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Despite all the rumors that October 25 was the day Vista would be released to manufacturing (RTM), Mary Jo Foley gets the contrary word direct from the boss himself:
The Microsoft countdown clock was wrong. (Yeah, maybe it’s running Windows Vista and blue screened. Teehee.)
Vista is not on track to be released to manufacturing on October 25, according to Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft’s platforms and services division.
“We won’t RTM (release to manufacturing) in a week,” Allchin told me on October 18. “We are in pretty good shape. And there are still months before (the January 2007) launch.”
Hints about what’s lagging by following the link, but all of a sudden I’m getting nervous about the November launch for businesses. Foley’s take:
Allchin would not say when Vista will RTM. But my new guess is early November. And like CRN, I am now hearing that the business launch of Vista and Office 2007 is looking like the very end of November. So I am revising my November 9 business launch guesstimate to November 30.
My November prediction back on October 3 may be in trouble, but there’s still time to get your vote in on the poll I started at the same time (and once again I apologize for the somewhat aggressive advertising associated with it):
As had been expected, Microsoft today unleashed Release Candidate 2 of Windows Vista:
Microsoft Corp. Friday released what it believes will be the last test version of Windows Vista before the product is released to manufacturing.
The company made Vista Release Candidate 2 (RC2), or build No. 5744, available to participants of its Customer Preview Program, as well as to TechBeta, TechNet, Technology Adoption Program and MSDN members.
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Microsoft said that it is still on target to release Vista to business customers next month and consumers in January 2007, though the company continues to give itself an out to miss those dates by saying that the quality of the product is its highest priority.
Microsoft’s Nick White posted a letter from Jim Allchin which included:
We are just around the corner from RTM and shipping this great product to the world. This will be the last build made available prior to RTM, so please keep the feedback coming so we can hit the finish line. Thanks for your help in finishing the job!
Paul Thurrott has a screenshot gallery and Robert McLaws reports that since is the last public beta build, Microsoft will now be adding some secret “User Experience” gadgetry so that the final version won’t all be anticlimax.
Jim Allchin’s announcement of Release Candidate 1 of Vista via the Windows Vista Team blog:
To the TechBeta community:
It’s official — Windows Vista RC1 is done!
We could not have achieved this milestone without your support. The quantity and quality of feedback and data we received from you has been essential to helping us progress. Thus we wanted you to be the first customers outside of Microsoft to get access to the bits. Next week, a broader set of technical customers will get them via MSDN and TechNet. But you’re the first! We wanted to get it into your hands asap so you can start giving us feedback right away.
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As you can see from Jim’s words above, if you’re a TechBeta or TAP participant, RC1 is now available to you! Soon it will be made available to those of you outside those programs who want to test it. I’ll have word on that next week, so watch this space.
Paul Thurrott already has a screenshot gallery and more:
In an RC1 briefing recently, Microsoft group product manager Chris Flores told me that the RC1 version of Vista is significantly improved over Beta 2, the previous public milestone of the product. It includes noticeably improved stability and performance, new functionality such as Tag browsing in Media Center and an IE feature that prevent incompatible toolbars from loading, vastly improved device coverage, and numerous other improvements, Microsoft says. Additionally, the controversial User Account Control (UAC) feature has been significantly changed to be less intrusive.
The RC1 build will time out in May 2007, Microsoft says, and the company will support it with critical updates and other patches through the final release of Windows Vista, which is slated for late October 2006.
Microsoft has posted the RC 1 build, Number 5600, on its TechBeta Web sites for select technical beta testers, including Technology Adoption Program (TAP) partners, on September 1.
Microsoft is planning to broaden the beta to include up to six million participants, total, some time next week, according to industry sources.
It’s nice that the Vista team gets a long weekend, but it’s rather odd the way pre-RC1 build 5536 was just released a week ago to a restricted group of testers and then Microsoft extended the audience to MSDN subscribers and 100,000 of the general public who had signed up for Beta 2. Microsoft’s Nick White says that regardless of the proximity of the dates, the feedback is important, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt morale to finally have a Vista build that drew plaudits instead of brickbats. By the way, Robert McLaws points to a reason for the suddenly frisky performance of Vista betas – the debugging code has come out.
Robert McLaws started it yesterday with Vista Needs More Time: The Entry I Didn’t Want To Write:
I’ve been defending Microsoft’s ship schedule for Windows Vista for quite some time. Up to this point, I’ve been confident that Vista would be at the quality level it needs to be by RC1 to make the launch fantastic. Having tested several builds between Beta 2 and today, I hate to say that I no longer feel that way.
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Windows Management (that means you, Jim): Give your people a little more time to get it right. You’ll be lambasted for it. But it doesn’t matter what 125 people in the media will say. 700 million Windows users will thank you.
There’s much more detail on McLaws’ reasons for his view by following the link, but his forthright plea has garnered support in the non-Microsoft technical community who are also testing the Vista betas.
There’s some truly great stuff in Windows Vista, but current builds are not at the quality level they need to be at for a release candidate to appear in the next few weeks. If management insists on hitting an arbitrary January ship date, the results will be disappointing at best, and potentially nightmarish.Jim, are you listening?
Former Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble:
I’m sad to agree with Robert McLaws about Windows Vista’s ship schedule. This sucker is just not ready. Too many things are too slow and/or don’t work. I’ve been on the betas of every Windows OS since Windows 3.1 and Vista is starting to feel good, but it doesn’t feel good enough to release to the factory in October. It feels like it needs a good six more months than that, which would mean a mid-year release next year.
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If this ships in October, I will recommend not installing it and waiting for the first service pack. There’s no way the quality will be high enough to trust it if it ships early. I hope Microsoft takes the time to do this right.
Be sure to also read the comments on these posts for more tester feedback.
By the way, the Jim referred to above is Jim Allchin, the Co-President of Microsoft’s Platforms & Services Division and the executive responsible for Vista. As I observed back when it was announced that Allchin would retire at the “end of calendar year 2006 following the commercial availability of Windows Vista”:
Whichever comes last, presumably.
