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"Microsoft did not want to cede control of one iota of their Office franchise and they preferred to be able to hold the reins on just what software would be able to read a Microsoft Office document."

Is that why Office 2007's default formats will be open standards, recognized by ECMA, and later ISO?
Is that why the OpenXML developer's group already provides Java sample code that manipulates that file format without any need for Office 2007 being used?
Is that why a Novel dev is already working on a spreadsheet that uses that file format?

Read the following sites for enlightenment. :-)
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/default.aspx
http://openxmldeveloper.org/default.aspx

Especially applications that use "sun.*" or "com.sun.*" packages in open defiance of Sun themselves saying not to do that.

That's a really dumb thing to do if you care about cross-release compatibility. There's no guarantee whatsoever that classes that are present in one release will be present in the next.

What is the difference between application data and documents? Do you accept this definition or another definition? And based on your definition, why would you call a saved game state "application data"? As far as I can tell, a saved game state documents your progress in a campaign. Worse yet, what is the difference between "local settings" and "application data"?

But I will agree that "Application Data" > "Program Files" for this type of data.

What's worse is that there is no way to distinguish between authentic "User Account Control" dialog and a fake one that is poped up by a malicious application trying to collect admin credentials.

Actually there is a way to distinguish the UAC prompts from ones generated by a malicious application. This question is addressed in a post on the UAC blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/uac/archive/2006/05/03/58956 1.aspx

Just go to the UAC blog. They tell you how to really turn it off:

http://blogs.msdn.com/uac/archive/2006/01/22/51606 6.aspx

> Microsoft's OpenXML would have required an Office upgrade in order to achieve interoperability.

Um, you might want to do some basic Googling before you post? Microsoft has gone on the record multiple times that DOCX/XLSX/etc (i.e, OpenXML) plugins would be released for Office 2000, 2002 and 2003 when Office 2007 shipped. (BBC's June 2005 story, Brian Jones' original blog post about DOCX and friends).

Better links regarding Open XML (the default format for Office 2007, which is going through ECMA standarization process as we speak):
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/default.aspx
The 2006-05-04 entry provides the most recent update on the ECMA standarization process, including revised spec, and notes on a Novell dev working on an open source spread sheet that can read/write Open XML format (so there is no "lock in").

http://openxmldeveloper.org/default.aspx
The home page of the OpenXML group that's pushing this format through the standardization process. Includes Java sample code that manipulates OpenXML documents, again demonstrating that there is no "lock-in").

Because anyone that has worked heavily with browser based UIs knows that they have the same issues they have always had.

So what SHOULD Microsoft do? Make Google the default?

By the way, IE7 by default uses whatever the user had set as Autosearch in IE6. You can read about it here.

I am curious about how much freedom OEM's will have to remove IE.

Not sure, but Microsoft expects OEMs will install their own set of search providers.

I'm not assuming anything. I installed IE7 beta 2 on Windows XP. It only put MSN in the search drop-down. I was able to add more engines from the "Find more providers" page, but MSN was the only one preloaded when I installed it.

On further investigation, two things are apparent:

1. IE7 picks up IE6's search settings, including settings from installed search toolbars
2. OEMs may be installing additional presets for IE6, which would get picked up by IE7.

As posted elsewhere, you might want to read this: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/04/30/587373 .aspx The most relevant part is: "The Default: The typical default when users install IE7 on their Windows XP machines will most likely be their usual search engine. Despite claims from some people around the web, MSN is not "The Default." The search box in IE7 uses IE6's AutoSearch setting because we think this setting is the best indication IE has of the user's preference. I do web searches every day to find feedback about IE7, and have read some positive feedback to date on this. IE6's AutoSearch setting today reflects the other software (e.g. Yahoo, Google, or Windows Live toolbar) that the user has installed. Of course, if you buy a new machine from an OEM after we release the final IE7, that OEM can (and will probably) choose a search engine for you." So it bases its default upon the default you already had in the previous version of their browser. That's not bad behaviour per se. However, given that IE6 had MSN search as ITS default, there is some measure of abuse here.

Perhaps is inherited the settings from IE6 and those were the default for that?

Hmm, that's probably it. I re-read the IE blog post and found this:

The search box in IE7 uses IE6's AutoSearch setting because we think this setting is the best indication IE has of the user's preference.

Dell probably pre-installed some search engines in IE6 for you, which IE7 picked up. My machine was a wipe-and-reinstall job, so it only had Microsoft's own defaults.

Because Firefox does not gain from making Google a default, it is more permisable

You never read this did you? http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3 590756 Even though I'm an avid M$ basher I don't really see what they're doing wrong here. What else should they default to? Also, if you've set another engine in the IE6 preferences for autosearch, you'll get that engine rather than msn. http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/04/30/587373 .aspx

They might think about including some other options by default though just to make the courts happy.

The main difference between the IE7 search box and the Firefox and Opera search boxes is that the IE7 search box comes preloaded with only one search provider: MSN. Firefox and Opera both include a half-dozen or so providers when you install them. (You can add additional search engines in all three.)

Well, that, and Firefox doesn't have a setting for a "default" provider. It "defaults" to the last one you used, which can be helpful if, say, you use Google most of the time and want to do a bunch of IMDB lookups in a row. (Yes, you can add IMDB as a search engine.) Of course, if you've never used the box before, it starts out with Google...

Of course, you can always read what the IE team has to say about searching...

But Microsoft *does* care about this sort of stuff. For example, they have an open-source compatibility lab and they've recently been trying to work around a Samba bug that might break Vista accessing third-party storage units. They do talk to others about interoperability, they just do all their own testing in-house.

I don't know, but you can ask them yourself on the IE Blog if you like.

If Microsoft could produce an operating system that eschews Win32/Win16/DOS et al completely and is pure .NET...

If Microsoft could produce an operating system that eschews Win32/Win16/DOS et al completely and is pure .NET...

Examples 3

Find the total bytes used in the current directory

The example is a 6 line script in ksh, or, a 3 step pipeline using awk to do the following:

du -b .

Hmmm...

Example 5

Find out when a process is no longer running.

The example shell script is 11 lines long, features two tests and two pipelines into variables to do the following:

while

ps -e | grep application ; do

sleep 10

done

echo "not running no more"

These are just two - I can see simple little pieces of shell that are trivial to make work on any modern posix system for all the examples provided, except for the laughable

Example 6

where they (Microsoft's rather amazing ksh coders) say there's no way in Unix to see what version of the code is running. Well yes, it's not the shell's job to keep track of that, but anything written using gnu getopts or written by anyone who actually keeps track of versions uses '-v' or '-V' to display that information.

The so-called examples page I linked to is really a page that is designed to convince Windows-only people that they can now have the power we have been used to for 20+ years. Anyone who actually has written any scripts bigger than "echo 'Hello World!'" would be laughing at their examples of "Unix Shell Scripts".

We all share your frustration with the existing console. Remember that MSH.EXE is just our implementation of a UI for MONAD and that other people can provide them as well. I refer you to Karl Prosser's http://www.karlprosser.com/coder/?cat=8 for a very cool UI.

Jeffrey Snover

We all share your frustration with the existing console. Remember that MSH.EXE is just our implementation of a UI for MONAD and that other people can provide them as well. I refer you to Karl Prosser's http://www.karlprosser.com/coder/?cat=8 for a very cool UI.

Jeffrey Snover

So what?

This blog entry only shows that the person writing the examples is either an incompetent shell user or has intentionally been looking for the most cumbersome way to do the given tasks in a unix shell.

The IE Team has blogged about this: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/01/364581 .aspx
The site in question has been reported to the Phishing filter team.

GCC isn't all that (but it isn't the worst either). It takes more than running on multiple platforms to make something good. In fact, many people a lot more knowledgable than I would say that's a bad thing. :)

http://lists.cse.psu.edu/archives/9fans/2006-April /046972.html

The venerable and late C/C++ users journel had a compiler shootout not too long ago and to my recollection GCC was squarely in the middle to lower end of the pack. The microsoft products weren't always first in every test but they placed well against the likes of Borland

Just to try and steer this back on topic I'll point out the Channel9 site on MSH/Monad/PowerShell http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel 9.MSHWiki It's a really great reasource for finding out about what this thing is all about. I have to say I was skeptical for a long while since I tried out the first beta (but didn't really dig in). After seeing some examples (check out the Jeffery Snover videos) I was suitably impressed. Impressed enough that I'd like to see something like it on Unixy things. Like others have said, if only there were a decent native terminal *sigh*

http://blogs.msdn.com/monad/

I encourage you all to come kick the tires and find out what PowerShell really does/does not do. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by its power and simplicity and might even like it. Many of us on the team have a deep background in UNIX and brought that into our work. Even if you don't like what we've done, trying it out will allow you to know enough to throw your rocks accurately. :-)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyId=2B0BBFCD-0797-4083-A817-5E6A054A85C9&displa ylang=en

If you'd like to learn more, you can read our team blog at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell

Enjoy!
Jeffrey Snover
PowerShell Architect

> I think you will get in big trouble if all this data has to fit into a .NET datatype, you'll need a lot of coding around (string to filename, integer to filename, etc etc) to get it working, which is not what shell scripting is about!!! I will write a real program if I want to do something tidy like that, my shell script is there to solve a problem quick 'n dirty, thank you very much!

This exact scenario is actually simpler in Powershell - check this blog entry
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2006/04/2 5/583272.aspx

I wouldn't bash* "PowerShell Vista Edition 2007 for Microsoft Windows Platforms" until I actually tried it, folks. PS (for short) is truly an amazing environment for simplifying and automating ordinary tasks from the console. I can illustrate thhis by citing some common operations with CMD.EXE and referencing their PowerShell 2007 equivalents

Monad cheat sheet for cmd.exe users

So, as you can see, PowerShell 2007 is really a dynamic and flexible interactive environment that makes complex tasks simple for administrators. Being able to leverage the PowerShell's "C-like" affinity for whitespace and curly-braces raises a whole new standard of usability.

You were using the Beta 2 Preview. The real Beta 2 was only just released last night (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/04/24/58254 6.aspx).

P.S. Please remember to uninstall any previous IE7 builds before installing this one: Control Panel, Add / Remove Programs, Show Updates, scroll to the bottom.

Bobby G.,

We've written about the Acid2 test before. It is not a compliance test but is, instead, a wish list. We've been clear that we were not going to pass this test since we were first asked about this. The author of the test is well aware of this.

- Al Billings [MSFT]

P.S. Please remember to uninstall any previous IE7 builds before installing this one: Control Panel, Add / Remove Programs, Show Updates, scroll to the bottom.

Bobby G.,

We've written about the Acid2 test before. It is not a compliance test but is, instead, a wish list. We've been clear that we were not going to pass this test since we were first asked about this. The author of the test is well aware of this.

- Al Billings [MSFT]

Well if the information presented at Mix 06 is any indication, MS is actually in the process of opening up even more of their new technologies, even if it is a bit self serving.

The old days when they actually made non-windows counterparts to their technologies or allowed them to be easily used on non-MS technologies seem to be returning. Maybe someone is smacking Ballmer's business minded MS ONLY mentally back to the curb at MS. We can only hope, as they have a lot of bright people and if they start playing with the rest of us, things will get better for the entire industry.

To reference one of the items of Mix 06 and specifically refute the comments by the EU, here is a link to some of the new technology specifically on the web that will not be Microsoft locked, even though it is MS developed.

http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/archive/2006/03/23/55 9106.aspx

The EU is grasping at straws, truly. It is more a battle of USA technologies vs EU countries' technologies, and MS is seen as USA technology. I can understand the EU wanting to give some of their technologies a chance in their own markets, but the strange thing is the open source distributions and 'alternatives' to Windows being used are predominately USA products. Whoops...

There is NO possible way MS can control the internet. PERIOD. Everyone here at SlashDot is proof of it. If there is anything we should fear on the internet is censorhip and govt sponsored censorship.

Look at Yahoo, and EBay in China, they have not only went along with the censoring of words like 'human rights' but Yahoo also is very willing to turn over people that break the law in China, of which a person was recently disclosed to the Chinese Govt., and arrested for trying to publish documents on democracy.

Shame on Yahoo and EBay, especailly Yahoo, they not only circumvented personal privacy, but cost someone in China their life. And to me, that is a bit more scary than another round of rumors about Microsoft trying to control the Internet, which we know is NOT possible.

Even with the dominance IE saw over the past 8 years, it is still quite rare to find a site that only works in IE, and even Windows Update is moving from IE requirements.

The "home" edition of Vista won't support the interfaces. So, any software oriented toward home use cannot depend on the feature.

That is incorrect. The grandparent was referring to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF, codenamed "Avalon"). You're getting it confused with the Aero interface, which is the glass effect and 3D-accelerated desktop.

WPF is the next-generation API for powering managed application UI and graphics (but not gaming graphics; Direct3D will handle that). WPF is something developers will use to create applications, while Aero is a Vista-specific enhancement that requires no additional work by applications.

WPF is already available in beta through the WinFX SDK, and runs on XP SP2 and Vista. There is no Professional requirement, and WPF is fully capable of rendering without hardware acceleration. Moreover, there's a subset of WPF called WPF/e that's crossplatform and will be available at least on Mac and Firefox.

Actually there is a good reason, and 2 ways to get around it:

1: Legacy ICD's - These are the ICD's that are available today for use on Windows XP. These will continue to work on Windows Vista, but will disable the DWM when they are loaded in to the process of the application that's using OpenGL. The reason for this is that Legacy ICD's operate directly on the GPU without going through Windows at all, and we have no way of redirecting application's output in a stable, predictable manner.

2: Windows Vista ICD's - this is a new path for 3rd party ICD's introduced for Windows Vista that will work in a way that is compatible with desktop composition. Essentially allowing direct access to the GPU for hardware accellaration, but then having the final surface that appears to be the front buffer to the application actually be a shared surface that gets composed by the DWM

From: http://blogs.msdn.com/kamvedbrat/archive/2006/02/2 2/537624.aspx

Here is a link to a video from MS virtualization developers:

Channel 9: Virtualization

HD DVD is already selling players (I have already bought one!) and movies are starting to be available.

HD DVD does have good studio support. Read into it, you'll see that most will release to it (except perhaps Sony). There will be tons of great titles to watch regardless.

Blu-Ray's only real advantage was bigger discs - yet they can't manufacture 2 layer discs yet! Now add a "DVD compatibility layer" and you'd need 3 layers to really have 2 for high def, adn I can't manage to do that anytime soon seeing how much trouble they have already. (Not to mention that using recent codecs like H.264 defeated the whole point of Blu-Ray as the movie would fit on a plain old, regular DVD media)

Blu-Ray uses Java. HD DVD will use iHD. That's a huge difference! Blu-Ray will need some hihgly paid expert programmers, will need to license JVMs - which will most likely end up differering and having compatibility problems and what not [mobile phones anyone?] Creating even trivial stuff becomes a complex endeavour. On the other hand, iHD is simple XML based markup (somewhat like HTML), which is something most people know nowadays. It's simple, and will be standard. There's even some simpleexamples already available for you to see. So simple and elegant.

Blu-Ray is way overpriced. HD DVD players are already expensive at 500$ (might be even cheaper by xmas time), but Blu-Ray is twice that, putting it out of reach for most people (too much money for a player). Not to mention that the burnable media pricing is even worse - 60$USD for a blank Blu-Ray disc! That's enough to buy 400 blank generic DVDs at BestBuy on special (over 1.5TB worth), or a fair sized HD. And if anything will help one format willing, it'll be sales. And everybody knows sales are directly related to prices (just look how much 20$ Apex DVD players they're selling!)

Blu-Ray is sony. DRM and Rootkits. Failed proprietary formats. overpriced junk electronics (you just pay for the brand name). No thanks! I'll take M$-based stuff over it as the lesser evil(!)

I can't see the heavily delayed PS3 change the situation that much. The people who usually buy those consoles are gamers (that often don't spend too much time watching movies and rather spend their hard earned money on games instead of movie DVDs). And the PS3 will cost at least as much as a HD DVD player (recently announced at 600 euro in EU). And likely a HUGE portion of PS3 buyers don't even have a HDTV in the first place. The real High Def enthusiasts - those who DO have a HDTV and will buy movies - won't wait for that to get a player (especially seeing how Blu-Ray sucks all around). And if you want to include gaming consoles, there will be a HD DVD drive for the Xbox360 (wait for E3), and there's already like 4.5 millions of those sold.

And HD DVD has managed copy too (movies on my video server, using the touchscreen yay!).

I used to really like Blu-Ray, but it's already lost the battle. They don't have a single advantage anymore - much the inverse. Likely more PCs will ship with HD DVD drives too (except perhaps a handful of Sony VAIOs), especially seeing how MS & Intel are pushing for it.

Blu-Ray will go the way of all the Sony junk: BetaMax, MiniDisc, ATRAC, MemoryStick, UMD, etc.

But, no, in general Windows does not have these problems the same extent as Linux (where every single distribution is configured differently).

Windows Fault Threshold Reached

Now where is my insightful mod? ;)

Seriously, Windows may "just work" (for some definitions of work) for the "avarage user" (I hate that term, I don't believe he exists even once), but when you need something done just like this and your users are ready to eat you alive if you won't make it happen, that is the time when Windows really starts to show it's true colors. And as fun as making a keyboard layout in autohotkey is (free software to the rescue once again) I still don't understand why Microsoft decided that Windows should store keyboard layouts in platfrom specific DLLs or why it takes the more then ten months to bring Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator up to date for x64 with the resources Microsoft has.

In the end autohotkey with it's community support trumped the multi-billion corporation with their corporate support (thank's for pointing me to the blogs I already googled, your tech support is A+++).

The fear of a lawsuit / lost sales definitely affects Microsoft's behaviour. If you look at the Old New Thing, or the lists for beta release software, they clearly spend enormous resources keeping old, broken, third party applications alive.

That said, if I found an actual bug in Windows in my application, I'd just workaround it for much the same reason.

And it's interesting how if I talk to Open Source people, they think this is all wasted effort.

If you're really interested, then view the Office 2007 videos at http://channel9.msdn.com/ and read the Office 2007 blogs. The sites I frequently read are:
Channel 9 (the Office 2007 videos are great)
Office 2007 Blog concerning the new UI
Office 2007 blog concerning new default file format (OpenXML)
OpenXMLDeveloper.org, the site of the group pushing OpenXML as an EMCA/ISO standard This group contains MS, Apple, Intel, researchers, businesses, some gov entities, etc). The site already has Java code samples showing how to manipulate OpenXML documents without requiring any MS Office software.
Excel blog Excel has a lot of good stuff, like multithreaded calculations for machines with multiple processors or cores, many business logic enhancements, exponentially larger spreadsheet capacity, Excel server, etc.

I don't really read the blogs on Word, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, SharePoint, OneNote, etc, but there are links to those blogs in the Office UI blog cited above.

There's also a great video demo'ing features of Office 2007 at the March 21 2006 Office Dev Conference

If you're really interested, then view the Office 2007 videos at http://channel9.msdn.com/ and read the Office 2007 blogs. The sites I frequently read are:
Channel 9 (the Office 2007 videos are great)
Office 2007 Blog concerning the new UI
Office 2007 blog concerning new default file format (OpenXML)
OpenXMLDeveloper.org, the site of the group pushing OpenXML as an EMCA/ISO standard This group contains MS, Apple, Intel, researchers, businesses, some gov entities, etc). The site already has Java code samples showing how to manipulate OpenXML documents without requiring any MS Office software.
Excel blog Excel has a lot of good stuff, like multithreaded calculations for machines with multiple processors or cores, many business logic enhancements, exponentially larger spreadsheet capacity, Excel server, etc.

I don't really read the blogs on Word, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, SharePoint, OneNote, etc, but there are links to those blogs in the Office UI blog cited above.

There's also a great video demo'ing features of Office 2007 at the March 21 2006 Office Dev Conference

If you're really interested, then view the Office 2007 videos at http://channel9.msdn.com/ and read the Office 2007 blogs. The sites I frequently read are:
Channel 9 (the Office 2007 videos are great)
Office 2007 Blog concerning the new UI
Office 2007 blog concerning new default file format (OpenXML)
OpenXMLDeveloper.org, the site of the group pushing OpenXML as an EMCA/ISO standard This group contains MS, Apple, Intel, researchers, businesses, some gov entities, etc). The site already has Java code samples showing how to manipulate OpenXML documents without requiring any MS Office software.
Excel blog Excel has a lot of good stuff, like multithreaded calculations for machines with multiple processors or cores, many business logic enhancements, exponentially larger spreadsheet capacity, Excel server, etc.

I don't really read the blogs on Word, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, SharePoint, OneNote, etc, but there are links to those blogs in the Office UI blog cited above.

There's also a great video demo'ing features of Office 2007 at the March 21 2006 Office Dev Conference

If you're really interested, then view the Office 2007 videos at http://channel9.msdn.com/ and read the Office 2007 blogs. The sites I frequently read are:
Channel 9 (the Office 2007 videos are great)
Office 2007 Blog concerning the new UI
Office 2007 blog concerning new default file format (OpenXML)
OpenXMLDeveloper.org, the site of the group pushing OpenXML as an EMCA/ISO standard This group contains MS, Apple, Intel, researchers, businesses, some gov entities, etc). The site already has Java code samples showing how to manipulate OpenXML documents without requiring any MS Office software.
Excel blog Excel has a lot of good stuff, like multithreaded calculations for machines with multiple processors or cores, many business logic enhancements, exponentially larger spreadsheet capacity, Excel server, etc.

I don't really read the blogs on Word, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, SharePoint, OneNote, etc, but there are links to those blogs in the Office UI blog cited above.

There's also a great video demo'ing features of Office 2007 at the March 21 2006 Office Dev Conference

If you're really interested, then view the Office 2007 videos at http://channel9.msdn.com/ and read the Office 2007 blogs. The sites I frequently read are:
Channel 9 (the Office 2007 videos are great)
Office 2007 Blog concerning the new UI
Office 2007 blog concerning new default file format (OpenXML)
OpenXMLDeveloper.org, the site of the group pushing OpenXML as an EMCA/ISO standard This group contains MS, Apple, Intel, researchers, businesses, some gov entities, etc). The site already has Java code samples showing how to manipulate OpenXML documents without requiring any MS Office software.
Excel blog Excel has a lot of good stuff, like multithreaded calculations for machines with multiple processors or cores, many business logic enhancements, exponentially larger spreadsheet capacity, Excel server, etc.

I don't really read the blogs on Word, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, SharePoint, OneNote, etc, but there are links to those blogs in the Office UI blog cited above.

There's also a great video demo'ing features of Office 2007 at the March 21 2006 Office Dev Conference

The killer feature is this: the first major UI overhaul in Office since...well, ever.

How much of an improvement is it? Testers are discovering "brand new features" that have been there since Office 95, because they can finally _find_ the settings. No more traversing confusing menus and dialogs to change formatting options. Everything's grouped intelligently, instead of doing things like dumping anything from spell check to collaboration to mail merge into a "Tools" menu. Style-based formatting has been made easier. And best of all, no more toolbars that appear and disappear, and no more task pane.

If you want the details, read the "Why the UI" series in Jensen Harris's blog (he's the program manager for the Office "user experience" team) -- http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/category/117 20.aspx

Then use the MakeMeAdmin script, which will temporarily elevate the privileges of a normal account.

...was compliments of Tantek Çelik, standards evangelist, and main designer of the Tasman rendering engine which drove IE for Mac. In digging for his history with the project, I note a few things:

• Daring Fireball's archived recap of the history of IE for Mac leading up to its cancellation,
• A blog entry describing how after Tantek was finished with IE for Mac, Microsoft moved him over to ...WebTV (?!),
• An entry on the IE Blog where it looks like Microsoft is advertising for various open positions, and many people are responding with mixed emotions.

As for TFA... gah. Don't get me started on TFA. It doesn't mention IE for Mac at all (perhaps the Publications Coordinator who wrote TFA never heard of it?) and makes some innocent and half-assed assumptions about Web Standards—mostly their lack of existence.

And the marginalization of other browsers? Her argument basically runs that other browsers don't stand a chance against IE's installed base, while conveniently overlooking the fact that IE itself was once an "other" browser and citing ways that IE got the leg-up on Netscape without ever noting that those other browsers are doing the same things to IE. The argument basically runs "Yes, things changed in the past, but things will remain as they are now because they're the way they are now." Buh?

• Ahem?
• I said, "ahem?" (look at this page in IE, then in Firefox.)
• I said "AHEM," damnit! (note what computer the man in the hammock is using.)

This means that you'll no longer have Windows' ugly "Large Fonts" mode for high-dpi monitors (like those on a laptop that display 1600x1200 in a 14" LCD) - rather, you'll simply tell Windows the DPI of your monitor and it will be able to scale the entire system UI to fit - from icons to text to graphical elements in the GUI. Instead of having to choose between a) everything being really small, b) using a lower, non-native resolution that causes your LCD to become blurry, or c) putting up with "Large Fonts" mode, you will now simply enjoy the same-sized interface but with greater clarity.

This seems like a minor point, but it removes a huge barrier that, in my opinion, has plagued applications since day 1: dependence on pixel size. This is the most important aspect of Aero, and it really is something MS can be proud of if they pull it off. Licensing, pirating, and "activation" issues aside, the Aero interface in Vista will be something that every teenage girl and geek alike will want, in the end. It will make our computing experience just a little bit better.

Check out this video if you want to understand why Aero really is something important: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=1146 94

Vector icons: http://www.iconbase.com/iconbase/aero-eps.html

I mean it's Microsoft forcing them to upgrade even though Windows 2000 is still a perfectly fine OS.

Bollocks.

[...] or run any apps on it, [...]

More bollocks.

or use any devices (even well made ones) that use the same portion of the kernelspace at once.

Just like any other OS (assuming you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say).

The difference is that Windows doesn't do a good job of implementing levels of trust.

You don't appear to have the requisite technical knowledge to make that judgement.

What I don't expect is that they'll be able to bring down my OS, or any portion of it, when they do.

If you've never seen Linux or OS X kernel panic, you haven't been using either for very long.

Further, I expect that drivers written by Microsoft or that are Microsoft certified shouldn't have any compatibility problems. Otherwise, why did they get certified?

You may find this enlightening.

The USB subsystem shouldn't have the privileges to crash the rest of the OS. That's a design flaw.

Uh, it's a *hardware driver*. Hardware drivers (mostly) run in kernel space. Hardware drivers can most certainly crash the system.

This is not a design flaw, it's a design choice - one made for performance. Rest assured that faulty drivers are just as capable of bringing down Linux and OS X, as they are Windows.

This is just a single example that is typical of what you see in Windows, and the logic behind why I say that Windows itself is not stable. There are many, many others.

It's not typical behaviour at all. Your hardware is broken, and this is not Windows's fault.