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I've mentioned how to create a new VHD from the command line, now let me mention how you can create a new VHD from the Windows GUI.
- Open Computer Management (Start > Run… > compmgmt.msc)
- In the left pane, select Storage > Disk Management
- Right-click Disk Management, click Create VHD
- Specify VHD settings and click OK
- Location -- the path where you want to save the VHD
- Size -- specify a size smaller than what's available on your system
- Format -- choose dynamic sizing to slowly grow to the full disk size (what I'd recommend) or fixed, if you want to just allot the space outright and avoid potential out-of-space problems
- In the main, center pane, right-click the label on the left for the new, unknown/unallocated disk, click Initialize Disk
- Click OK
- In the main, center pane, right-click the main disk space visualization, click New Simple Volume...
- Click Next
- Click Next
- Click Next
- Specify a volume label, click Next
- Click Finish
- Put Win7 or Server 2008 R2 DVD or bootable USB drive in
- Restart your computer
NOTE: You'll need to be sure you can boot using the necessary device in BIOS settings (obviously)
- Press any key to boot from CD or DVD
- When the Install Windows screen is shown, press Shift+F10
- Type d:, press Enter
- Type diskpart, press Enter
- Type select vdisk file="d:\machines\win2008r2.vhd", press Enter
NOTE: Windows re-assigns your primary drive when running thru the installer. In all of my tests, C: was re-assigned to D:.
- Type attach vdisk, press Enter
- Type exit, press Enter
- Type exit, press Enter
- Click Next
- Click Install Now
- Select desired OS (server only), click Next
- Check I accept the license terms, click Next
- Click Custom (advanced)
- Select Disk 1 Partition 1: <label>, where <label> is the volume label you applied in step 11
- Click Next and continue to install the operating system as you normally would
After rebooting, Windows Boot Manager will give you an option to boot into either the host or guest OS instances.
Silverlight has been Microsoft's golden child since v2 was released last year. The impact within the community has been astounding. Some demand the use of Silverlight without actually recognizing when and where the technology makes sense and others scoff at Silverlight either in favor of Flash or as a technology as "useless" as Flash. I roll my eyes every time I hear any of these three opinions... and they happen a lot. Flash went thru the hype cycle years ago and now it's Silverlight's turn. What I find amusing is that the hype seems to be much more powerful with Silverlight than it ever was with Flash. All we can do is fight the good fight.
Not every rich experience needs to be Silverlight. JavaScript frameworks are making life as a web developer easier and easier, so I'd recommend that always be the default choice. Unfortunately, most developers still find the pain of JavaScript development too great. While I'm a big fan of JavaScript, it is far from a perfect language and is severely lacking when it comes to development and debugging tools. Flash and Silverlight both simplify things with better tools and a single-platform vision that tremendously improves cross-browser development, but Flash is still lacking the one thing that makes Silverlight a no-brainer: XAML, backed by real programming languages.
XAML is immensely powerful and will continue to grow as more and more WPF features make it into Silverlight. XAML takes a new way of thinking, but it's well worth it for the simplicity and ease of development you get. But, more important than XAML is the fact that you have any .NET language you want and, with the inclusion of the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), there's virtually no reason not to use Silverlight. The one and only benefit Flash has is more mature tools. This is very important, but it is only a matter of time. Microsoft has both the will and the ability to overcome the current Flash tooling. The days of Flash are severely numbered. A look at the job market only confirms this. I just wish I had some of the same numbers from when Flash was initially released to compare the difference.
I truly believe that, if you're a web developer using any language, you need to take the time to understand how Silverlight can benefit you. Yes, HTML5 is coming, but the power and flexibility of environments like Silverlight will quickly surpass anything the W3C will ever be able to come out with a specification for. Heck, in less than 2 years, we've seen 3 releases of Silverlight and a beta version for the fourth, with speculations that Silverlight 4 is likely to release at Mix 2010, making it 4 full releases in 2.5 years. I'd like to see any one W3C spec ratified and fully released in all major browsers in such a timeframe. Such a feat is completely unheard of. Nevertheless, don't let me blab on about it. The numbers speak for themselves...
Virtual PC is great. Well, it's ok -- it does the job. There's a better way, tho, and that better way is to just get rid of the host OS... or, ask the OS to politely let you get by for a while. That's exactly what Windows 7 does by enabling you to boot into a VHD.
Scott Hanselman  blogged about booting from a VHD in more detail, but I wanted to break it down into discrete steps. For simplicity, I'm going to start from scratch, creating a VHD from the command line.
- Put Win7 or Server 2008 R2 DVD or bootable USB drive in
- Restart your computer
NOTE: You'll need to be sure you can boot using the necessary device in BIOS settings (obviously)
- Press any key to boot from CD or DVD
- When the Install Windows screen is shown, press Shift+F10
- Type d:, press Enter
- Type md machines, press Enter
- Type diskpart, press Enter
- Type create vdisk file="c:\machines\win2008r2.vhd" type=expandable maximum=50000, press Enter
NOTE: Be sure to set a maximum your machine can support; Windows will temporarily expand the VHD to that size when you boot into it
- Type select vdisk file="c:\machines\win2008r2.vhd", press Enter
- Type attach vdisk, press Enter
- Type exit, press Enter
- Type exit, press Enter
- Click Next
- Click Install Now
- Select desired OS (server only), click Next
- Check I accept the license terms, click Next
- Click Custom (advanced)
- Select Disk 1 Unallocated Space (...GB)
- Click Drive options (advanced)
- Click New, then Apply
- Click Format, then OK
NOTE: If you see a "Windows cannot be installed to this disk..." error, ignore it.
- Click Next and continue to install the operating system as you normally would
After the installation completes, Windows Boot Manager will give you an option to boot into either the host or guest OS instances. Gotta love it!
Gartner recently released a smart phone market forecast, which looks at prior and predicted market share fluctuations from 2007 to 2013. I found some very interesting, but quite explainable predictions. I recommend taking a look at it yourself, but here are a few teasers.
The overall market has grown ~1.5x in 2 years and is expected to grow ~3.6x over the next 4 years. The ratio of consumer-to-business phones wavers, but remains about 3:1 throughout the assessed time frame.
Android
Gartner predicts Android quadrupling its market over the next 4 years, ending up #2 in the market. This is likely due to the open nature of the platform. While I agree with a large growth, 4x isn't quite what I'd expect. Seeing this, you're likely to suspect other big changes, too. I think you'll be surprised with Gartner's numbers, tho.
Blackberry
Blackberry is estimated to steadily decline over the coming years, ultimately dropping 6% from their current standing. From #3 in 2007 to #2 in 2008 thru 2010 to #4 in 2013. A thought-provoking rise and decline, but it shows how Blackberry isn't quite the innovator they'd like to be.
iPhone
For what most believe is the golden child of the mobile market, Gartner doesn't have much faith in the iPhone platform. iPhone tripled its market share from 2007 to 2008, then grew 50% in 2009. Most would think this would continue to shoot up over the coming years, but Gartner begs to differ. Gartner predicts only minor growth year over year thru 2013. They foresee a 10% growth by next year, virtually no growth the next, and a very trivial 1% growth in 2013. From here on out, the iPhone is expected to remain a #3 player thru 2013. Apple brought an interesting player to the market a few years back, but Gartner seems to believe that's where their innovation stops. I was very surprised to see the dwindling growth.
Symbian
Given the fact that we know Symbian is #1 today and we've already covered the #2, #3, and #4 players, you might expect to see Symbian in the #1 spot. Well... you'd be right. Gartner sees Symbian maintaining their place, but I speculate this isn't -- nor has it been -- due to superior innovation in the market. It's only a matter of time before other players take over. I suspect (not Gartner) they'll drop to #2 by 2016 as other players drive advancements.
WebOS
The road has been long and rocky for Palm, as we all know. WebOS seems like a last ditch effort to maintain a place in the mobile market. Gartner predicts they'll double their market share in 2010, but that's about the only success they'll see, as they slowly lose market share.
Windows Mobile
Gartner shows Windows Mobile steadily dropping from 2007 to 2010. That's no surprise, given all we've heard. With a mid-2010 release of Windows Mobile 7 -- Microsoft's response to the iPhone -- it's no surprise we won't see a spike until 2011, when Windows Mobile jumps up 15%. Gartner doesn't have faith that this will be good enough, tho, as they foresee market share dropping a little more than half a percent below their current share. While Microsoft isn't talking about Windows Mobile 8, they'll have to deliver it in relatively short order, if they want to show the market they mean business. I have faith this will happen by 2013. In fact, I'm hopeful that we'll see some major enhancements and mergers between Zune and Windows Mobile in the same time frame. My gut tells me we'll see this by 2012. It won't be until then that people truly see what Microsoft is capable of.
Others
Linux, Maemo, and others are also included in the study. I'm not familiar with any serious Linux competitors other than Android, but they've lost 50% of their market share in the last 2 years and are presumed to continue to drop, eventually giving Palm some competition for the least amount of share by "major" competitors... if you consider Linux a major competitor. I have to say I was surprised by Maemo, which I don't think I've heard much about. It's a Linux-based tablet OS Nokia developed and subsequently brought -- or, at least, is bringing -- to the smart phone market. I liken this to the opposite of Google's Android-to-Chrome OS move. With a 2009 initial showing, Gartner surprisingly predicts Maemo shooting up to 6.5% by 2013. Very interesting; unlike other players, who drop from 1.1% in 2007 to less than .1% by 2013.
If you ask me, Microsoft should seriously consider buying RIM. Right now, they're #2 and #4, but Microsoft stands to gain a tremendous amount from the corporate presence Blackbery currently holds. With what's expected to come in Windows Mobile 7, this would also give Blackberry users a very nice glimmer of hope around what I speculate will be a very nice mobile OS. Now isn't the time, of course. Given Gartner's insights, I'd say 2011 would be the best time to drive such an acquisition, hopefully showing value for Blackberry users in the Windows Mobile 8 time frame.
Short of a Microsoft/RIM acquisition, somebody needs to buy Palm for Palm's sake. Given my newly-acquired knowledge of Maemo, I have to say Nokia should seriously consider it. I was initially thinking RIM should give it a thought, but I don't see them having much to gain. Maemo and WebOS both have a lot in common. A merger could go a long way... not that Nokia needs Palm. The Palm-ers could definitely use some Nokia love, tho.
The last thing I should mention is that most of this is speculation on my part. Gartner provided the numbers -- aside from my Symbian 2016 and Windows Mobile 2012/13 comments. I wholly recommend you look at Gartner's numbers and other mobile studies they have to fully understand what they're thinking and why they made these forecasts.
One of the things I really like about Windows 7 is it can be installed from a USB drive -- perhaps thanks to the rise in netbooks. This isn't anything terribly new to the world of computers, but it's always nice when you have a new feature to play with -- and, let's face it, Windows 7 is all about simplicity. When I first heard about installing from a bootable USB drive, I hoped it was going to be as simple as copying the files over. It wasn't. All-in-all, the process wasn't too bad, tho.
- Attach the USB drive
- If you have anything on the drive you want to keep, copy it off
- Click
 , type and select the Device Manager option
- Expand Disk Drives
- Right-click your USB drive, click Properties > Policies
- Check Optimize for performance and click OK
- Close Device Manager
- Open Windows Explorer (Win+E)
- Select Computer, right-click the USB drive, select Format...
NOTE: Remember the total size of the USB drive and what drive letter it is assigned
- Select the NTFS file system, uncheck all format options, and click Start
NOTE: This process will take a while, so we're going to multi-task
- While the USB drive is being formatted, copy the Windows 7 DVD contents to the c:\win7 directory
NOTE: If you only have an ISO file, use 7-zip to extract contents to the target directory
- Click , type powershell, right-click the Windows PowerShell option, and select Run as administrator
- Fine, fine... if you're not on the band wagon, run Command Prompt as administrator
- When the USB drive is done formatting, type diskpart, and press Enter
- Type list disk and press Enter
- This will return results like the following. In this case, I have a 16 GB drive as disk 1.
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 74 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 14 GB 0 B
- Type select disk <d>, where <d> is the disk number from the previous step, and press Enter
- Type list partition, press Enter
-
- This will return results like the following. In this case, I have a 16 GB drive as disk 1.
DISKPART> list partition
Partition ### Status Size Offset
------------- ------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 14 GB 20 KB
- Type select partition <p>, where <p> is the partition number from the previous step (most likely 1), and press Enter
- Type active, to make this partition active an press Enter
- Type exit and press Enter
- When the Windows 7 disk contents are done copying, type cd c:\win7\boot and press Enter
- Type .\bootsect /nt60 <e:>, where <e:> is the drive letter your USB drive is assigned to (i.e. e:), and press Enter
- Lastly, copy the contents of the c:\win7 directory to the root of your USB drive
Wow... 23 steps seems like a lot more than I originally realized, but it's just about going thru the motions. You'll be waiting for the USB drive to be formatted and files to be copied for the majority of the time. Once you're done, reboot and plug in your USB drive to kick off the installation. Remember to check your BIOS boot settings. If your machine isn't configured to even try to boot from USB, you won't get very far.
Microsoft is out to prove a point with Windows 7. I can see the message clearly: "See, we can deliver on time; and earlier than most expected. And to top it all off, we did so without drastically changing the OS. That 'polished' OS you're looking at... yeah, it's Vista; 'Vista-point-1' to be exact. Sure, we tweaked it; but that's just to prove another point: Microsoft software isn't about bloat." I could probably go on for a while, but the signs are all there. Sinofsky has done a great job taking the Windows team under his wing. I've been very happy with some of the decisions they've made. As a matter of fact, I'm hoping to see some of the same changes on other fronts. Enter Internet Explorer.
IE8 is a big flop in my book. Don't get me wrong, it's my default browser and I love the enhancements; but it's just hiding the real, underlying problem: the foundation. I apologize for the analogy, but you can only mold a pile of crap so many ways before it just starts falling apart. Arguably, the same can be said about Windows, but Windows 7 has really given it a refresh. It's hard to explain how much better Windows 7 feels. I have to say I'd liken it to the first day I got Windows Vista, to be honest; but the key differentiator there is that I had quality hardware that was up to the challenge and no legacy software or devices to be concerned with. I'm not the "normal" user, of course, and I feel bad for those who had bad experiences. It's not because the software is bad, it's because your circumstances around which you experienced it were wrong. Not that Microsoft isn't to blame, tho; but I'm getting way off topic. It's time for a major change with IE.
I remember seeing some early concepts around IE8. At first glance, I was confused at a few of the ideas -- I'm thinking of one in particular -- but after I paused to really mull it over, it hit me. The power users would have at their fingertips would be astounding. There's a common root to the booming growth of Google and Firefox. This is exactly what Microsoft would've seen with this feature. Guess what: that feature never saw the light of day. As a matter of fact, I don't even know that it made it past that slide deck. Admittedly, the idea was rough, but it had some real potential. What's funny is that I just read something about the same concept being applied to another browser. *sigh*
Before IE8 beta 1 hit the streets, I saw another slide deck about what would be included in IE8 and 9. At first, I was excited, but it didn't take long for that to wear off. I actually began to question some of the decisions. There was (once again) one feature loved, but then I started to wonder if it even made sense. Depending on whether the team takes a left or a right out the gate will be the deciding factor for that feature... if it's still even a possibility. IE8 was pushed back so much that the IE9 time frame and feature set is completely out of the picture for what I saw. It's too bad; I was looking forward to a few quick revs. At the same time, this could be perfect timing.
Windows 7 is on the way, with rumors of April and May release candidates culminating in a June, July, August, September, October, November, or January final release date. It's pretty clear nobody has a good clue of the actual release date, but there is one constant in all the confusion: simplicity and performance are the two driving tenets in Windows 7. These two factors are huge for usability and, furthermore, perceptions. So, when I think about what to expect in IE9, I'm looking for both of these: simplicity and speed. IE8 is a dog on some machines. We've seen JavaScript benchmarks and "everyday use" benchmarks that all tell us different things, but it all comes down to our individual experiences... and perceptions. For IE to be a contendor, it needs to clean up its act. I want a sleek, sexy browser. It's not Firefox; it's not Chrome; and it sure as hell isn't Safari or Opera. I'm not saying each isn't functional, I'm just saying there's a lot to be desired.
Opera's doing it's thing, although I'm not sure why it even bothers; Apple's giving Safari on Windows a go, but not doing well; Google's got juice, but I don't think they have the right talent-mix to succeed; and Firefox is leading the pack against IE, but hasn't really made any significant innovations and is growing more by perception than anything. Microsoft (read: IE team), the browser market is yours to lose [which you're doing]; but it's also yours to dominate. Take a step back. Review the history books. There is one constant in what drives the up-and-comers of today. See that and feed into it. The world is asking for simplicity, speed, and all-around usability. IE8 isn't the answer. IE9 could be. You can do better. I know it; you know it.
Since the debut of Windows 7, there's been a lot of talk about whether or not Microsoft would listen to feedback from the field. This sounds odd, but the question is a valid one, due to how Steve Sinofsky is running this release of Windows. The major departure from past releases is that the Windows team isn't introducing features into the build until they're "done." Sure, there may be some small issues, but nothing like what we saw in the pre-release versions of Vista or XP. This, along with only 2 pre-release versions of the OS making it out to the field -- beta and release candidate -- will make anyone question how much will really change between the beta and official release. Well, the Engineering 7 blog lets us know about 36 things we'll see in the release candidate based on feedback from the beta. This is very refreshing, even if a number of them are qute trivial.
- Task Switcher (Alt+Tab) now with Aero peek -- excellent enhancement to really bring focus to the app you're thinking about switching to
- Win+# will open or launch, not just launch -- I'm very excited about this one; I'll finally have a Win+1 shortcut to open my most important window: PowerShell
- Apps wanting your attention will be more obvious
- Dragging a file onto an app on the taskbar will now open the file in the app
- 25-40% more icons will fit on the taskbar before scrolling
- Clearer mapping of what app thumbnails are related to in the taskbar
- Newly installed programs will show up at the bottom of the start menu
- Increased the number of items in the taskbar app's context menu (aka jump list)
- More flexibility when pinning items to an app's jump list
- Separation of desktop icons and gadgets
- Aero peek now touch-enabled
- Multi-touch capabilities added to the virtual keyboard to make it more realistic
- Summon the context menu with a 2 fingers -- this isn't quite as simple as it could be, but there are some reasons why a 2-finger tap isn't viable
- Touch enhancements to select and drag/drop content
- Simplified networking options in system tray and return of the connected-but-no-internet indicator
- User Account Control (UAC) tweaks
- Auto-lock a machine without applying a screensaver
- Return of the high performance power option from the system tray
- Clearer communication about preview vs. saved theme changes
- Reliability enhancements to Windows Media Player for internet radio
- Digital camcorder/camera video playback improvements
- Cleaner "now playing" view in Windows Media Player
- Content that Windows Media Player cannot play won't show up in the library -- this might be confusing to some, but it sounds like a good option; I'd probably opt for a dimmed color and icon depicting its unplayable status
- Changed Windows Media Player to resume playback of content after returning from sleep
- Introduction of Windows Media Player sync relationships dialog will be reverted -- classic case of why betas are important
- Easier, quicker access to advanced playback settings in Windows Media Player
- Windows Media Player's jump list now includes content launced from outside of WMP
- Worked with hardware vendors to make it easier to get more devices to support Device Stage -- if you don't know what Device Stage is (I didn't), watch this
- Improved headphone experience
- Increased audio reliability
- Improved Windows Explorer header to enhance new "libraries" capability
- Drag and drop enhancements when dealing with libraries
- Win+E was opening libraries, but will return to open My Computer, as it does today -- I'm glad to see this because I haven't found a use for libraries, yet
- Added FAT32 support for libraries
- Arrangement view enhancements for libraries
- Performance enhancements abound
There are really only 4 of these that I'm looking forward to, but it's still a surprisingly large list. I'm looking forward to the RC. Rumor has it we'll see a public release in April. Part of me expects it to be sooner, but I have no idea.
I was thinking about the Dec 31, 2008 debacle Zune went thru, where the devices didn't work for a 24 hr period. If you didn't hear about it, the problem was due to a device driver, which wasn't controlled by Microsoft. This is exactly the problem Microsoft has to deal with: crappy hardware vendors. I remember the sad, sad day I found out the Zune was built using Toshiba hardware. I have hoped so much that this would change, but it hasn't, yet... yet. I say that, not knowing of things to come, but hoping that Microsoft will realize the err in its ways. Microsoft should take tighter control over hardware by using quality hardware vendors. Hell, the Zune issue is nothing compared to the red ring of death issues the Xbox faces. I don't know anything about the Xbox hardware, tho, so I can't say much about that. Heck, Microsoft can't either, considering they haven't fixed the problem yet, as far as I know. I'd like to see Microsoft either form a division focused on delivering great hardware -- like phones, Zunes, Xboxes, desktops, and laptops -- or pony up and buy a company. There has been a lot of speculation to that effect with the purchase of Danger in early 2008, but Microsoft has claimed the "Zune Phone" won't happen. That doesn't stop the rumors from piling up, tho. All I can say is that, if my vote was worth anything, I'd be voting for Lenovo. I've purchased 2 and am about to get another. I've even thought about replacing my desktop with a Lenovo. What's even better, tho, is the idea of having a Lenovo phone. As much as I like my HTC Touch Pro (AT&T Fuze) -- minus the crap AT&T does to it, that is -- my love affair with Lenovo laptops really has me lusting after their new phone. If only it'd make it to the US... along with the HTC Touch HD, which I still want. All this really boils down to one question, in my mind: Will Microsoft reconsider a higher level of control after dealing with one problem after another from hardware vendors? I kind of doubt it, but I'll keep hope alive.
Every year, there's one underlying theme that seems to be pushed in the technology arena more than anything. This year, I feel like it's the year of the cloud. The last time I did this was five years ago, so I'll have to back-fill a few years, but here are the themes I've noticed over the past 11 years.
- 2008: Year of the Cloud
- 2007: Year of User Experience
- 2006: Year of AJAX/Web 2.0
- 2005: Year of SaaS
- 2004: Year of Offshore Outsourcing
- 2003: Year of the Architect
- 2002: Year of Web Services
- 2001: Year of XML/.NET
- 2000: Year of Enterprise Java
- 1999: Year of Linux
- 1998: Year of the Web
We've been approaching "the year of the cloud" for a while, now. You can actually look back to 1998, when the web started to really catch on. A few years later, as Java started to build momentum and then .NET hit the scenes, which is when XML as a standard communication language started to catch on. Also tied to the .NET release was a huge push for web services. As this was more and more successful, service-oriented architecture (SOA) started to boom. In my mind, that was a big boon to the outsourcing trends, which have seemingly quieted down a bit, but not completely. SOA also led to the software as a service (SaaS) trend, which triggered Microsoft's software plus services (S+S) push, but that was more of a side story. With everything moving to the web, backed by [typically open] services, asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX) was the next big push. This was tied to the "Web 2.0" moniker, which I'd argue wasn't quite what Tim Berners-Lee intended. Either way, this led to the big push for better user experiences, which many people confuse with user interface design. The Web 2.0 push also kept the industry on its web focus, which is where we are left today.
It's easy to look back and see how we got here. Trends show that architectural changes typically take two or three years to gain momentum in the community, so we'll probably have a couple of years before the next major architecture peaks. The trend towards distributed computing has grown more and more, but I have a feeling things are going to start coming back a little. We've been pushing out to the web for a lot of reasons; one of which is the rise of the Mac. What we've been losing out on, however, is the power of the desktop. I see the S+S push to continue, but more as an underlying theme than a strong focus. Services will continue to be the foundation, maintaining the importance of cloud computing, but the desktop will be where the processing occurs. I see Silverlight proving a huge success, which will eventually bring .NET to the Mac. This will probably bring Novell and Microsoft a little closer together, with respect to Microsoft's relationship with Mono, but this may simply be a change in focus for Mono. Oh, and when I say, "bring .NET to the Mac," I'm not talking about the scaled-down version in Silverlight. I'm talking about the real deal. I see WPF and Silverlight merging along with the smart client architecture built into .NET today. This will take more than a few years, but it seems to be inevitable. Most likely, by the time all this happens, multi-core will be a way of life, as opposed to the we-should-be-thinking-about-threading thoughts most developers have today. Armed with a strong multi-threaded foundation, which is easy to use, the combined WPF/Silverlight presentation tier will quickly overtake Flash and Air. By this time, we should also start to see more integration into our everyday lives...
Okay, I'm probably getting a little out of hand here. If I go much further, we're going to be on the USS Enterprise, so I'll stop while I'm ahead. I'll just leave it at, it'll be interesting to see what's next. My money's on the power of the desktop, which we've lost over the past 10 years.
Yesterday, the IE team posted a comment about what's next for IE8. I didn't get much out of this except for the fact that the next set of bits will be available in early 2009 and will include all the major enhancements, which includes feature adds and performance tweaks -- and let's hope they're significant because IE8b2 is slower than IE7 for me. It sounds like this next release will be a release candidate (RC), but that statement was very non-commital, so it may end up being beta 3. Either way, it sounds like this next one will be the last pre-release before the final version. There's still no word on when that will be, but with speculation that Windows 7 will be out in late 2009, it would make a lot of sense to see it just a little earlier than that release, so it's bundled with the new OS.
I won't confirm or deny anything about what I've heard about the Windows 7 release, but IE8 has most definitely slipped past internal deadlines. I know the team has thought about IE9, but as we drive past one milestone after another for IE8, there's no telling when that'll happen -- not that I don't have a guess  I can't say I'm surprised, tho. The timelines I saw for IE8 and 9 were very ambitious; especially, when you consider how long it took IE7 to come to market. Of course, that comes more from neglect than anything. I should say that those timelines were very rough and only touched on some high level things to look forward to. What's surprised me with IE8 so far is that it's missing one of the things I could swear I heard about over a year ago. Maybe it was pushed back -- although, I didn't see it in the IE9 slide deck -- or maybe I'm just crazy. Either way, I hope it sees the light of day, because it sounded extremely exciting from a productivity standpoint.
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