What's In A Name: Will Windows 8 Be The Name Of The Next Windows?

Martin Brinkmann
May 6, 2011
Updated • Jun 14, 2014
Microsoft, Windows 8
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Microsoft is keeping tight lipped about the name of the next windows. Many users assume that it will be named Windows 8. Others use the name because it is convenient at the moment, mainly because there are not any solid alternatives at the moment, besides The Next Windows maybe, and that the community interested in the operating system is calling it this way.

But will Microsoft use that name for their next client operating system? Or will the Redmond company go crazy once again and name it Windows Balahua or something like that. We do not know yet, and will not know for quite some time. There are however indicators that suggest that Windows 8 will indeed be the name of the next Microsoft operating system.

When you look at Microsoft's wordings you notice that company officials and documents try to avoid calling and naming the next operating system Windows 8. The operating system is usually referred to as The Next Windows which many see as an indication that Microsoft might indeed use a different name for the final product. It could on the other hand be a strategic decision, to avoid that news about Windows 8 break Windows 7's momentum. The Next Windows is an abstract term, whereas Windows 8 refers directly to the successor of Windows 7.

The recent leaks highlight Microsoft's dilemma. While it is usually a good thing that people are excited about an operating system, it may at the very same time torpedo Windows 7's rise to become the most used Microsoft operating system. Not to forget that leaks may reveal features that may be canned at a later point in development.

Back to Windows 8. Lets see if we can eliminate some alternatives. Microsoft could stick with The Next Windows, but that would be shortsighted, considering that they would get naming problems for the Windows version after that. They could also mimic how the server operating systems are named, Windows Client 2012 comes to mind. But that may not be as helpful as it looks on first glance. First, it is easy enough to distinguish client and server operating systems as all server operating systems have server in their name. Second, a switch to Windows Client Year would be a technical name, which could intimidate some customers. In the same group fall descriptive names, e.g. Windows Touch, or Windows Touch 2012 which would reduce the operating system to a single feature. Not very likely either.

The third possibility would be a a Vistaesque name, like Windows Suave. Problem with these kind of names is that they break a naming pattern. Windows XP > Windows Vista > Windows 7 > Windows Suave. It does not feel right and it is very unlikely that Microsoft will opt for such a name.

Now that we have looked at some possibilities, it is time to look at Windows 8, and why it is likely that Microsoft will use that name for the next Windows.

  • Windows 8 automatically indicates that it is the successor of Windows 7, which is a good thing considering that Windows 7 is highly successful and that users will associate that success with Windows 8
  • The name is already widely used on the Internet. Everyone and their mom know about Windows 8. It would take time and money to make a different name known.
  • While Microsoft tries their best to avoid using Windows 8, it has already been used in recent builds, for instance on the Homegroup screen.

If I had to bet, I'd bet on Windows 8 as the name of the next Microsoft operating system. What's your opinion?

Summary
Article Name
What's In A Name: Will Windows 8 Be The Name Of The Next Windows?
Description
Why Microsoft will name the next Windows operating system Windows 8.
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Comments

  1. Some Dude said on March 19, 2023 at 11:42 am
    Reply

    Are these articles AI generated?

    Now the duplicates are more obvious.

    1. boris said on March 19, 2023 at 11:48 pm
      Reply

      This is below AI generated crap. It is copy of Microsoft Help website article without any relevant supporting text. Anyway you can find this information on many pages.

  2. Paul(us) said on March 20, 2023 at 1:32 am
    Reply

    Yes, but why post the exact same article under a different title twice on the same day (19 march 2023), by two different writers?
    1.) Excel Keyboard Shortcuts by Trevor Monteiro.
    2.) 70+ Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows by Priyanka Monteiro

    Why oh why?

    1. Clairvaux said on September 6, 2023 at 11:30 am
      Reply

      Yeah. Tell me more about “Priyanka Monteiro”. I’m dying to know. Indian-Portuguese bot ?

  3. John G. said on August 18, 2023 at 4:36 pm
    Reply

    Probably they will announce that the taskbar will be placed at top, right or left, at your will.

    Special event by they is a special crap for us.

  4. yanta said on August 18, 2023 at 11:59 pm
    Reply

    If it’s Microsoft, don’t buy it.
    Better brands at better prices elsewhere.

  5. John G. said on August 20, 2023 at 4:22 am
    Reply

    All new articles have zero count comments. :S

  6. Anonymous said on September 5, 2023 at 7:48 am
    Reply

    WTF? So, If I add one photo to 5 albums, will it count 5x on my storage?
    It does not make any sense… on google photos, we can add photo to multiple albums, and it does not generate any additional space usage

    I have O365 until end of this year, mostly for onedrive and probably will jump into google one

  7. St Albans Digital Printing Inc said on September 5, 2023 at 11:53 am
    Reply

    Photo storage must be kept free because customers chose gadgets just for photos and photos only.

  8. Anonymous said on September 5, 2023 at 12:47 pm
    Reply

    What a nonsense. Does it mean that albums are de facto folders with copies of our pictures?

    1. GG said on September 6, 2023 at 8:24 am
      Reply

      Sounds exactly like the poor coding Microsoft is known for in non-critical areas i.e. non Windows Core/Office Core.

      I imagine a manager gave an employee the task to create the album feature with hardly any time so they just copied the folder feature with some cosmetic changes.

      And now that they discovered what poor management results in do they go back and do the album feature properly?

      Nope, just charge the customer twice.

      Sounds like a go-getter that needs to be promoted for increasing sales and managing underlings “efficiently”, said the next layer of middle management.

  9. d3x said on September 5, 2023 at 7:33 pm
    Reply

    When will those comments get fixed? Was every editor here replaced by AI and no one even works on this site?

  10. Scroogled said on September 5, 2023 at 10:47 pm
    Reply

    Instead of a software company, Microsoft is now a fraud company.

  11. ard said on September 7, 2023 at 4:59 pm
    Reply

    For me this is proof that Microsoft has a back-door option into all accounts in their cloud.
    quote “…… as the MSA key allowed the hacker group access to virtually any cloud account at Microsoft…..”
    unquote

    so this MSA key which is available to MS officers can give access to all accounts in MS cloud.This is the backdoor that MS has into the cloud accounts. Lucky I never got any relevant files of mine in their (MS) cloud.

  12. Andy Prough said on September 7, 2023 at 6:52 pm
    Reply

    >”Now You: what is your theory?”

    That someone handed an employee a briefcase full of cash and the employee allowed them access to all their accounts and systems.

    Anything that requires 5-10 different coincidences to happen is highly unlikely. Occam’s razor.

  13. TelV said on September 8, 2023 at 12:04 pm
    Reply

    Good reason to never login to your precious machine with a Microsoft a/c a.k.a. as the cloud.

  14. Anonymous said on September 18, 2023 at 1:23 pm
    Reply

    The GAFAM are always very careless about our software automatically sending to them telemetry and crash dumps in our backs. It’s a reminder not to send them anything when it’s possible to opt out, and not to opt in, considering what they may contain. And there is irony in this carelessness biting them back, even if in that case they show that they are much more cautious when it’s their own data that is at stake.

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