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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
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.
Not according to the marketing literature and the dev specs - they say its "developed using the code base of Windows XP Professional" If gates had this as an out, why wouldn't he use it?
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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Not correct. Microsoft has two embedded code bases, Windows XP Embedded and Windows CE. See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/default. asp for the differences.
As Gates made very clear in his testimony, Windows XP Embedded is based on the Windows XP code, but without an installer for new applications.
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.
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.
LOL. Funny how a troll like this can get modded up on /.
I'm developing a Windows XP Embedded based project. Windows XP embedded IS Windows XP -- it IS MOST DEFINITELY NOT based on Windows CE. The individual components and dependencies have been worked out allowing you to choose to install or not to install certain components. Windows XP embedded can run any Windows application and device driver designed for Windows XP or 2000. Windows CE.NET is the next version of Windows CE. Windows XP embedded is the next version of Windows NT embedded and is designed to be fully compatible with all XP software and hardware.
And ofcourse desktop windows is modular, it's built up of many DLLs etc (for fuck's sake). Each new windows OS has been built on previous ones with added functionality. It's just a matter of how fair it is to expect Microsoft to remove vital parts of windows (like IE) from THEIR OS. Windows XP is just as modular as Windows CE. You have DLLs, Drivers etc. It's just that CE was designed to allow the OEM to add/remove certain components (just like Windows XPE).
I can't believe slashbots are still arguing about the modularity of Windows. Noone ever said it technically wasn't. Simply that integration means there are too many dependecies to reasonable remove IE from windows without crippling related subsystems (the help system etc). How can you not understand that software is software, you can remove anything you want. It's just a matter of which components will fail because it relies on it. Redhat Linux wouldn't work as usual if you removed the GTK+ components. Gnome would fail to run etc. But this doesn't mean Linux isn't componentised (I would argue that windows is MORE modular than Linux - windows has proper design for objects (COM) and drivers (WDM)).
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...
If you go farther to their Getting Started with Windows XP Embeded page, it adds some more interesting notes, such as Based on the same binary files as Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Embedded enables you to rapidly develop reliable and full-featured connected devices. and You can use standard, off-the-shelf x86 hardware components in your Windows XP Embedded designs. In addition, because Windows XP Embedded supports the Microsoft Win32® application programming interface (API), you can use Win32 applications, drivers, or services in your embedded designs with little or no porting required.
This doesn't sound to me like it is impossible to be able to run other software of XP Embeded. In fact, they specifically claim that you can. It should not be too difficult for them to modify it to automatically check dependencies as needed.
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