Slashdot Mirror
New Longhorn Screenshots Leaked
Badgerguy writes "The Supersite for Windows has some shiney-blue looking leaked screenshots of LongHorn. The new screenshots of the 'Aero' interface mainly seem to be concerned with Digital Media integration - which has become deeper still. A new 'SyncManager' screenshot is up there (copying of iSync?) as well as some pictures of LongHorn prototype hardware, which looks like a cross between a desktop PC / Notebook / Tablet PC. "
**For the Windows users that are going to inevitably say "Well my XP box never crashed and I don't have to reboot for a week! I play mad gamez and it stays good! So it's stable, you are just a open source zealot!", just shut up. When the big kids talk about "stability", they mean that a server remains stable indefinately while performing multiple critical tasks. If one task fails, the OS is capable of maintaining peak levels of performance despite the failure of one component/application/process/whatever. Not having to reboot your Win2K Server for 20 or so days when all the box was doing was providing file sharing and running a small Active Directory domain for a measly 100-200 users is not "stable". That kind of stability was surpassed by UNIX over 20 years ago (and every other mainstream OS since, as well). This post was first.
Even as Slashdot Subscriber, the site was slow/unresponsive. I'm surprised Slashdot people are that interested in Longhorn. So anyway, here's a mirror.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Every time new screenshots come out I'm reminded of my 13 year old kid sister. When I was 13, I knew a decent bit about computers. I had played Zork and could throw together a program in basic if I wanted to.
When I ask her how things work on the computer she has now, she's used to XP and having almost everything explained in simple, child-like steps. If I ask her to save something "to the hard drive" she doesn't know what this means.
While I applaud the M$ goal of making computers as easy to use as toasters, a ever widening gap is occuring thanks to pretty UIs that leaves those of us who know how things work under the hood in a separate world. I only hope that with Longhorn you can disable the absurd glossification and get it to run 10% faster. Or maybe to have ssh built into the telnet command line. That would be nice.
Does anyone else find this new interface Microsoft is leaning towards as being a eye sore? God the huge buttons and bright colors.. I thought XP had some ugly colors and fonts.
yikes
DP
"(I) have this unfortunate condition that causes me not to believe a single thing any politician says when a mic's on.
As each new Windows release comes out, I'm surprised to see the new release looks even more like a toy than the last release. What's next, a dancing Hello Kitty?
Anyone else notice that in one of the pics it says "Here's room for text but I don't thing we need it."?
Did Microsoft hire a Slashdot editor?
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Talk about bloat. One of the screenshot diplaying what I would think is a fancy Device Manager has the computer listed as a 80Ghz Xeon with 20GB of RAM.
::)
Is that what's going to be required to run Longhorn?
(P.S. I know it's just what the developer typed in as a placeholder)
-- taking over the world, we are.
its a good thing buttons, images, and text are all getting larger. i've been far too satisfied with my 19" display.
finally, and end to the tyranny of productive screen usage!
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Update the GUI and people will forget about the insecurities and DRM being pushed down their throats...
Now we know what KDE 5.0 will look like.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I know we've been saying this for years now, but um...
They're not ripping off of Apple at all!
I mean really. The prototype machines look much like an iMac with it's screen pushed down to the desk, and that wallpaper doesn't look ANYTHING like Apple's default.
Okay, so there are only so many form factors to make an LCD/Keyboard desktop-type computer, fine. But the rest is just more innovation taken from Apple. Apologies if any OSS predates anything I've mentioned about Apple in this case.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
...but Aero crashes.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Bigger icons and bigger text on a shiney blue background. Reminds me of Gnome, which reminds me of KDE, which reminds me of OS X. At least with Bob they had true innovation going for them. Bring back Bob!!!
'Same speed C but faster'
Whether you like the interface aesthetics or not (big deal, you can switch 'em back, no doubt, just like I do in XP), there are some nifty looking new features I saw before the site just got too slow to keep looking.
I notice in the audio properties box, you could dynamically mix the volume level of any running application - that's friggin cool. Now I can watch a movie or something and not have every IRC notification in the background blare over what I'm watching, I can turn it down.
Oh well, bash away, I'm sure you all hate it for completely non-technical reasons.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Doesn't this screenshot look a heck of a lot like the TiVo logo? I thought it actually was the TiVo logo when I saw the thumbnail and worried for a second that TiVo had sold its soul. Microsoft might want to rethink that screen, though, if they don't want a trademark fight.
I know they have really shitty design interface people, but would someone, for the love of god, tell them that pastels are really bad for eys strain over significant time intervals (or with that ugly shit, 10 seconds)? Please, ditch the pastels. I'm NOT a machead, but Apple's done a good job of picking colors with slightly lower saturation levels, with the result being a very pleasing interface. WinXP (and evidently this crap) make me want to slit my wrists.
Also, what's with the 800 pixel menu bars? Were these screenshots taken from a computer for the legally blind or will those using windows really have to look at that shit?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Honestly, if MS released a brand new operating system that looked identicle to XP, but was just ultra secure and ultra stable, would it sell?
Or would managers and housewives just say "its the same thing!"
Plus you want to keep pushing the GUI that made it popular in the first place. Why give Linux a chance to gain in the desktop market?
**For Linux Zealots that are going to inevitably say "Well if MS is going to sell secure and stable OS everyone would want a copy!, just shut up. When the big kids talk about "selling software" we are talking the major buyers, here. Which aren't necessarily the tech saavy.
Yes, that last paragraph was an insult to the parents obvious troll-paragraph. I run a SuSE server and an XP box. Both have been up the same length of time without a crash.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The OS with a GUI just like its security...full of holes.
Jonathanjk.com
You talk like there's a *wrong* time to grind your axe when I comes to M$. :P
:(
I have to agree with the parent though. They are moving toward higher media integration, which is copying Apple to the hilt. Interoperability and security have ALWAYS been low on their hit list. They don't care if what they make works with anyone else, because they have so much market saturation that they can more or less say "screw the rest of you".
*sigh* I always have to explain to people that 90% of the OS's out there are great, standards driven, and work well together...there's all sorts of free software out there, that you can even modify the source code to make work the way you want.
The problem is, Close to 90% or more of computers are running Windows instead. I still have some people I encounter that have never heard of the concept of a computer without windows, and get downright defensive of the concept of a computer WITHOUT windows.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
In particular, look at the one in the bottom-left of the first batch. It's a simple autoplay dialog, but it takes up 640x492! There's no excuse for that kind of waste.
I know I'm probably in the minority, since I'm not one of those people that maximizes EVERYTHING (my roommie runs IE maximized at 1400x1050!), and I'm not opposed to a little eye candy, but why should a simple dialog with all of five choices take up that much space?
Any word on how they'll avoid a Fischer-Price look-and-feel lawsuit?
Reminds me of the sort of front end you'd see on lab lockdown software in an elementary school. How come closed source OS developers (MS and Apple) don't want to provide variety to their GUI? Why does it fall to third party folks to write hacks that let you customize a system. Yes, 95% of regular users will never think beyond their desktop pic and screen saver but for the rest of us...make it an admin thing or something. I don't care what you have to do to keep grandma from fscking up her machine, just don't lock the rest of us down.
I drank what? -- Socrates
They aren't going to win any more of the desktop market by making it look fancier.
They don't have to win over anybody? They just need to avoid losing them. Ultimately that will most likely happen through continuing to make people need windows rather than choose it on its merits.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The UI won't be CPU-intensive at all. Like OS X, Longhorn is completely 3D. Everything is a textured surface to be rendered by the GPU. However, the requirements for graphics cards in Longhorn were released a while ago, and they're pretty steep. (DirectX 9-compliant devices will be required for most of the better effects; DX7 devices for minimal functionality.)
If you say that Microsoft can't improve on the interface of Windows, then you have certainly not used the interfaces available on MacOS (for any version, not just X). It's a heck of a lot easier to navigate around MacOS, and I don't say this out of experience; I say this because Apple specifies a Human Interface Guideline that Microsoft does not have for Windows (even Microsoft has to follow the HIG when they make Office v.X). Everything is placed in a tree-like heirarchy that is easier (compared to Windows' interface) to find things in, especially if you haven't had experience with the interface. I personally still use the classic view in Windows 2000 and XP, just because their new interface is NOT better than the old one. Their changing the interface only makes it worse and bloated, which requires more exploration and getting used to than it should be. With MacOS, nothing needs getting used to. If you want to change something, you just follow the yellow brick road. It's as simple as that. Microsoft has yet to make that step into improving the simplicity of their interface. You don't complain only because you've used it since Windows 95 and classic view is an option that you can find after having getting used to the insanity of the placement of functions/options like that.
Nowhere in the article does it say these are actually leaked screenshots. It does say "Here, for the first time, is a gallery of UI prototypes that I believe accurately portrays the "Aero" user interface in Longhorn" I don't think we should qualify this as actual leaked screenshots.
.adios/losers ~snake
Nice to see Microsoft jumping on the "we can use those BeOS icons" bandwagon. (Look carefully.)
blog |
Will they be changing the look and feel of the Blue Screen of Death (tm)? Maybe it'll become the Pastel Screen of Discomfort.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
When I ask her how things work on the computer she has now, she's used to XP and having almost everything explained in simple, child-like steps. If I ask her to save something "to the hard drive" she doesn't know what this means.
/. is because, no matter how much we try to deny it, we probably envy the strides made in UI that just aren't being done in Linux (yet).
And to non-geeks, this is a bad thing. To the rest of the world, it's not a big deal. They don't really care if their hard drive has 8MB of cache and runs at 7200RPMs. They don't care how much space is on their hard drive as long as they don't get a scary message saying they've run out of it.
And they certainly don't mind getting told, step-by-step, how to do certain tasks.
The reason that "leaked" screenshots of the new version of Windows gets posted on
Case in point: you're 13 year old sister doesn't need to know about xcopy or directory structures or file trees in order to save or retrieve files. And better yet, a grandma can do the same thing and while we see them as childlike step-by-step shortfalls, the simple fact is that UI brings computer efficiency to the masses. Is it as efficient as we are (or can be)? Of course not. But it lets them use something that they had not been able to use before (I'm speaking mainly of the grandmas at this point).
Either way, I think that dumbing down is a great thing. Because this gives users a choice: You can go step by step and make something work. Or, if you're curious, or if you're a Power User (tm), you can turn that off and work with more control and finesse than thought possible. I know the Aero interface will be disabled the instant
I install the newest Windows, but at least it's there for those who need it.
And those are the people you seem to have forgotten in your posting.
It's like somebody at MS looked at OS X and noticed that things were shiny a lot and dialogs were sparse, and decided that the answer resided in making *everything* shiny and sparse.
Hello, you've missed the point!?
Windows is getting easier and easier to use .. in fact, by the time the "Play My Music" button is the size of your monitor, theres no way you could mistakeningly hit the wrong button!
"Old man yells at systemd"
What exactly is Microsoft steering the desktop towards? Who wants or needs more digital media integration in the OS? I can see some uses for a home computer, if they're trying to go the Entertainment Center route. My guess is that in 2005 or whenever it will STILL be easier to burn the video you want to watch onto a DVD or video CD and pop it in your DVD player. I have a s-video cable running from my 'puter to the TV now, and it works, but its kind of a pain in the ass, and the solution doesn't lie in tweaking the OS, it's more like a remote control device such as the one that came with my TV capture card which I haven't bothered to program since it's just a lot easier to get up off the couch and double-click the matrix icon in my Kazaa folder.
But what use, if any, does this digital media integration have in Microsoft's largest market, the business world? I can see that maybe PowerPoint presentations will become spiffier, with video footage spliced in and stuff, but that doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the OS. And beyond that, most people are NEVER going to put AV segments in their powerpoint presentations. It's cool at first but the bloom quickly fades. So, my question is: How do any of these digtial media enhancements actually enhance Windows, how do the ADD VALUE to the product, what kind of USEFUL functionality will they provide? Very little if you ask me.
It seems to me that they should be more focused on building a better mousetrap, not adding niche features to a rickety mousetrap. For example, if I'm playing Enemy Territory in 800x600 and my desktop res is at 1024x768, and I ctrl-shirt-esc to jump out to the desktop to queue up more songs in Winamp, I can't see winamp because my screen in still in 800x600 and winamp is in the lower right corner, off the screen. And you can't alt-tab to it either. Now maybe that's winamp's fault, but something like switching between apps is what a OS is supposed to be good at, and I can't do it, so I don't really give a rat's ass about a more integrated digital multimedia experience if I can't even perform a simple act like listening to my MP3s while fragging nubs!
I wonder if providing pictures of your product and logos will become part of the Windows software/hardware certification process. I also wonder if MS is going to make non-partnered products appear with some kind of friendly warning or desparagement, thus making Joe SixPack think that they're unsafe to use or won't work completely. I bet that $15 digital camera's drivers or that $5 mouse's drivers are literally going to look like shit and not just work like shit in the future.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
I run a SuSE server and an XP box. Both have been up the same length of time without a crash.
You live in New York, right?
*rimshot*
Gawd, yeah.
I REALLY long for the old behavior of Ctrl-F bringing up a useful little search in its own window, not taking over my current explorer window. It's stupid how many clicks that adds to my everyday user experience.
You know, I NEVER want a sidebar appearing in explorer, file or internet or otherwise. Like when I hit ctrl-F on a page that hasn't finished loading, it pulls up a useless OEM-branded websearch...a chance for all kinds of retarded branding and useles portalling when all I want is MY FUCKING SEARCHBOX. (which is braindamaged anyway, pulling up random previous searches. Considering that the Address box and other autocompletes are pretty good, I'm appalled at what crap the ctrl-F search is. It must be some form of primitive protoDRM.)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I don't use Windows, but several of my less geeky friends do. Just about every one of them has stated at one point or another that they hate the "new interface" of XP--especially Explorer. It's not surprising to me. Microsoft keeps designing interfaces that, by default, hide more and more information from the user while adding chubby new graphics and context sidebars. I get asked questions like "how do I make it just show all the files and directories on my hard drive?" Longhorn seems to be a step further in the direction of hiding more details to make the UI not user-friendly, but rather idiot-friendly. It may be more immediately useful to someone who's never touched a computer before, but it certainly isn't always efficient for the typical user. And if you look at those stupid interface studies that supposedly compare XP to KDE, you'll notice that most of them study near-illiterate users.
Chalk up yet another reason to convince people and businesses to switch to Linux / Free Software.
I work for tech support for a ISP. Oh my god.
I thought WinXP and it's "Categorial" Control Panel was hard to explain and keep track of for users.
This is a new form of hell.
Does MS specifically *try* to make support's lives miserable? Dear god. There's something to be said about some stability. Between Win 95 to 2000, at least I had the capability to tell people "Oh, go into control panels, and double click the one that says "Networking"" when I needed to get someone's DNS settings fixed.
XP it wasn't that simple -- I had to make sure the user had their control panel in "classic" view, and I'll be damned if Microsoft didn't "help" me by making the button to switch between the two a fake hyperlink. At the very least, they could have made that hyperlink underlined so an average (or below average) user could figure it out, but no, they won't even go that far.
Longhorn looks like it's going to be even worse. Now I'm going to have to waste money buying Longhorn right when it comes out (or waste time and a CD-R downloading it) and waste time memorizing it so I can walk people through the brain dead Fisher Price system designed for 5 year olds. And I'd be willing to wager money that they'll make it "helpful" by hiding DNS, IP, et all settings under 50 pages of wizards and candy sheets.
I already had to answer phones for 2 weeks for Microsoft for free because of MS Blaster, and will have to for another week or two because of SoBig.F.
Now, come next year, I'm going to have to memorize an OS that looks like something from Clippy's wet dreams?
I'm sick of cleaning up Microsoft's messes.
On the flip side, it looks like they've stolen enough MacOS X and Linux GUI ideas to make it so slightly above average users won't need to bother me, so I guess it's not all that bad. Some of it is almost interesting, like having sound volume -- FOR EACH PROGRAM. Some of the extended stuff looks like it might be pretty useful, if a bit sugarcoated.
So, in Summary:
1. Tech support is hell.
2. New GUI + Confused Users = bad news.
3. Longhorn looks interesting, but I don't want to have to support it.
4. 3 may change depending on future screenshots.
What ever happened to the snazzy 3D virtual reality GUIs we were promised?
They're installed in the flying cars
from Playskool (tm) for the look and feel???
Longhorn approved PDA
Longhorn/RIAA approved MP3 player
Longhorn control panel
Longhorn/RIAA approved CD player
And, last but not least, introducing the ALL NEW Longhorn approved WORM..
Of course you mean "Fuego" and "Terra"
Microsoft has once again proved that even though they're now capable of slapping some paint on an old house, they still can't fix the foundation.
I honestly can't believe how complex they've managed to make even simple tasks. These screenshots, aestetically, look great... but they still bury functionality in the wrong places, and put simple tasks under 3 different sub-menus.
How does this help anything? It doesn't. But what does it prove? They're scared of Apple's OS X. They copy basic concepts of functonality and pleasing look, while missing all the fundamental reasons why Apple's OS works like it should. SIMPLICITY. I'm not saying OS X is perfect, but Panther looks like a great stride and will be available in a month or two. Longhorn... which should be called "Shoe-horn" won't be out until mid 2005.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Honestly, if MS released a brand new operating system that looked identicle to XP, but was just ultra secure and ultra stable, would it sell?
MS Windows has always sold past a certain point in time, regardless of fucking quality. Because MS has a recognized illegal monopoly which hasn't been remedied.
Jesus Christ.
This will never get posted, because I'm just an AC. But what the hell.
The problem with MS at this point has nothing to do with how shiny the GUI is or how stable the OS is. MS has sold its OS without consequence for some time. Stability, security, usability--none of it matters.
We could argue until we die about whether or not Linux GUIs are comparable to those of Windows or MacOS, and then our children could continue the argument about whether or not Windows is as stable.
The issue isn't that Windows isn't stable, or that it has the best GUI. The issue is that we will never fucking know given the status quo whether or not users really want the added GUI features, because there are no consequences for MS that would motivate them to build a better GUI.
Honestly--really--does anyone here want more bloated GUI? Does anyone here know anybody who wants added bloat? Let's rephrase that for MS apologists--does anyone know anyone who wants the added GUI features?
I don't know anybody. The Joe Sixpacks I do know get pissed because their system is so laggy, and are astonished whenever I manage to speed it up by getting rid of the crap.
Of course, you'll come up with some anecdotal answer otherwise. And you might be right. But right now, all you'll be doing is accepting MS Longhorn post hoc as satisfactory, because you have no other realistic choices of OS. And all I might be doing is complaining about it.
I get so frickin tired about these arguments on Slashdot and elsewhere about whether or not Linux has a satisfactory GUI, or Windows has satisfactory security and stability.
The question isn't "if MS built a universally recognizably stable OS, would it sell?" Because of course it would sell. It sells right now. Because it has a monopoly.
The real question is "if MS were forced to compete in a diverse OS market, what other OS features might we see? Would MS then sell?"
When will we stop equating "satisfactory" with "optimal"?
What other market is like the OS market? If the OS market were like cereals, you would walk into the grocery store and see only corn flakes. Your choice would be "do I want the new corn flakes or not?" We would be having arguments about whether or not the corn flakes are crispy enough. A group of people would be saying "people like corn flakes; they don't need or want other cereals that might have dried fruits or some other wierd thing in them."
Sound silly?
Of course it does. It's not about MS being good enough. MS will never be as good enough for me, because I know there would be something better if it actually was forced to legitimately compete.
And you can't prove me wrong. If you want to, demand consequences for MS.
I get so sick of these screenshots being released every couple years, when we have the same discussion in which we rationalize why we have little choice of OS.
Because 3D virtual reality GUIs suck unless you live in a four dimensional universe (by that I mean a universe with a proper fourth spatial dimension).
Being able to view data in three dimensions isn't useful when you must view it straight on in order to interact with it usefully. A 3D interface will not accomplish anything special unless you actually have to work with data that can only be displayed in three dimensions, which is relatively rare and where this is necessary, specialized interfaces have been developed.
A lot of people think that 3D interfaces are the natural progression from 2D ones since three is one better than two, but few of these people actually stop to think about it.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Try to give telephone support to someone if you don't even know how the OS looks.
It also is nice if people are able to sit at different machines and don't have to relearn or reconfigure everything.
Customization is fine as long as it's not just a weak excuse for not setting up stuff properly in the first place. And sometimes it's better if beginners don't have to deal with it.
When I saw those screen shots, the first thing I thought of was a scene in Friends where Joey says something really stupid and Rachel looks at him with pity and says, "It's a good thing you're pretty."
That's more right than you know. To me, it looks like a super-mutated version of MSN.
And I say this as someone who spent 6 months not too long ago doing freelance design work for that same company... trust me, those aqua-like buttons, all the gradient mayhem, drop shadows on absolutely everything... it's all MSN.
Used to drive me nuts, too. MSN, a web company, chooses nothing short of the entire spectrum of colours in gradient form for all their branding, right down to a logo that incorporates that same spectrum. So much for 'web safe colours'.
(It's like the iMac all over again. The idiots looked at it and thought 'i guess transparent computers are popular now', without pausing to realize how the iMac's transparency was just one facet of the design. You slap a semi-clear enclosure on your old product and it'll just look like the Princess Phone Radio Shack garbage that it really is.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Wow Phillips and Sony are buying out the company that claims patents on TRUSTED SECURE COMPUTING, there is a bigger message here than meets the eye. MS and the hardware partner thing are pulling real shit and they will get away with it because all the user wants is digital video and sound eye and ear candy. Interoperability is not a concern because these shit heads are going to run everything! Users ability to configure and run every single aspect will be controlled from Redmond. Don't believe me just buy a longhorny PC and watch, your copy of every piece of software that you put on it will go through the processor keyed certificate check and you will have no say in what software you can run unless you have got proper keys. You can bet installing freeware and OSS ware will cause all sorts of warning bells and whistles to go off making you think you are going to wreck you computer! These assholes need to be given a lesson by the public just rejecting this shit.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Where do I type "dir"?
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
I work at Microsoft. I have the latest version of Longhorn installed (that's Milestone 6 for all you MS folks out there.) The images on WinSuperSite are not screenshots.
Some of the posted images are authentically from Microsoft. However, they are simply UI mockups done well before the LH development effort began. I have no idea what Longhorn will look like in the end, but based on what I see every day when I come to work, I'd be surprised if this was it.
Importantly, many of these mockup "screenshots" appear to be fake. Like I said, I'm not in charge of longhorn UI design, but most of the mockups are provably fake. (For example, some have BeOS icons in them!)
You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.
Unless there are some SERIOUS typos in the longhorn OS, (which I doubt) these pictures are FAKE. Look at the one for the Hardware Devices. It lists the system specs as "Intel Xeon, 80ghz RAM, 20GB1, Ultra ATA Hard Drive, Windows Longhorn Professional." First off, there is no 80ghz Xeon. Second. What does GB1 mean? Third. Wheres the ram? Another problem in a picture are the typos. For the Music Companion propterties, in shows that the MP3 player has 900 on board memory, and 100 meg flash card. It also says that 900 megs will hold 100 songs. What!?! The real one has 64 megs of internal. ( http://www.reviewmart.com/ele-philips_sa220 ) On the Rush Media Player picture, it says "Here's room for text but I don't thing we need it." (No spelling errors there,) What?! This is all a load of crap. Some one went through alot of trouble to photoshop in this stuff. The only pictures I believe are the real longhorn, are the 3 at the bottom.
A lot of things can be said for or against the windows UI. Personally, I have few complaints with windows 2000 and lesser in terms of UI. I dislike XP mostly because I prefer things to be compact and streamlined and that, my friends is something XP is not. I dislike frivilous graphics and frivilously large toolbars etc. I understand that some computer users may like that, but an option to shut off "all the fruity colors" should have been made available. Sure, XP is skinnable, but the "classic" skins are still bogged down by the fact that the windows XP environment habitually sacrifices user efficiency for initial usability. Sure, lil' sis can save and open files without any real help, but in about a year once she's matured a bit and knows a little more, will she not be frustrated by the fact it takes twice as long to do it than in other UIs?
Lets not leave out Linux, I enjoy Linux as a hobby, but as far as the most popular UI's go, it's just as bad. KDE and GNOME aren't horrible, but they could be a lot better. It takes just as long to accomplish something in either of them as windows XP simply because you often get too much detail, when I click my task bar, I don't want to be assaulted by the 8000 or so selections that you get even in a fairly bare-bones GUI install. Granted, they can be removed, but not easily. Linux will not take off as a desktop system until it can take reliability and combine it with ease of use. I'll admit right now, I'd MUCH rather install new hardware on a Windows system. Why? because even when installing hardware that I know nothing about and don't have the drivers for is a hell of a lot easier than doing so in Linux.
I know full well that this will get tucked at the bottom and ranked as a one because I'm reiterating a lot of points as well as being simply irrate, but the solution to all of this isn't Linux aquiring a few traits or Windows aquiring (or losing) a few others, what it amounts to is in order for the OS market to work there need to be more than two or three OSes available. (Fanboys, now is the time to mention WHEATONEX or whatever off the wall OS you run, but I'm talking mainstream here, not ecclectic little known ones)
The market should aim to be like that of cars, car companies produce many models, each one with a particular type of user in mind. Small economy cars are aimed at people who just need something reliable to get around, they don't have to be amazingly fast or have a lot of features, it just needs to work and be fairly safe. Larger family sedans are aimed at people who have a lot of things to do, they are more task oriented. They aren't necessarily fast, but they are very safe and very reliable. Trucks are aimed at the purely utilitarian user, they are durable and very powerful, but at the same time they are big and slow. Sports cars are aimed at the flashy user, they are fast and look nice, but they offer little protection in an accident and are really only suitable for city or highway driving, you can't drive them in the winter and you certainly should drive them in the country where stones and potholes will damage them. But most of all, more than anything else, no matter what kind of car you drive (bear with me, I know I'm about to get hit with "but I drive an electric" or "well, I converted my 1987 chevy celebrity to run on LP!") they all run on gas, they all take oil and other fluids. *in case you didn't get it, the fluids are the software in this case, not electricity or something*
The computer industry has a lot of changing to do before it truly matures, first thing that needs to be done is money grubbing organizations like the MPAA, RIAA, and others need to be put in their place and made to deal with the times just like all the other companies out there. Secondly, we need to dismiss socialist computing notions like networking every item in your house. I know it seems cool in Sci-Fi, but it's a bad idea unless computers are 100% safe, reliable, and infallable. Until then, we need to stick with, for the most part, having to flip the light switch ourself.
Lastly, we need to get it out of our heads that computers are just Microsoft vs. *nix, and that something as frivilous as a UI change will change the computing world, it's going to take a total paradigm shift in order to do that.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
You already use the third dimensions every time you place a window overlapping another window. All that's missing is perspective.
Also remember that there are always the things that are built on top of a technology that are assumed to be impossible or sometimes can't even be imagined until the technology itself is widespread. Desktop publishing was not possible until the 2D GUI was established. Mac OS X's Expose depends on its abstracted window system and hardware-accelerated "renderer".
I see that as a great 3d interface, available in Linux for quite a while. Rather than reinventing everything, just make several different layers of 2d environments, and stack them. Give them opaque backgrounds with a single interface for navigation on top. By flipping the slides, you can access different sets of open programs.
My favorite implimentation of this is that of OpenBox(and the other boxes). I can wheel on the empty background to switch desktops. No wasteful program runs as a background, and I can move a window from one desktop to another by dragging it across the edge. With this method, I can keep my editor and compile on one desktop, and instantly flip to a web browser if I need to check documentation.
Mac OS 9 and Linux(by which I mean XFree86 w/ a decent wm on any platform) also have the ability to shrink to just their titlebar upon a double click. Not as essential as virtual desktops, but definitely worth the ~30 lines of code it takes to impliment. Panther's Expose uses a different approach by which all windows, or all those of the current application, are resized to fit on the screen. Clicking on one exposes it. The idea has potential.
(Windows has kept the same interface for the past 8 years, but not because it's the best.)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.