibID=3), which featured some nice, small 2D snowflakes that fell and spun. But as I remember, this would consume about 40% CPU power -- and it was only 2D!

Why does such a difference exist between the capabilities of Mac OSX and Windows? The hardware is essentially the same nowadays, and yet Mac OSX is able to crank out the best effects without overly taxing the system. Transition effects are universally smooth, video and animation are not bothered by background
processes, there's never jitteriness or ghosting of unrefreshed elements onscreen, and generally, every visual element of the operating system is
finished so nicely.

The above example concerns the graphics system of each OS, but it also serves to illustrate the huge divide between Mac OSX and Windows in terms of usability and the 'finish & polish' of each system. Parallels can be drawn to other functional aspects of the UI and OS.

When are we going to have the same level of performance in Windows? Is it truly here with Vista, or do we have to wait for Fiji (Vista R2) in 2008, or Vienna in 2010?

Any thoughts??

alan said 7:19PM on 1-01-2007

Alessandro,
pardon while i get up on my soap box, but here's the main problem with comparing xp to osx: xp does NOT use the graphics card for normal operation. all the screensavers, the msstyles, everything runs through the cpu. the gpu, on the other hand, is largely ignored by xp's graphics. osx effectively uses the gpu, so it consumes less cpu processes and percentage.
vista, however, will utilize the gpu for its graphical processes, thereby eliminating most of (if not all of) the cpu lag present in xp. compare vista to osx, because then it will be a more equal comparison in terms of cpu and gpu usage by the operating system.

also, i've heard that somewhere along the line, virtual machines are going to be more commenplace. all i have to say is "no. no, no, no, no, NO!" simply because virtual machines are waay to cumbersome at this point, and using them, you lose the closeness between the os and the files on the computer. if microsoft eliminates explorer, i will refuse to upgrade past vista, simply because i happen to like to be able to view ALL the files on my computer, and not just the ones microsoft thinks i should see.
finally, breaking compatability is like breaking your leg. it's going to hinder your mobility and usefulness, and it's a major pain in the butt.

Al said 9:52PM on 1-01-2007

@ Alan & Mark:
Why are you sooo fearful of change? Sure, you're used to what you're using. This doesn't mean that new and better technology can enhance your experience.

Don't read into the details of the artice... it's not very accurate the way you interpret it. Nobody ever said that you will NEVER be able to access files/folders on Windows OS past Vista (Vienna). The general user might not be able to do this.

And besides by that time, most of the everyday commonplace apps will probably need to be tied very closely to the web - if not existing there totally.

Alessandro said 9:50AM on 1-02-2007

@Alan -- Thanks for the explanation. I look forward to seeing how things develop.

Regarding losing the Explorer: I think power users will still have Explorer-like applications to manage physical files on their machines. But having a virtual filing system (more analogous to gmail category labeling) can really help with data localization and management.

We'll just have to see how things turn out, I guess!

LordDaMan said 12:02AM on 1-03-2007

You know microsoft had the virtual file system in vista. It was based on Vista's search. It also turned out to be so confusing that Microsoft largely dumped it.

Imgaine having a virtual folder with all files over 1 meg in size. Now save a 0.5 meg file to that folder. It doesn't appear, because it doesn't match that search criteria (which is all all virtual folders are..saved searches). That's really confusing

johnnyg0 said 9:23AM on 1-03-2007

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah... this is all blah blah blah. Remember everything that was said about "Longhorn/Vista" 3 years ago (maybe even 5)?? I don't, but everything that was said then was immensely far from what we have in our hands now.

So why do we talk about this now?

oh I know why, because Microsoft is indirectly saying that Vista is not a secure or flexible platform (If a future project is tagged as "more flexible, richer and secure", what can we conclude about the current one?)

Apple had PC say in their ads "You (Mac) are the one who was designed to stimulate a 10 year old child" (the ad where PC has an Anarchy sign in his back)

Those marketing guys are so clueless.

01 said 5:27PM on 1-10-2007

I'm sure we'll be able to preview many of the features that microsoft has been "planning" in the upcoming release of OS X Leopard. (No task bar? I wonder where I've seen that before....) Good luck Redmond, you have a lot of copying to do.

Andre de Cavaignac said 9:33PM on 1-23-2007

@post 9: Did you not realize that the OSX "dock" is basically a taskbar thats a pain in the ass to use because its all icons and no text....

They steal back and fourth, thats the way it goes... Stop being such a Steve Jobs groupie.

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