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Gates Admits Stripped Down Windows Possible
ChristTrekker writes "The Financial Times reports that Bill Gates admitted a stripped-down Windows is possible after all." This kinda contradicts a lot of other
stuff he's been saying. There's a few bits in the article worth a read.
Tom
Oh arse
Maybe Windows 95/98/ME but your comment is really irrelevant when applied to current Microsoft Operating Systems. Current MS OSes use whats none as a "virtual" machine to execute legacy DOS applications.
Bzzzzzttttt! Wrong Answer. Tell him what he hasn't won Bob.
J
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Newsforge is running a very good article summarizing some of Gates' testimony with a number of links to further info. The author makes some good points. There's a claim that Windows' code is too complicated to document and it's not at all modular. Any good software developer knows that modular design is important in large projects. Only a monopoly could claim their software is poorly designed without fearing loss of customers.
Developers: We can use your help.
Look on Windows XP Embedded and you can see it today.
The modularity of their embedded OS has never been questioned, just the desktop OS.
Actually, he has spent some time in prison.. he got thrown in jail in New Mexico for speeding and for basically acting like a jerk with a cop.. I think there's a mug shot of him floating around on the internet..
iexplore.exe if you noticed is pretty small. IE is actually REALLY modular and it just loads in libraries it needs.
Delete those libraries and see what happens.
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OMG... I hope they try...
Microsoft is considered a joke in the embedded world. No important systems use CE,Embedded NT, or whatever they try to offer... the ONLY items that use their "embedded" products are the consumer toys we call PDA's.
Microsoft isnt considered for process control, flight control, elevator control, smart building control, or any REAL embedded systems.. a RealTime DOS or a RT-UNIX is used (Or in the case of aircraft.. a custom application.. NO OS USED)
Microsoft is the joke of the embedded world.. and everything they try outside of gadget-toys flops horribly.. (AutoPC, UltimateTV, WinCD industrial)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Why can't they include IE as a separate process? Explorer.exe is just a SHELL! The core of Windows XP remains unchanged. Hell, they could still make explorer look like and function like a web browswer without integrating IE into it. They could make explorer look like a giant Cod fish with glowing eyes and cool buttons if they wanted to.
Remember IE 3.0? Seemed to work just frickin fine without ActiveDesktop or "push technology" to me!
So the cold facts are that IE doesn't have to be integrated so tightly with explorer. That's a given. BUT... here's what erks me, stupid arguments such as thus:
"The nine litigating states want the software giant to provide a basic version of Windows, without applications such as the browser Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, so that computer makers can install rivals' software."
Really? I have to uninstall IE and WMP before I can install very cool competetive software? OMG!
What OEM (who doesn't have very specific prohibitive contracts with vendors) hasn't been able to install competitive software? Really, who? If they want to add Mozilla as the default browswer they can. In fact the damn thing asks you so when it first runs. And WMP is only there because what the hell else are you gonna use on a fresh install? Install PowerDVD, install DivxPlayer (still DirectShow, I know...), install Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 2003 - for god sakes, get over it.
If bundling some software with your OS is a crime, then Mandrake and Suse executives are going to prison for 99 consecutive life sentences.
You should find the following article from CNN MONEY interesting. It discusses a certain aspect of Microsoft balance sheet.
"No other nonfinancial firm has more liquid money at its disposal, and only a handful of banks do. It's more cash than Ford, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart have combined, and nearly four times as much as Intel, the tech company with the next largest cash balance.
It is enough to buy the entire airline industry -- twice. Or all the gold in Fort Knox, four times over. It is enough to buy 23 space shuttles or every major professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey team in America. It is an enviable stash. Who wouldn't love to have a bank account like that?"
Some food for thought.
well since some time there has been this product called "98lite" that demonstrates that it is possible to run ur own stripped down version of windows, it even makes it runs faster and smoother then when u only stick to the original...
98Lite.net
98lite.net shows it's not only possible, but helps improve the speed and reliability of windows.
Is perjury still against the law?
Webster: " the voluntary violation of an oath or vow either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath : false swearing"
And for all you disagreeing posters, read the actual 98lite.net pages first before you post back.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
Yup, here's the pic: http://www.mugshots.org/misc/bill-gates.html
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Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
I know of a number of companies using Embedded NT or Win 2k for network attached storage. I know of a local company that's using embedded Win 2k for a medical imaging product. When my wife had Lasik eye surgery, the computer running the laser was running NT (that one made me pretty nervous). Embedded NT/2k/XP aren't what I'd call real-time OSs, but they do get used.
Or in the case of aircraft.. a custom application.. NO OS USED
Most avionics envioronmet projects, at least once you get above small prop planes, involve processors running OSs. The most popluar one for the part of market that we deal with still seems to be VxWorks. I've also seen some LynxOS. Linux seems to be still gaining strength in this market, but more where real-time isn't as critical. QNX comes up when you're dealing with Canadian companies, but I haven't heard of it being used that much.
föreningssparbanken here in sweden uses windows nt on thier atm's. the one in this town shows a blue screen every friday night. it's ok other days, but it doesn't seem to like fridays. incidentally, fridays is when all the swedes in this tiny ass town hit the bars, so maybe that has something to do with it.
>Actually, he has spent some time in prison.. he
>got thrown in jail in New Mexico
"prison" != "jail". Not by a long shot.
And just being arrested doesn't mean you actually "got thrown in jail", he was more likely taken to the station, booked, and released. I can't find details on what actually happened in a quick 30-second search.
However, he has been arrested more than that one time - in 1975, he was arrested for speeding and driving without a license. The mugshot is from 1977, when he ran a stop sign and again didn't have a license. In 1989 he was arrested in California "on suspicion of drunken driving".
-l
Well, yes. It's quite possible to ship a version of Windows XP without the web browsing component. It's also possible to ship it without the DOS Emulation component, or the Win16 execution environment, or MFC, or any VC++ libraries, or whatnot.
They're called API's, folks. Application Programming Interfaces. Win32 is clunky as hell, but undeniably exposes some damn powerful capabilities. Do we really want a federal mandate that developers must not have dependable access to a better way to code?
For all the talk of the browser, I do note that by '98 there wasn't an operating system on the market that shipped without a web browser, except perhaps VxWorks. Windows 98 was one of the last.
--Dan
P.S. I'm a hardcore Linux user, coder, and administrator, and wouldn't mandate Win32 on anyone. It's in that context that I understand the painfulness of MS's position.
Sure, Microsoft needs to lose some power here, but I hope they don't swing the pendulum too far the other way. Are we really any better off if Sun or Oracle are given the power to choose the direction of Windows? I hope the decision makers stick to the principle of "What's good for the consumers," and not just "What's bad for Microsoft."
We have proven the Microsoft has a monopoly and the power that goes with it. Now we need to rectify that situation. How do we do this?
Well, a monopoly mans that you can use your power to keep others out of the marketplace unfairly. So we have to force competition back. There are two solutions to this problem: We weaken the monoply (Microsoft) enough that the competition can actually compete, or we strenghen the position of competitors enough that they are able to compete.
The problem with the second solution is that you generally have to pick and choose the companies that you want to set up against the monopoly. For example, how would the federal government effectively help Linux out to compete with Microsoft as a business?
Weakening Microsoft, on the other hand, helps anyone and every compete against them, including competitors who are not even around during this sentencing phase.
The only way that Sun or Oracle will have too much power is if we (the federal government) decide to strengthen them against Microsoft. Weakening MS, on the other hand, will hopefully *increase* competition to the point where no single company will be able to control the market. How will it keep one company from dominating? The remedy to the Microsoft trial should promote competition, and competition is the one thing that will prevent any one company from dominating that market.
I think that Microsoft is going about this all wrong. They are arguing that "If you do this, you will hurt us." Well, boys and girls, that is the point. The governement's solution *is* to hurt MS so as to increase competition. What Microsoft needs to be saying is "This remedy does not work because it will allow another company to simply step in and take our place as a monopoly power."
Unfortunate for Microsoft, no rememdy that has been mentioned thus far has that result.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
If you look in the cabinet files with Windows 98, 95, and some other versions (I'm not sure which), you will find a flie called "mini.cab" This is basically a stripped down version of Windows 3.1 that can be run off of a floppy disk with no harddrive.
It's not my fault - greatness was thrust upon me.
Have you read the Microsoft Financial Pyramid, the MS financial fraud analysis from November 1999 by Bill Parish? There's more on Parish's Research and Press Release Archive. Let me quote few paragraphs:
What do you people think about it?
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Yeah ... The thing is that Windows XP embedded is a fixed codebase on a well-defined hardware platform with no expectation of being added to or installed upon with additional consumer applications written by numerous 3rd party software developers. That's a HUGE difference with how Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional is used.
Wouldn't it be nice if windows WAS packaged with all of the bloat, like IE or all the old MSDOS components, but you could choose NOT to install them? This seems perfectly viable to me, they merely add some uninstall code and some extra items to the add/remove windows components menu. Microsoft gets all it's "nesessary" components in, but you don't have to install them. Seems like a fine idea to me. In fact, someone's already gone and done it. So I don't think there is a really any viable argument that it can't be done.
When all freedom is outlawed only the outlaws have freedom