Windows 9 almost here?

Still clinging to your “legacy” Windows 7 laptop? Were you forced to go to Windows 8 when you purchased a new pc? Do you cringe at the touch-screen influenced look of 8? Did you hate 8?

Well, some relief may be on the way. Reports everywhere are that Microsoft has gone micro-soft on its less-than universally beloved Windows 8 effort and will be releasing an early version of the Windows 9 OS at the end of September, 2014.

What has actually been leaked, extrapolated, hinted at, or announced is a preview build of “Threshold“, the in-house code-name of the next Windows operation system. Everyone expects “Threshold” to be officially called Windows 9 when the full-0n, all-features release occurs, sometime next spring. No one is sure, and no one at Microsoft is telling, how much of Windows 9 will be available in whatever it is that’s made available next month, whatever it’s called.

In all likelihood, most of the newer, hotly anticipated features and functions promised for 9 won’t be there. At the very least, most users seem to expect and fervently desire, if not require, the return of the “classic” Start Menu, and the restoration of the ability to run “Metro” apps from the Desktop.

On full release, experts are predicting a more Linux Ubuntu type of look and feel, with the inclusion of several virtual desktops. Different apps will be able to be run  from simultaneously running desktops. The Start Menu will return with a two-column format, able to launch classic applications and modern apps.

The other expectation is that the download of the early version will be publicly available to all, not just professionals and developers who have access to MSDN and TechNet.

September 2014 is looking like a landmark month for new releases. Besides the formal announcement (and possible sneak peak release) of Windows 9, next month also promises the availability of both Apple iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

Interestingly, Microsoft’s Windows releases over the past 15 years or so have flip-flopped back and forth between problem releases, and then successful OS’s that have “solved” the problems of the previous version. Windows XP was widely and wildly more accepted compared to the previous Windows 98; Windows 7 was judged an improvement over Vista; and now the hope is that Windows 9 will wash out the bad taste left by Window 8. Time, and the marketplace will tell.