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Microsoft Plans WinXP "Reloaded"
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Microsoft changed their minds and are planning a new OS release before Longhorn. They are calling it XP Reloaded."
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Somehow, this seems like a sequel nobody wants to see...
Remember what happened when XP missed its deadline... Microsoft ended up shipping WindowsMe which in most circles stands for "Mistake Edition".
We know the real reason they're putting this out. It's not for the innovation value, but that sales of the XP Update have started to tail off, and this will convince some people who already have XP to buy the upgrade...
They better not release it under that title because it sounds a lot more like infringement to me than "Lindows" does. Well, maybe that's a bit extreme, but it's something to think about nonetheless.
Hmmm... so lots of special effects but not a lot of substance? I can't wait for the sequel to the sequel!
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Today, while I was browsing Slashdot, Windows XP for no particular reason brought up its BSOD and demanded a reboot.
While that was happening, I realized it had been about two and a half years since XP came out. It seems like MS operating systems aways start to wear out after 2-3 years, just in time for the new release to claim it fixes all of those bugs...
I hope it's not another Windows ME style dead-end branch of the Windows tree. US customers need to get the rumored stripped-down Windows that the EU may be getting. Windows, without all the unwanted crap, would be interesting to see. BN
So this is basically just going to be Windows XP, with the new service pack? Sounds to me like its just a way that they can push back the release of Longhorn and save a bit of face.
if some courts believe that Lindows cannot use it's name because it sounds too similar to "Windows", would they also agree that "XP reloaded" cannot be used since it sounds like WB's movie?
...remember good 'ol times when IP used to mean Internet Protocol....
I'll bet anything that MS is just releasing a new version of XP so they can have all of that lovely DRM support built into an OS, since Longhorn is so far off.
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
"We are exploring ways to add value to Windows XP."
Sounds more like they are Exploring (TM) ways to add value to Microsoft.
Belloc
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
Honestly, we should have seen this one coming. What do you want to bet that the "new features" included in "Reloaded" are all going to be stuff that belongs in a gratis Service Pack? It's the Microsoft OS Production/Marketing Paragidm:
1. Release Buggy OS
2. Make $Umteen Million on OS
3. Fix some of the bugs
4. Release less buggy version of same OS
5. Make another $Umteen Million.
6. CYA by saying that anything not fixed in this will addressed in vaporware OS
Anyway, I read the article, and I loved this quote from Window's lead project manager:
"We are exploring ways to add value to Windows XP."
To me, that sounds like newspeak for "We are exploring ways to get existing XP users to pony up extra cash."
What's funny about all this is the article talks all about the prospect for this new XP release, without mentioning even one feature Reloaded would contain. Go figure.
Here's some wild speculation: Longhorn development is running into problems that are further delaying development, so Microsoft is responding with a stopgap operating system. Maybe they should call it OS9 instead of Reloaded.
Anyway, from a Linux advocate's perspective, anything that pushes back Longhorn has to be considered a good thing. Longhorn will no doubt come with some compelling features that will make Linux a harder sell. So the longer it takes to be released, the more time Linux has to establish its foothold.
Note that I'm not saying that Longhorn will be a product I'd want to have. Every new release of Windows seems to be more restrictive than the last, and what little I understand about .NET terrifies me. Still, there's no denying that some users will view Longhorn as sort of the OSX release of Windows.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Probably Windows XP Second Edition
Of course, what Microsoft is trying to do is to have their cake and eat it too. They want the ubiquitous distribution of their Operating System by making deals with OEMs and retailers. They also want people to pay the ridiculous off-the-shelf upgrade prices. These people that upgrade to Pro end up paying twice.
I personally do not pay the MS tax, I just borrow a CD. I own XP home, but I install XP Pro on my computer. Don't use it regularly, only for games and stuff.
Please tell me the Longhorn desktop is NOT going to be 3D only, with no 2D acceleration. I mean, I have no problem with a desktop having lots of 3D effects for people who like them, but at least give us the chance to TURN THE DAMN CHROME OFF!
...And so on...
It seems like every time a new class of CPUs come out that can keep up with bloated GUIs, Windows blows up the CPU power needed to drive its GUI exponentially.
Remember when a DX2-66 was all you needed to make Win3.1 draw fast? Along came 95
Remember when a P5-166 was all you needed to make Win95 draw fast? Along came Win98
Remember when a PIII was all you needed to make Win2K draw fast?
I hope I speak for others when I say, I don't need fancy-schmancy glowing texture-wrapped widgets, window transparancy, or realtime updated iconified windows. I need to use my computer to get stuff done!
Just like Windows 98SE, MS probably said "hey, this up and coming service pack is pretty nice....... lets charge for it!"
As per the article, this is its "internally referred to name", probably a nickname given to it by the developers. I would bet real money that this has never been intended to be used outside the developers group, much less MS itself. Watch out for something like WinXP SE.
Note that the only MS person quoted in the article is never quoted as calling it XP Reloaded, its only implied ("Sullivan said that the possible release of XP Reloaded does not indicate a delay for Longhorn." is not a quote, but sounds more like something Cnet bodged together out of the info it had to hand), but an external analysist did, clear indication that this is a pet name for the project and not its official title.
According to the article, the Reloaded name is an internal name they are using, like a codename, not the actual product name the public will see. Besides, you're comparing apples to oranges. One is an OS that sounds like another OS, the other is an OS that sounds like a movie. Which one do you think may cause confusion?
I suppose they have to have some way of keeping the OS division cash flow positive until they get round to releasing "The Next Big Thing"
Mind you, doesn't the release when it's ready sound a lot like Duke Nukem Forever ?
Will they be coming out with an updated version of Internet Explorer? IE is already seriously almost everybody else in terms of standards support (not that they were ever near the front). When they have to be very seriously pressured to release just one measley patch, it means they either don't care anymore, or they're working on something big. Just release something, please, so web developers don't have to keep suffering when developing for the lame uninformated masses that are stuck behind.
filling the gap between 98/NT4 and Windows 2000
I don't think you know what you are taling about.
a patched up version to keep the income stream happening. Which doesn't mean it won't have some interesting stuff, but the MS history is that it will wind up as another dead end.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
...Longhorn is going the way of Chicago and NT 5.0. Those, if you'll recall, were overly-hyped software releases
'Overly-hyped'?
I'm no Microsoft apologist but Chicago became Windows 95 which completely dominated the desktop, and NT 5.0 became Windows 2000, which is probably the most popular, stable server OS Microsoft ever made...both of these operating systems made a kajillion-bazillion dollars for Microsoft. That's not just hype.
Although I will concede that they took a long time to make it to market...
MeepMeep
"XP Rebloated"
Seems like a good combination of "XP Reloaded" and "XP Rebooted", with a little slice of truth added for flavour...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm a little surprised this is big news. Of course they were going to release a new version of Windows before Longhorn. The shareholders were going to complain if the Microsoft Windows division didn't produce any revenue for a year because of no new product being released. It would have been cutting off half of Microsofts revenue.
Are things really going that badly that they need to add some more eye candy to XP and then try to resell it to us as a "new" OS? First off the people on 98 are sticking to 98. Especially since 98 is now going to be supported for years to come. At this point they are only going to update once they buy a new PC. Secondly those on 2k/XP especially businesses are NOT going to buy into this refresh. So who the hell is their market? This literally makes no sense to me. What companies are going to upgrade from either 2k/XP to XP reloaded in late 2004 early 2005 and then upgrade to Longhorn a year later? Sorry, not gonna happen.
Or is this because of Linux? As nice as that would be I honestly don't think MS has a lot to worry about right now from the Linux desktop. When companies like Adobe and Intuit start officially supporting linux then its time for MS to panic.
Anyway like I said this just makes no sense. Good luck selling this update Microsoft, your going to need it.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
want to charge you through the nose for it. I think we're going to see something like what happened with Windows ME...
The idea is behind pop-ups is that they get advertising to the consumer. Right now, this works for 95% of their intended audience. That 5%, those who use a better browser, get a surfing experience.
Once pop-ups cease to be effective for the advertiser, they'll disappear. Instead, they'll find new ways of getting to their audience, like flash movies in the middle of a page, that will affect everyone, regardless of browser (except lynx).
Right now, I'm happy with the unwashed masses dealing with advertisements so I don't have to.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
In the case of Chicago, while you rightly point out that it was a business success, it was not only overly-hyped in the sense that the computing world eagerly anticipated it during a forever-and-a-day development cycle, but it was also overly-hyped as a product. Let's face it: they sold a lot, but it sucked. Windows 95 didn't work as advertised until OSR2. Some people reported being glad they stuck with Windows 3.11, despite the old clunky interface, because it crashed less.
Longhorn will take much longer than originally expected. It could also mean Longhorn has serious problems and wouldn't be deliverable by 2006. If that is the case, it could be that Longhorn is doomed. Given the value of the "new features" are questionable and not really new, this might be lead to dumping Longhorn all together and canabilizing the usable pieces. But it's all a guess.
The documented bugs are _really, really bad_. Thus, I say IE's CSS support is horrid. They've been left unfixed for 2.5 years and counting. True, Mozilla doesn't have full support for CSS2, but IE doesn't yet have full support for CSS _1_!
I'm not using Firefox, but Mozilla itself crashes _far less_ than IE does on the machines I use. I think I've only seen Mozilla crash 1 or 2 times since I started using v1.6. IE would crash at _least_ every other day on me, quite often multiple times a day.
"Remember when a DX2-66 was all you needed to make Win3.1 draw fast? Along came 95 ...And so on..."
.bmps.
Remember when a P5-166 was all you needed to make Win95 draw fast? Along came Win98
Remember when a PIII was all you needed to make Win2K draw fast?
that's because when a DX2-66MHz was fast, that's what programmers had on their desk.
Do not underestimate the what's-on-programmers'-desks syndrome. Programmers like for a program to perform well on *their* computer. Programmers tend to upgrade *often*. Programmers tend to *not care a stuff* if their program doesn't perform well on older computers.
It's like if you give one set of people 56ks, and the other cable modems. Guess which lot will learn how to use a jpeg compresser, and which lot will upload raw
Programming is like that. The more power you put into their hands, the more their waste is scaled up to match. There's some magic "good enough" psychological point where programmers don't bother to put further effort into optimising an application for greater speed.
Over the last ten years, CPUs have gone from 100MIPS to 5000MIPS+. And everyday tasks broadly perform at the same speed as they did back then. What is wrong with this picture?
Dang, I should stop posting Anonymous Cowardly. :-)
Since Microsoft feels that MikeRoweSoft.com is too similar to their name and gets the poor guy to rename his site, the W. bro's could (and really ought to) go after Microsoft for the obvious takeoff of their movie's title.
Apple would seem to disagree with you on this one.
Longhorn's 3D desktop just another example of MS copying Apple. Nothing new here, nothing exciting. And certainly nothing innovative on MS's part.
seSales, Point of Sale software for OS X.
It sounds like it's not even an internal designation. More like they are considering a version inbetween XP and Longhorn, "Reloaded" is just what some of the guys are calling it.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
"However, Directions on Microsoft analyst Rob Helm said that any new version of Windows is likely to slow Longhorn's arrival."
Clap Clap to Rob Helm... Doesn't one think that it was done for that specific perpose?!?
If you take a look at the beta release and their "wonderful" new desktop feature you can see that they've got a hell of a lot of work to do. The resource requirements for their 3D desktop is over and beyond 90% of the machines out there today.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not the responsiblity of the user, as I probably stole them anyway
MS won't add tabs to IE, it doesn't fit their global UI standard. Everything in MS applications looks and feels the same, this is what has enabled MS to keep the desktop, and it's a key point of failure for linux on the desktop.
You won't see tabs in IE until you see tabs in Windows Explorer, MS Word and outlook. And that isn't likely to happen, as tabs are just a way to have "multiple windows" in a system that doesn't manage them very well (this is why tabbed browsing is more popular in the *nix world instead of the windows world). The uniform windows management in Windows performs well enough that very few users need tabbed browsing to keep track of what they're doing. Linux is too erratic and inconsistent, so using tabs in a browser is needed to control browser windows.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Yeah, the word "Lindows" infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property, but "XP Reloaded" doesn't infringe on anybody else's ideas. It's a totally original concept. Right.
Windows Me was an interim release for home users between Windows 98 and Windows XP Home Edition because XP Home Edition was so long in coming and they needed the money. So what did they do? The rushed an inferior and buggy product out the door that contained some new code. Not a lot mind you, but just enough to totally fuck things up. Now they announce an interium release of Windows between Windows XP and Longhorn because Longhorn is going to be a long way off. I have a funny feeling this will be a Windows Me style release all over again. They'll rush some buggy POS out the door that has some new stuff. Not all of it mind you, just enough to totally fuck things up. You'll excuse me Bill G if I laugh and pass on this one!
It's the sense of humor displayed by those of us who grew up in Minnesota. Sorry
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
or better yet, stuff that happend in the past to your windows box that you had no controll over at the time come back to haunt you later.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Version 2.7 of the Linux kernel will concentrate its PR on the animosity between the Redmond campus and the University of Helsinki; it will be billed as The Two Towers.
The next version of the kernel will see the re-emergence of Linux and Unix on the desktop, and will be billed as The Return of the King.
Businesses are still businesses, they won't buy into software that doesn't have any marginal benefits. Unless they truly make a decent product nobody is going to hop on board. Although it is unfortunate; if MS does nothing they are neglecting security issues, if they give away patches they are tightening their grip, if they charge too much they are exploiting their monopoly. Short of giving away Mandrake CDs there's not a move they can make that won't be reviled.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
A couple thoughts --
I've gotten used to using ALT-TAB to switch between apps, as in browser to word processor, so for me, tabs are great. Sure, I can bundle like app windows under Windows or Linux, but that just doesn't fit my personal style. Go figure.
On the other hand, by using tabbed browsing, you lose about 50% of your screen to tabs for all the windows you have open, right? I value my real estate more than most people then.
I hear you about screen real estate. But then you have me confused; what browser do you use that takes up half the screen just for the tabs? Does Opera do that? I haven't messed with it in a while, as Opera had problems rendering Japanese. Firefox uses barely a pinky's-width, about as much as the URL bar. Maybe as much as 1/8 of the screen for the app bar, menu bar, URL bar, tab bar, and status bar together.
If you rely on your web browser for window management then your operating system is lacking or you are not using it correctly. Which is why tabbed browsing is abhorrent.
I smell a stylistic issue here. Your response nicely showed that my points were partly based on my ignorance of your experience. Forgive me for that. However, "you are not using (your OS) correctly" seems to carry things a bit too far -- part of any good system is the flexibility to use it in many different ways, no? If I choose to group my browser windows in the browser, I fail to see what sin lies in that.
Ahh and the inevitable personal attack,
Actually, a fine point, but I think I was attacking your comments to the effect that *nix systems don't manage windows well. Nothing ad hominem in that.
I use Redhat 9.0 when I'm not using Windows, but I've used several different distros and window managers in the past. The high level of fragmentation in Linux makes window management even more difficult, as one method for management will work fine on one desktop, but it won't on another without configuring it the same way first.
By "desktop" I assume you mean either "windows manager" or "linux distro", rather than the various virtual desktops provided in a single X session. If this is correct, your statement is quite similar to "window management doesn't work the same on several different OSes.
Um, yes. Windows and the Windows window manager are inseparable; the OS and the desktop are one and the same. Swapping desktop managers under linux is effectively similar to changing the complete userland OS under the Windows monolithic paradigm. To exaggerate a little, your comment is a little like "it doesn't work the same on Mac as it does on Windows". Or for the linux savvy, "Gnome and KDE are different." No surprises there.
I'll grant you that a greater level of standardization would be lovely, not just for the end user but for developers as well. I think that's what the Freedesktop.org project is all about, so this is in the works.
Windows tends to act very predictably no matter where you find it, however.
You bring up a good point here -- Windows, through its hegemony, offers a common user experience. There is something of value in this, and the OSS community would be unwise to sneer. Thankfully, many seem wise enough to save the baby from the bathwater, and are putting in the effort to find what works in Windows.
To hearken back to your earlier posting:
Everything in MS applications looks and feels the same, this is what has enabled MS to keep the desktop, and it's a key point of failure for linux on the desktop.
A good point -- the Principle of Least Surprise plays in here. Users expect a particular look and feel, in terms of where menu items are if not necessarily the specific widget set. Straying from this de facto standard of expectations will almost inevitably make a program less popular. Ask anyone who's used Adobe graphics products versus, say,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."