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Microsoft Clips Longhorn
Gr8Apes writes "Microsoft is clipping Longhorn to get the already-delayed follow-up to Windows XP out the door by 2006. MS has decided to remove some of the most ambitious features. Blackcomb is the version to follow Longhorn, and is expected at the end of the decade. The full new file system feature has been moved to Blackcomb. Other notable parts of the story, in MS's efforts to get its DRM into play, a new version, Windows XP Premium will start shipping with new PCs, which will include a new version of the infamous Windows Media Player. This version will have the ability to shop at on-line stores like the one MS plans to launch later this year. It's their move to 'outflank Apple'."
The /. Summary says the "Full new file system feature has been moved to Blackcomb" and while true, it is misleading. The article actually says WinFS is still going to be in the next version of Windows (which is what it is talking about), it simply won't work over the network, meaning file shares won't work in the same way. This is a lot different from it being completely removed, as it is one of Longhorn's biggest features. Having this over network would be completely insane for most situations too. With many servers not upgrading to this file sharing would have to support the old version anyway so that corporate environments could function without upgrading everything. In addition, while the WinFS has the possibility of being a great help to individuals, it would be much harder to use over a clouded network environment.
What a waste!
NOOOOOO! CLIPPY! NOT AGAIN!
And that is "Windows Secure".
A platform that will let you browse, email, and generally enjoy the Internet without risk of viruses, trojans, worms or spam.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Also in the long line of adjective-noun combinations for their operating systems, Microsoft will follow up on Longhorn and Blackcomb with Sweatyphone, Steelfridge, and Purpletoilet.
why did I sign up for that stupid upgrade plan? WHY???
I also reply below your current threshold.
"Blackcomb is the version to follow Longhorn, and is expected at the end of the decade."
I guess we can expect it in 2013 at the earliest.
Omnes stulti sunt.
I wonder if the patches will install without rebooting...
"Windows XP Premium will start shipping with new PCs, which will include a new version of the infamous Windows Media Player."
Not in Europe, we're going to get the "Windows XP Premium Lite" edition, hah!
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
Windows XP Premium will start shipping with new PCs
Buy an operating system, and a PC comes with it? Hasn't it traditionally been the other way around?
At least they can say Longhorn was released on schedule!
Well, not delayed too much, anyway.
In what way? They mention online stores, and Apple is a microscopic blip on the radar. Are they trying to outflank them and charge $129 TWICE a year for updates instead of once? Or are they shooting for sub 3% market share?
In case you hadn't noticed, there ain't no flank. The war is over, and Apple's not even struggling to move their market share, and it's not moving. G5 sales are disaapointing, but the iPod is red hot. Oh yeah, MS's portable mini-tablet/video/music player is an "iPod clone/killer attempt."
Apple is not the yardstick by which companies like Microsoft measure themselves. Not even close.
The new thinking now says that the new Office will run on all versions of Windows, whereas it was previously going to be available only on the new XP system... This is a massive statement. It means that the 'new licencing' is so unpopular that it's forcing MS to drop its upgrade/lock-in strategy for Office. Amazing.
I think the growing popularity of Linux in the server market, and over the next 2 years or so in the desktop market too, is a big part of that decision...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Actually, this might be a smart move by MS - not that they would realise why, but nonetheless.
There are so many 'features' of their Longwait that literally scare the you know what out of people. Features that have been around spooking before.
Now MS are hard put and have to remove (or delay) these features - and ironically, and sadly, this might actually help their acceptance.
[...]which will include a new version of the infamous Windows Media Player. This version will have the ability to shop at on-line stores like the one MS plans to launch later this year. The EU-Administration will not be very happy with this. Actually this just shows that MS doesnt give shit about the antitrust-suits. It seems like the fine from the EU wasnt nearly severe enough.
Guess they gotta keep innovating the old fashioned Microsoft way.
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You expect accurate summaries from /. stories on Microsoft? That will happen when Linux has 90% market share.
You could submit a story that Microsoft causes cancer, and they'd publish it with a bunch of spoof or dead links without batting an eye.
M$ clips Longhorn. /T
-So then it's Shorthorn!
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
It's more than famous, it's infamous. (With apologies to The Three Amigos!).
I think it's good that they're scoping out features. This will allow the developers to concentrate on making the existing codebase actually work, rather than squandering resources to cram in a feature that works like ass and is rife with security holes.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
So, can anybody point out which features would be really worth an upgrade, because I can't see any. I don't care about Eyecandy, also there should be something else than eyecandy...
Software capable of shopping at online stores, eh? Is this kind of like your phone company giving you a speed dial to the retailers they have some vested interest in? It's product tying, and it's illegal. It's just a pity that the current administration in the U.S. really doesn't care what M$ does anymore. Here's to some anti-trust mongers taking over next February.
M$ instead of making another OS, spent time securing, patching, 64bit upgrading, device driver KISS, to XP. And released it as one huge giant patch.
Would this mean that M$ would out due Linux et al desktop drive?
I wonder if that still means IE7 will only run on Longhorn?
Didn't they say they were even going to move parts of IE into the kernel?
The changes also affect Microsoft's plan to make the next version of its Office software work only on Longhorn. The new plans call for that Office package to work on previous versions of Windows as well.
The realist in me says that this was because the new Office made extensive use of WinFS and that making it backwards compatible would just contrubite to (more) code bloat. The cynic in me says that they wanted to use some spiffy new feature in Office MMX as a lever to force users to upgrade their OS. Still, it does a heart good to think about the heads rolling at M$ over the leaking of these e-mails.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
1. Does Windows XP currently allow every application full write access to the Registry, or at least access to registry components for other applications?
2. If so, does this strike anyone else as a really bad idea from the view of modularity, scalability, and security?
2. Will Longhorn keep the Windows Registry?
I think it's less "out-flank Apple" and more "out and out copy Apple". But by the time we start seeing the Microsoft Music Store, OS X 10.4 will probably be shipping, and we should also see higher clocked G5's, and maybe even G5's in the iMac line. There are some very compelling reasons to consider switching, not least of which is that when you use a Mac, you get to enjoy Microsoft's upcoming "innovations" months before Microsoft's customers do.
Yeah, I know, it's blatant Apple partisanship, but who really wants to be stuck waiting until 2006 for Longhorn to catch up to Panther, when it's likely that Apple will have released Tiger, plus Lion, Ocelot, and Tabbycat by the time the damn thing actually ships?
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
Will WinFS support symlinks? (Or something functionally equivalent?)
Real life is overrated.
Since Microsoft operates in so many countries, with any luck if they do integrate a media service it'll be offered outside the USA.
That fact right there may be enough for even a lower quality service to flourish as compared to iTunes.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Have the previous cases not established precedent that pre-installing non-essential features into the operating system constitutes anti-competitive behavior?
Rather than putting our hope in the courts, I think it's best if everybody contributes as much as possible to the development of desktop linux. We have a two-year window. If linux can achieve mainstream acceptance by the time this goes gold, then we'll be able to avoid widespread adoption of Longhorn, Blackcomb, and everything after.
so anybody got a good project that needs testers? Or documentation-authors?
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
This seems like a not so sneaky move by Microsoft to shut out interoperability between linux and windows platforms. I am VERY glad therefore, that this is still 5 years off at the earliest.
Maybe we can start calling Blackcomb the Death Star.
OK I'm being a little extreme here, but if my company upgrades to Windows Blackcomb and I can't interoperate over a PPTP connection, I'll have to dump linux for my work... Which would really suck, now that I've got everything working so I CAN use linux for my job.
I really want to see where this is going. I don't know anything about the WinFS network formats, and if they will include the ability of backwards compatibility with other OS types on the network.
Looks like I'm going to be stuck with linux version "9's". Due to the fact that my machine is only a amd 800mhz, spec'd system. I have no reason to upgrade, as I can do everything that I need to get done.
I have a feeling that the major system resource requirement for Longhorn maybe for the more trival parts of the OS such as fancy eye-candy.
Although the delays are not great, most people don't realize just how big an upgrade XP SP2 is. There are major overhauls to the system, security wise. With the amount of work that's gone into it, it should be considered another O.S. release from Microsoft.
But they won't. They will release the same old crap like they always do. The first service pack will take about 6 months, and it won't fix half the security holes, just like normal.
How does M$ con everyone into paying them to be beta testers?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Paul Thurrott's supersite for Windows has this information about what Longhorn is all about from May 2003. I highly recommend that readers check out what MSDN has to say about it.
It is a document and content management system with synchronization capabilities built right into the desktop. And it is going to hit yet another software segment right in the pocketbook: document management and storage.
With the advances in disk drive capacity and network speed, imagine being able to sync your company's entire set of PDF files/engineering drawings/(pr0n? ;-) ) to a laptop for use on site.
Have you Meta Moderated t
No.
This version will have the ability to shop at on-line stores like the one MS plans to launch later this year. It's their move to 'outflank Apple'.
This is seriously screwed up. If this isn't a blatant anti-trust violation, I don't know what is. Didn't the EU just assess a 1/2 billion dollar fine over this very behavior?
I can't understand how this doesn't enrage anyone who believes in capitalism. What's to stop Microsoft from integrating an Amazon.com, paypal and Ebay feature into their software and MSN stuff as well? How many markets will they be able to dominate through their desktop OS monopoly?
Can any investor look at the tech world and invest in something that isn't in danger of being killed off by a Microsoft action? It seems that entering into any online service or consumer software is a matter of picking up dimes before steamrollers.
Without proper anti-trust enforcement, innovation and investment opportunities will dwindle. Maybe some of our politicians should get their heads out of the sand. The market doesn't solve all problems, that's why we have anti-trust laws in place.
Seriously though, isn't anyone else just amazed by Microsoft's gall?
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
That would just be tit-for-tat. Forrester Research has already concluded that Linux/J2EE causes colon cancer
Just throw OpenBSD onto a box, with all incoming ports (even ssh) firewalled off, and just a web browser and email client, maybe IM as well. Make it so that those apps are the only ones that may be run by the user, don't give him a home directory, don't give him any drives except a read-only flash device, close off all outgoing ports except those needed for web and email, close off all UDP, don't allow user programs (not even Java applets), don't allow for reception of attachements beyond textual ones, weld the box shut.
While it's technically possible to break the box open and mess with it, it should be immune to viruses and trojans. Spam is another matter of course, but disallowing the posting of an email address on a form might help.
If you still want to buy it, I can get you some.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Either way, it might be 5 years before Microsoft introduces what OSS systems should have in wide use in about a year with ReiserFS and maybe others (guesstimate; corrections appreciated).
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Gimme a break. While I don't doubt that MS thinks that killing FS compatibility with other OS's is perfectly fine, I think the idea that the sole purpose of moving to a relational FS is to kill such compatibility is a little tinfoil hat-ish.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
you can shop and buy music in windowsmedia 9 right now, now you know why EU cracked down
2006 - 2004 = 2 idiot.
Ballmer: "Yes, YES! The same black comb which helps cover my baldspot! We'll simply comb over our security issues with obscurity!"
Gates: "Brilliant!"
New Guy: "But sirs, we can see Mr. Ballmer's baldspot. It blinded half the staff at the softball game."
Ballmer: "The folks from New Dehli love my full head of hair."
New Guy: "Brilliant!"
...how are they trying to outflank Apple?
i'm using win2k probably on NTFS and symlinks work just fine. JUNCTION.EXE is what i use.
Unfortunately, entirely in Hindi.
So...no grandiose new filesystem, no newer purty interface...
other than incremental improvements to their media player software, what's improved about this new OS?
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
I for one welcome the news that WinFS will be more than two years away. In the meantime, Linux/*BSD/etc. will have a chance to better refine those NTFS drivers, which combined with such long delays and feature-cuts in Longhorn, may be at least one nail in MS domination's coffin.
Or here's to hoping.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. -Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
I would not worry about it. WIN/FS is not an fs at all. It is nothing more then a meta database, system service. Its only a file system in terms of marketing speak. As far as how data is stored on the disk it is just NTFS, nothing new. There is no reason why it could not be implemented on Linux or any other operating system. The only reason it won't work on fat is you need some file system features like extended artibutes so you can flags files to facilitate sorting them with the meata database. Actually if you did someting like UMSDOS does and kept an external data file and then just hid it with the driver then you could implement on a less advanced file system. So in short WINFS is nothing more then additional bloatware that most people won't use and those who do will missuse to the point where it becomes entirely useless and only creates more overhead on the system.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
thanks doj for being vigilant.
That as this grows longer and more complex, Windows will become harder to use than Linux, where today:
1. Patches are very few
2. Firewalls are often installed by default (Lindows, Xandros)
3. Mail attachments are safe (can't catch Win32 viruses)
4. Other attachments are safe (can't catch Office macro viruses)
5. P2P is safe (can't catch... etc.)
Actually, it's already easier to use Linux than Windows. Excellent reason to switch!
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I tried to get a startup off the ground last year, and failed partly because our product had features that were going to be in Longhornn. "Longhorn will be out in 2005, how will you compete"? Sigh...
Well. NTFS already support symbolic links. At least hard links. Also it support file streams and sparse files. Quite nice if only there were more applications that support it.
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Oh, that and "Windows Stable." That's the one that 1) doesn't crash every day, and 2) doesn't leak memory so badly that you have to reboot every day. Otherwise, Win 2K/XP turns that nice P4 into a 386.
You say this now. But when MS focus on something...and I mean really focuses on something, they nail it to the wall.
Disagree with me all you want, but it doesn't make it any less true.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
I've heard all these "ooh, media player tied to online stores=product tying=illegal." or "ooh, this shows MS doesnt care about antitrust lawsuits."
/. bias at work again.
Doesnt itunes come with every computer purchased with MacOSX? And doesnt itunes, by default, have ITMS (iTunes music store) capability?
So how is MS now including WMP any different than apple always including Itunes+ITMS? It seems like its just the
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
what will MS Office do in 2010 that it doesnt do now ? (apart from work that is)
MS have enough trouble persuading companies right now to use Office2004 there is only so much you can do with a glorified text editor
can you imagine how desperate they are gonna be in 2010 ?, unless of course they come up with some serious innovation which isnt really MS's strong point
Eh, you're right... I was getting into the spirit of slashdot I suppose. You know, it kind of rubs off on you...
Short answer: it won't shut out interoperability with Linux because then it would also shut out interoperability with older versions of Windows.
I have a beta copy of Longhorn running here on a desktop. WinFS is running on the My Documents portion of the drive, and I can still share this as normal over the network without problems from both other Windows boxes and my Redhat box. Incidentally, at one point WinFS was slated to only run under My Documents, so I was actually more surprised to see that a full OS-wide implementation of it was still on the cards. Suffice to say that my experience of its current implementation has been very good - it definitely is an improvement over current filing systems, especially regarding search operations.
If you want more info on it, there's a Windows Media file here which goes into some detail about WinFS, how it works and its pros and cons.
I attempted to get a group of admins to use them to make two bickering departments happy about file locations and they basically laughed at me (^)...using shortcuts instead as "good enough".
This, btw, did not settle the arguments since neither liked shortcuts and still "couldn't find anything".
(^. I would feel insulted or take them seriously, though the same admins thought it was OK to use the default database admin account name and the default -- *blank* -- password on the primary image database server. It only processed 50,000 checks up to and beyond $100,000 USD, so maybe they were right to not bother with a password -- such trivial amounts after all. :-/ )
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Does this mean that Microsoft is embracing the Unix Philosphy? I think I feel faint.
Happy people make bad consumers.
"...which will include a new version of the infamous Windows Media Player."
Shouldn't biased opinions and criticism only be present in readers comments ?
____
nico
Nico-Live
What this means is that the next version of Office will not use the new Avalon API's for creating Windows using XML -- XAML.
XAML-based applications will require the Avalon subsystem, which will only be in Longhorn and beyond.
What they're saying is that the UI for the next version of Office will continue using the current API-set.
They have never focused on security and won't, until it affects the bottom line. When people quit buying due to the compleate lack of security, they might pay attention. Until then, not a chance. It has to make a difference in their profit statement to get more than lip service.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Maybe an article says that...though the one linked doesn't mention WinFS.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
IBM got dinged for doing this back in its anti-trust days for the first several years of my employment with them, they lived with a superstitious dread of pre-announcing any features prior to the release date of the product. When I was working in their support center, we were instructed to never ever talk about upcoming versions of the products for any reason. I'd love to see the DOJ slap Microsoft with a similar restriction.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oh wait, this is Microsoft we're talking about here.</snark>
And what do you think of that statement in the document that they were going to have the new version of Office require Microsoft Longhorn?
I will never use an office suite after Office 2000.
Is it only me, or that sounded like "adding Clippy in Lorghorn"?
:)
Maybe I used Office too much
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
So when WinFS does get on the network, will linux be able to recognize it? What will become of Samba?
/.ers reading this who I conversed with in a post a while back, I am now planning to mix Linux/*BSD boxes with my Windows boxes in our desktop environment. We'll see, if I can get Unix to sync easily with Samba and vice versa, my family's home network (used for school, work, and a whole lot more) could shift a bit more towards *nix.
Samba will continue. Not everyone will upgrade to Whistler or Blackcomb. Remember, Microsoft is STILL! trying to push users off Windows 95, 98, and NT, and it's already been several years since XP was released. Imagine the uphill battle in several years to get businesses off 2000...
This seems like a not so sneaky move by Microsoft to shut out interoperability between linux and windows platforms.
So what? Microsoft Windows Professional (2000/XP) and NT Workstation/Server, as far as I know, have generally included downgrade options. So in 2006, build your next PC with an OEM license for "Whistler" (just get the Pro edition) and use your Windows 2000 media.
Read the OEM EULA. Note that this does not apply to retail versions unless you do volume licensing with Microsoft.
Same goes for Server versions, if you're into that kind of thing. I, however, for one, have given up on Windows servers and have moved to Linux/Samba already. Reason: Microsoft may say the TCO for Windows is much lower than Linux, but they neglect all the other software you need to buy for Windows to make it actually do something (antivirus, mail server, more antivirus, defrag programs, database servers, and so forth).
The biggest mistake that can be made is to use the Home version of Windows. It not only is a crippled version of the Professional version (at least, when you define crippled as having certain features, e.g., logging in to a network), but it doesn't have any downgrade rights AT ALL.
I don't know anything about the WinFS network formats, and if they will include the ability of backwards compatibility with other OS types on the network.
If Microsoft all of a sudden turns off backwards compatibility, businesses will cry foul. If Windows isn't backward compatible, then what's the point of keeping it on a corporate network?
Either businesses will stick to their "legacy" Windows 2000 and XP or begin migrating to other platforms. I can envision the former in many small businesses without dedicated techs and the latter in larger corporations.
---
Offtopic, if there are
Oh, I see, that's a 3rd party tool, and the FS only supports symlinks for dirs (and it most probably does not go through SMB) :)
Well, there's room for improvement
Real life is overrated.
No one on the ever diligent /. site called Mr. Gates on his statement that Longhorn was not on a "schedule". He said that the features of Longhorn were too important to be put on a schedule and that it would ship when everything was ready and not before.
Cutting this stuff flies in the face of that statement by Mr. Gates and no one is pointing it out!
The Registry has access permissions on different parts of it. They are set on a user basis.
If I try to run software that updates the registry and _I_ don't have access to that part of the registry, then I can't update it - much the same as with the file system.
My Journal
I predicted that when first Longhorn rummors started. (i think about 2 years ago)
/. karma is not) I will be moded as troll again
At that time I predicted that instead of Longhorn there will be patched XP SE (ok, this one is reloaded)
And while M$ still won't be able to keep schedule, Longhorn will be semi finished (when comparing with M$ promises), The most vital functions will be moved to something called Longhorn SE, which will be released instead of Blackcomb (this one will be dalyed for the reason of not being able to keep promises). When Blackcomb will be released there will be missing some key features.
Ok, I'm not a prophet I know. It's just M$ practice of doing bussines troughout the M$ history, making promises and not keeping them
p.s. That time I was moded as troll, I bet all my karma (money is expensive,
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
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Having this over network would be completely insane for most situations too.
So are you saying that designing a filesystem for a heterogeneous networking environment is insane? Or that trying to use this new FS in that environment is insane?
With many servers not upgrading to this file sharing would have to support the old version anyway so that corporate environments could function without upgrading everything
Backward compatibility is not a new issue. Everyone else manages to solve this. Why do you seem to believe that Microsoft can't?
I don't see a compelling reason for the existance of this "upgrade" other than to feed the M$ coffers and lock in a steady revenue stream for them. The main features seem to be:
Actually maybe there is one new, useful feature. Or did Microsoft stop trying to catch up to the 15-20 year old idea of having multiple shared-library/DLL versions on the same system?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Wonder if it'll just end up being a service pack for XP?
megaphone
okay I lied there is some text. The poster provides a valid rebuttal towards the story's text.
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http://tinyurl.com/stop TinyURL.com is psychic!
I chose to use W2K Pro (luser, I know) rather than XP because of some poorly-defined talk about XP requiring authorization. And some other talk about problems when swappping out hardware. Was this ever true or just FUD?
This version will have the ability to shop at on-line stores like the one MS plans to launch later this year.
What? Now I have to pay for viruses?!
How many times does it have to be said!
Apple does not have a monopoly status!
Microsoft has a monopoly status!
When you have a monopoly the rules change! You cannot use your monopoly status to "sell"/push your other products!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
MS destroy companies by getting everybody to play in their backyard and then changing the rules. Other companies help by moving their preimer software to MS (sometimes even only supporting MS). Real is a good example of this. They made available their jukebox only on MS. Likewise, they then made their free download to difficult to find. Corel did that, as has AOL.
To stop that, Apple and others need to expand who they support, not limit it. A good example is that Apple currently limits download to Apple and Windows. Yet, they have been cracked so you can unencrypted. Others simply go to MS only.
When MSN starts the downloads as part of its' service and only connected to XP II, they will make it hard for others to exists.
If apple and other download companies were smart, they would make sure that they offered download to Linux (and possibly other Unixes) as well. In doing so, They make themselves invaluble to some percentage, possibly even forcing MSs plans to change.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So, with so much less in it, is it actually worth getting longhorn? By the time longhorn is out, it could be just a couple of years until blackcomb, so why not wait?
Is there anything really new that's still going to be in longhorn?
Curious how perceived "anti-Microsoft" comments get moderated down so quickly.
My comment was a serious one, ceertainly not a troll or flamebait yet gets marked as such.
Moderation as a tool for censorship? Interesting.
It bears repeating: Windows' greatest weakness today is its security. Assigning this observation to the dustbin does not make it less true.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I dropped any long term agreements years ago, and always buy retail boxes.
It just made more financial sense for the long term, and no more 'forced upgrades' ( which always involved new hardware too due to the extra resource drain ) when your grace period is over.
I can use what i *bought* until hell freezes over.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Achille Talon
Hop!
OT, I always that it funny that trade pubs used graphics and maps of Cairo, Egypt to illustrate stories about that release. Cairo, Illinois, USA is of course about halfway between Chicago (code name for Windows 95) and Memphis, Tenn. (another release that I don't think ever happened).
sPh
I think it's good that they're scoping out features. This will allow the developers to concentrate on making the existing codebase actually work, rather than squandering resources to cram in a feature that works like ass and is rife with security holes.
I very much doubt that the features are really being dropped so that their poor bloody developers can actually try to fix things: I think it is far mor likely that they have finally had the realisation beaten into them that there is *no* *frickin'* *way* that they can make all this stuff work together, and they are being forced to cut their losses just to plan to get something out the door at an acceptably early point in time...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
that MS has figured out how to "bolt on" security with XP Service Pack 2 - why can't the rest of the world figure out how to implement security the easy way - by bolting it onto the outside, rather than the hard way, designing it into the inside?
Of course, it's possible that MS has a different definition for "security" than the rest of the world, much lke it's unique meaning for the word "innovation." Something akin to "Shiny, with more sales."
They are the stereotypical parents. mid 50s, like to get jokes from friends in email, like pictures in email, browse and buy online, etc. Linux can do all that without them knowing the difference.
Problem is Dad, he is an old school aerospace engineer, programmed in punchcards in college, yada yada, has been in upper management for nearly 20 years now. However he needs (or thinks he needs) MS Word for business compatibility between different companies. It's a mental thing, he wants to know that people will see what he types in a way that he intends. He had Corel Wordperfect for a while, but it had incompatibilities that he visually noticed. I know, PDF is named PDF for a reason, but he doesn't know how to make one, let alone allow other people revise a PDF he makes.
What I'm considering for them is a two computer setup, maybe with a switch to share the same monitor/keyboard/mouse, such that the windows machine is not allowed to make connections with anything but the linux machine. Let them use windows for "content creation" if they absolutely need to, and have a shared file system that they could use to grab files while in linux and attach them as needed. This way, they have fewer virus threats in windows, reduced only to files recieved and copied from linux to the shared filesystem. Those files can be scanned in windows easily though, or something. It's one more step they need to take to get the task done, but it's better than another couple hours spent trying to talk them through a security problem over the phone, which wastes both their time and mine, and they get very frustrated easily.
Just say no to upgrading to Longhorn!
WinFS isn't a "new file system." It's a service on top of NTFS. In addition, as pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, it will be in Longhorn and simply won't work for network shares (big deal). I wouldn't be surprised if it was a feature added in a service pack anyway.
The summary says "already delayed" even though Longhorn has never had an official release date, ever. They were targetting late 2005, then switched to early 2006. Gasp. But on Slashdot, that translates to "vaporware," as I've actually heard some people calling it.
All the vitriol toward this thing is really, really funny. Meanwhile, the technology is amazing, and if you've been following the MSDN videos you'd see the very, very cool stuff they're doing, and you can't help but wonder what Linux desktops will offer in response (or OS X for that matter, though OS X has a leg up in so many other areas I doubt Apple really gives much of a crap about Longhorn).
published here previously, forgot the link.
TUX: I only ask to say what I've come to say, after that, do what you want and I won't try to stop you.
Deus Ex x86 Chipset: Speak. TUX: The program 'Clippy' has grown beyond your control. Soon he will spread through this OS as he spread through the Previous versions of Windows. You cannot stop him, but I can. DEUS Ex x86 Chipset: We don't need you. We need nothing. TUX: If that's true, then I've made a mistake and you should send a license fee to SCO now. DEUS Ex x86 Chipset: What do you want? TUX: Peace.
Indeed. This is truly a dramatic shift in Microsoft corporate policy.
I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
You could submit a story that Microsoft causes cancer
Is proved that use MS products produce brain cancer. You need a check as soon as posible.
Apple OWNS i-tunes ( AFAIK ) to expand a company's market share .. You are allowed to push your own products...
The thing Microsoft is talking is locking in with OTHER vendors, to expand a monopoly...
That's a different sort of issue. One is illegal, the other isn't.
Remember too, that the rules of business change when you are CONVICTED of being a monopoly.. or at least they are supposed to.. seems nothing is being enforced..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
thanks for this comment. It prompted me to look at the current Reiserfs website which has a really interesting writeup on how Reiserfs 4.0 is implemented. Its a little offbeat but very relevant.
Seriously. Back in the days of NT 3, they were talking about the searchable database/filesystem as planned for "Cairo". Cairo eventually became NT 4, which certainly didn't add anything as spiffy as a database-filesystem.
Since then, they've talked about this feature for every single release of the NT family.
It's a mirage, receding into the distance faster than you approach it.
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
I am going to be getting a new computer (laptop) in the next couple of months and since M$ keeps changing it's release date for longhorn I am just going to go ahead and get an apple / OS X. Longhorn will be good but I just cant wait this long...
2010 - 2005 = 5.
2010: 'full-featured file system' at end of decade (2009), add in a couple quarters of slippage and it gets pushed to 2010.
2005: A year from now when ReiserFS has what is promoted in the 'full-featured file system'.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
So however many years later NTFS still isn't supported by Linux, I got no idea how long it'll take for thiks winfs to be reverse-engineered. And perhaps by the time it's being worked out the standards of software revers-engineering may become as stringent as they are in hardware. (I've yet to hear of any project open or closed using the 3-team method that AMD's said to have used to develop their chips.)
But:
Obviously I can't speak for all IT shops, but here's my experience of one lage one where I'm contracting:
20,000+ desktops; lab computers; production-floor computers. The most recent version of windoze used is Win2k, they strip XP off of brand-new Thinkpads and install their own version. 99% of client systems are still running Office97. They're just beginning to roll out Active Directory (and the AD test servers died flat/dead/need rebuild between converting 2 different areas of R&D).
And this is a shop that's hook, line and sinker a Microsoft shop.
Iff the clients don't use/deploy WinFS, will it be relevant?
I don't know the answer but it is gonna be interesting to see.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
This is vapourware in action, people. They promised all these features, businesses all over the world held off on switching to other platforms because "Windows will have these cool features soon", and now the next version still won't have the features.
Remember when Microsoft said that Windows 95 would be ultra-stable because it was 32-bit and had memory protection? Actually, come to think of it, wasn't the last three versions of Windows supposed to have something similar to WinFS?
You don't want DRM? Then you don't want WinFS. Embedded in that is the ability for authors to determine who gets to see the files, and how many times. I will avoid WinFS like the... the... well, like it was Windows!
Funny, but as I recall the main information on the business systems was data, not music and videos.
I think that really depends on what business you are in.
I'll launch Windows Media Player 5-10 times a day for work.
I might launch Excel, or even the calculator, once every 6 months or so.
Some people work in industries where music and videos ARE the business, and they ARE the data. And those businesses need DRM in order to make their business viable in the digital age.
Now if people actually paid for what they use, it would be a different story. But some people are under the impression that since they borrowed a CD from a friend, and copied that CD to their computer, it is now THEIR data. Without any regard to the effort and talent that went into creating the music. So the choice is- make it harder for these people to copy the data, or hope that they have a change of heart, and start to pay up.
I don't see a long line of people waiting to pay up...
No reason to lie.
they're just doing what OSX, Gnome and KDE have had for at least a year now. (although with DirectX, great.....)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I think the growing popularity of Linux in the server market, and over the next 2 years or so in the desktop market too, is a big part of that decision...
I think your mom was a big part of that decision too...
In a Mar. 4 e-mail to Windows workers, Vice-President Joe Peterson broke the news: "I think we all recognize that we need to turn the corner on Longhorn,"
Perhaps something interesting took place the day before in a courthouse in Utah, and Microsoft realized that the clock was really ticking down.
Texas Aggie War Hymn
I mean the other question 2.
Windows expert _and_ proofreader on Slashdot. Imagine that!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I like your sig.
But to the point. I'm not saying they *will* focus on security. What I'm saying is when they do focus on something they keep at it until it is solid.
So, let say hell froze over and MS wanted to make a super-secure OS... They would nail it. That is what I'm saying.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
just lopping off the extra hangy bits.
I bought my Apple iBook yesterday.
*twitch*
revolutionary features that we might want to use: pushed back!
unecessary "features" (restrictions and shopping tie-ins) that nobody asked for?: coming soon!
What does it take to get software written?
Software engineers.
What does it take to get software engineers?
Cash money.
What does Microsoft have more of in its bank account than any other company on Earth?
Cash money.
What does America have millions of now that India has learned to code?
Unemployed software engineers.
What did Microsoft get when Bush became President?
A big "job-creation" tax cut.
What are Microsoft not doing even though they have a desperate need and a mandate from the nation?
Creating jobs.
Is anyone else wondering just what that tax cut was really for? Is anyone else wondering just what Microsoft is really for? Is anyone ever going to vote for these guys or give Microsoft any monopolistic slack again?
are they clipping Clippy?
"Microsoft is STILL! trying to push users off Windows 95, 98, and NT"
This is a really good point for those worried about compatibility. As far as I understand it, Longhorn(or whatever the real name will be) will require higher hardware specs than Win 9.x or even XP. A lot of people will keep upgrading their hardware like normal, but I think there are a bunch of useful machines out there that won't get tossed out. I'm not sure a 3D interface and a new file system will compel most businesses to invest in all new hardware. There are many people who just need basic word processing and email for work. I think WinXP and the 9.x's will be around for quite a bit. Longhorn probably won't be the "killer app" that gets people to upgrade like Windows 95 was.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
Euphimism for anti-trust maneuver
I doubt it... just look at the mess with IE. They will "embrace and extend" until the competition is negligable or non-existant and then go back to their old ways
If they're not going to be releasing the next version of Windows until 2006 they're giving Linux a VERY BIG chance of overtaking them on the desktop. Just look how far Linux has come on in the last couple of years especially in respect to the desktop GUI and GUI configuration tools. I think MS has driven a very big nail into their coffin by giving Linux another two years to play catchup.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
> Now if people actually paid for what they use, it would be a different story
Yeah, its a shame that last year was such a banner year for the music industry. CDs sell plenty. I have difficulty seeing how the industry is being hurt when they're making more money than ever. If there was actually a drop in sales in the last few years that didn't correlate exactly with the general economic downturn there might be something to those lies.
The problem is that while trying to eliminate a "piracy" problem that doesn't really exist ("Yarrrrr!"), they're making it more difficult to legally use the music one purchases.
blog
Microsoft's filesystem work sounded like it was going to finally be the first really good thing to come out of the company in decades. I know, I know, some other OSes have actually already been there, and there was no reason to believe Microsoft would get the idea "right" anyway, and that it wasn't just a strategy to block interoperability.
Those things don't matter, though. Longhorn's filesystem was going to popularize filesystem innovation, which means the Linux dudes would have to copy them in order to keep from feeling inadequate. Then desktop UIs would start to appear that take advantage of new filesystem capabilities. The upshot was that there was a hope, that I might finally get a computer that is fundamentally better than what was around in the 1980s.
Now the revolution has been postponed. Oh well.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No, you mean fewer features.
Less is used with a singular, e.g. "less sugar".
Fewer is used with a plural, e.g. "fewer people who can't spell".
--
Grammar Nazi
Bzzzt, wrong.
h tml)
If you simply open a mail right now - a maliciously created one - you can have code run as your user. (http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA04-099A.
No AV signature.
No patch available.
No need to click on an attachment.
Firewalls don't block it.
No need to download it with p2p.
Windows is NOT secure - the design choices they made remove the seperation between data and functional code, removes the seperation between priveldged user and non-priv, and as a result, its just a matter of WHEN the vulnerabilities are found.
You listed ways to mitigate the insecurity - doesnt change the fact that it IS insecure.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
"Later this year, it (MSFT) plans to begin a new marketing campaign, dubbed internally as Windows XP Reloaded."
Sounds appropriate... incredible special effects, which turn out to be mere bells & whistles to make up for the lack of substance. Brilliant!
"We are the first generation to influence the climate and the last generation to escape the consequences." - John McCain
"The changes also affect Microsoft's plan to make the next version of its Office software work only on Longhorn. The new plans call for that Office package to work on previous versions of Windows as well.
Windows leaders are meeting through the middle of April to make the hard decisions about which specific features to cut from the operating system."
Only Microsoft would call that a feature.
WTF!
So it is ok to break the law, as long as it is good for the economy?
It has nothing to do with with the "current administration" or even the elections this fall.
Sure it does! You made the argument yourself. The administration is neglecting the law because a bad economy would hurt their chances of being re-elected!
SteveM
But some people are under the impression that since they borrowed a CD from a friend, and copied that CD to their computer, it is now THEIR data.
I am under that impression. As far as I am concerned, the situation you describe is fair use.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
You're probably correct, but you're assuming that Microsoft wouldn't go as far as to release software for older versions of Windows to allow WinFS compatibility.
There are purposes for DRM that do not include preventing you from using your media as allowed by fair use. While the primary use will be to abuse the consumer, there will be other purposes, like protecting documents for example. (Since people have demonstrated their unwillingness to use cryptography which uniquely identifies a person, locking the file to a given PC is the next best thing.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, god forbid they should continue innovating to improve their products, and provide patches to older products to maintain compatibility.
Have you noticed that Microsoft, like every company in the world:
1 - Needs to keep improving products?
2 - Is under no obligation to support competing products?
Dumbass troll.
Thanks for the informative reply; I hope you get the mod points it deserves.
It seems that the 3rd party apps put MS in a tough spot.
Apps can, and should, have more registry protections than they currently do, in line with good modular design. Like maybe one registry per app, plus a common "system" registry that is off-limits to all but the most trusted apps.
So do you see MS being able to satisfy backward compatibility with a more effective registry scheme?
Microsoft's Windows XP Premium will be guaranteed to be as much of a failure that the Media Center Edition has been (No one is selling it and not one wants it). Microsoft has the amazing ability to fuck up products by giving them goofy names that no one understands or gives a fuck about and there by diluting the brand at the same time. They did it with .Net (.Net was given to every single fucking product they had until after two fucking years the brainless fucks at MS marketing realised that "D'uh, the customers are gettin pissed and confused") and they're doing it with XP as well (XP Pro, Home, Tablet Edition, Media Center Edition, and now fucking Premium). The fucking lazy , stupid and greedy marketing wankers at Microsoft need to be taken away from their positions and shot.
That's either the most misguided thing I've ever heard, or else...
Nevermind. I just remembered that this was Slashdot.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Yeah, because it's totally obvious that somebody should be paid over and over and over for something that they only did the work to create once. People should be paid for providing goods or services, not because they think they "deserve it".
Shouldn't biased opinions and criticism only be present in readers comments ?
You're new here, aren't you?
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
For the average workplace, most employees are not using XP. It's just too expensive to upgrade. Espically since a good deal of jobs need nothing more than 98 or 2000. And upgrading to XP means many of those pentium 2 200mhz boxen chugging along fine with Windows98 will need new hardware. But it really just comes down to cost. Upgrading a thousand boxes at an insane cost just for pretty cartoony icons? It's simply not worth the cost.
Some people work in industries where music and videos ARE the business, and they ARE the data. And those businesses need DRM in order to make their business viable in the digital age.
Anyone with good sound cards and a second computer can use it to record what they play back on their first, which after a single analog step gives them a digital copy with better quality than most of the (128kbps) MP3s on the net. There is no technological way to prevent this: if it can be heard or seen, it can be recorded digitally, and once one person records it in an unencrypted digital format it's just as easy to spread around as if it had never been in an encumbered format at all.
If your business model really requires impenetrable DRM to be viable, you probably ought to find a new one before spending too much money on snake oil.
I do not see a good reason to upgrade my XP box to longhorn. To me it looks about as important upgrase as from 98 to ME would have been. I never ran ME we went to 2000 in my office.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Seriously, who makes up these retarded names for MS operating systems? A password generator concatenating two random words? You would think at least one person would be reviewing them before announcing them publicallly.
At least Apple can have a consistent series of Big Cat names that sound somewhat cool. I can't wait to see what comes after Blackcomb.. My suggestions (MS, contact me for licensing details):
turtlefreak
rumpledog
crunchopolis
polaroid-hamper
diseasefinger
goromastic
creamybreath
energybiscuit
It's hilarious how they're assuming their DRM will work... well, in order for it to work, people have ot use it. No one wants to use DRM!
Hehe, silly Microsoft trying to help the ??AA.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Says the Linux guy running KDE with a taskbar, Start menu, sidepanel, similar print dialog, integrated net browser/file browser, etc.
:P
Innovating the old-fashioned Linux way--ripping things off then criticizing the company that came up with the ideas.
True enough, but most businesses do not need DRM, because they are not in the music/TV/video/etc. industries. So what do these customers want, and why isn't Microsoft releasing a product that addresses the needs of the vast majority of their customers? I see two possibilities: 1) there really isn't much else that their customers need; they're happy with Windows the way it is, or 2) MS is putting its interests ahead of its customers' interests (which it can do because it is a monopoly -- most companies can't get away with this). Now which do you think is more plausible?
I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
I have every right to do just that! It's perfectly legal for one(here in Canada), and secondly, I pay for it with media levy's.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
I always though of a flanking manuver as being a subtle advance around on opponent to find a weak spot. Sounds to me like they're just firing up the ol' monopoly again to plow over some of the better alternatives.
umm... ok... you've just got done saying, in a very indirect way, that in this demand/supply based economy, there is no demand for the product at the price point it's offered. or else there would have been the demand, which would have resulted in the long line of people waiting to pay up. instead of artificially inflating the price up (by use of various other methods..) ummm... maybe the price should drop?! but what do i know? i just remember the demand/supply curve thing from high school economics.
It kinda reminds me of Copland.
fs
I presume Palladium will be there??
* Replacement of Win32 with .NET, even explorer.exe is running as managed code in the leaked betas. I can't even begin to list the advantages of this. .NET is great, and with Mono making great strides in the language specification, any language will be able to compile intermediate .NET code, and code from different languages will operate together without a care.
.NET compiler.
* Avalon--presentation system that is completely hardware-accelerated and vector-based. One video showed two Notepads rotating around while still completely usable at the same time a video played in Media Player. Old apps will be compatible.
* XAML and other technologies--I've said it before, but it was just such a cool example. During an MSDN video (freely available at the site), the dev used Win32 Emacs to write a 10-15 XAML app that let him update his blog, complete with resized vector graphics and a video of moving clouds looping on the background of the window, all using the command-line
* WinFS will still exist. They're just cutting a few features that will probably be re-introduced in a service pack anyway. WinFS is incredibly exciting--one WinFS dev went to the command line and did a query for certain employees within the last week, and it came up in less than a second. No more brute-force searching. Also, no file drives. And yet, they're retaining folder and drive structures in case you want to operate that way.
* Aero--this is their top-secret interface yet to be unvieled. See, Longhorn has multiple tiers of visual operation. If you can't handle the effects, it scales back to a lesser tier, going all the way down to an unaccelerated 2D inteface like that of Windows 2000. Aero is the top tier and is supposed to be, according to them, "photorealistic" and will be a new interface for Windows taking advantage of 3D acceleration. They said they don't want to reveal any of it until release because they fear it will be ripped off by competitors (a fair judgment considering all the ripped-off Start menus and taskbars on standard Linux desktops...).
* Christ, man, there's more, but I'll get accused of being a Microsoftie even more than the trolls already do, so I'll stop.
...A dig at microsoft,
... and a gag about outsourcing...all in the same joke...you sir are a new /. idol! ;o)
Ridicule of Steve Ballmer...
I am NaN
Uhhhh...
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
You're obviously not a software engineer.
0 1835959/qid=1081531632/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-4730 478-7184031?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).
Throwing people at a late software project only makes it later. The classic reference on this is still Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/02
Actually NTFS supports both hard links for files (using the fsutil utility) and symbolic links for directories (using SysInternals Junction utility).
grown ups don't say "Suck balls"
WIth microsoft embracing any kind of idea that is somewhat popular into his os, and most other companies outsourcing, what future do people have as programmers in the us?
actually it is perfectly legal to do this in here in switzerland
i don't believe in rewarding everything someone does
if there where more people doing things just for the sake of doing them, the world would be a better place
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
all the other software you need to buy for Windows to make it actually do something (antivirus, mail server, more antivirus,
Most anti virus programs I know of strongly recommend that you don't install two anti virus programs onto the same OS, as one might mistake the other's viral definition files as actual viruses.
Windows already lets you have multiple versions of a DLL on your system. Because they have the same names (though there are different MFC DLLs for different versions) they must be stored in separate directories. The one that is loaded is the first one in your path. Can we please move on now?
Uh, no? As you may or may not have understood, the grandparent is referring to the ability for each application to automatically load the DLL versions it needs to operate properly. This is a simple matter of a bit of operating support for version management: modern UNIXes do it fine. Oddly, they do this by (1) having the version be part of the filename, so that you can store shared library versions in a common directory, and (2) having the shared library loader intelligently select an appropriate version based on what the application requests. Not rocket science, but not in Windows either AFAIK.
Well that's exactly why slashdot become a magnet for idiots. Many of them, including the editors are nothing but bunch of monkies.
This security stuff is still just Marketing and PR speak. It's simply a way to try to force the masses to shell out lots of cash to buy their latest bloatware, and to make suits feel like Microsoft is working to improve security.
They wanted the next version of Office to only work on Longhorn. Hmm, that sounds like just one more tactic to force people to shell out cash to buy their latest OS. They've kept incompatibility as a club for their sales staff to beat users with, and have now added security hype as another big stick.
OS X - 1 trojan every 3 years is a track record I can live with.
Yeah, but that's exactly why people don't use Linux. Often we have stupid people on the Linux side saying that they shouldn't be using computers because computers need a special license. That's your argument, however we software engineers think that we passed the stage where an average c programmer is considered to be the programmer. So, you have to learn a lot about computers before posting your thoughts. It is true that, your posts get 4-5 insightful points here, but that's mostly because slashdot is known to be a magnet for idiots. So, actually it is a shame for you that you get 4 points, that only shows in fact how stupid you truly are.
So, at least they'll get their answer to anti-virus protection workaround in place soon. That should start a whole new slew of lawsuits from the security companies going this year. I have the feeling that Symantec and McAfee will go after MS after they release this Springboard thing. At the very least we'll see Zone Labs going after them, I would expect, seeing as how Springboard is a virtual duplication of their software.
More AntiTrust suits around the corner.
You're not one of those Americans who insist on saying "tidbit" instead of "titbit" are you?
No, biased opinions and criticism should be wherever the site owners want to put them. Get over it Microsoft whore
Isn't that what BillGatus said back around the time of Win98/ME?...
2006 - 2001 = 5 years
5 yrs x 12 months = 60 months..
methinks they're a lil behind schedule..
Those old versions of Windows won't be around long because the Product Activation feature will prevent them from living.
for every product in EVERY software company. First PMs get together and throw a bunch of requirements at developers. Developers do some preliminary investigations and proof-of-concept work and estimate how long it will take them to write the damn things. Management multiplies this by 2 and that's how long it will take to test them. Then all of this is put into one big-ass schedule which usually in its first cut takes three times longer than it should. Then PMs and developers look at the schedule and remove non-critical pieces from it until the product becomes shippable in a reasonable timeframe. After all said and done this schedule will blow up 2 or 3 times in process and some more non-critical features will be cut, too. Heck, even some critical features may suffer.
The most important feature of every product is its shipping. You can have a perfect OS with all the features everyone wants, but if you haven't shipped it nobody gives a crap (and money either). You can cut back in two ways - on quality (which simply doesn't work for big projects because problems start stepping on each other's toes) and on features (which is what I believe is happening).
I will never use an office suite after Office 2000.
Really?
What's wrong with Openoffice.org?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
This is a bit offtopic, but where does one go to get said beta copy? I'm a bit curious to see exactly what Dollar Bill is cooking up.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Those who work on applications that use Message Oriented Middleware will know that MSMQ and Biztalk blow in terms of scalability and performance. If you don't need to supports lots of concurrent request/queries or heavy transactions, you're better off avoiding Biztalk and MSMQ. On the otherhand, if you really need scalability and performance, niether of them will work well. I can work, but not well and not as advertised.
With whidbey, MS is coming out with Object Persistence Layer called Object Spaces. Who wants to bet they will scrap that and delay it for after whidbey? OP layer/drivers aren't easy to write. Let alone write one that scales well, is flexible and integrates well all the major databases. In the mean time, most people will keep using third part object persistence drivers that work well.
I realize that being a virtual monopoly (Microsoft has a monopoly on Microsoft products and nothing else, but ok)
...unless you're just making light of the real situation, too. I sincerely hope you are.
Microsoft is a monopoly on much more than just 'Microsoft products.' I was having fun with this odd, light-weight banter about innovations and monopolies until this glaringly obvious point of confusion arose.
fs
And a 1, and a 2, and a...bris!
I don't see a long line of people waiting to pay up...
Could there be a clue ANY more clear than that? You practically said it yourself, you need to get into a new line of work.
I'm referring to the Windows server platform... where you have to buy antivirus for file serving and then antivirus for Exchange. Sometimes they also come integrated in small business packages.
Who's the jackass modding this crap?
Bulls-eye!
Unfortunately people are generally sheep. As Cake put it in Sheep Go to Heaven, "... goats go to Hell." Going against the grain makes you a goat. So if you don't support the monopoly, you're one of those unclean "free thinkers" and you must go directly to Hell. Do not collect $200, just grab your asbesdos suit and say hi to the Devil.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And I don't even mean that in an argumentative sense... I honestly can't tell what you are responding to.
Are you talking about "Windows Premium"? That's my first guess, since it contains the upgraded media player you mention. If so, you're argument doesn't seem to make sense. Windows Premium is not an "upgrade". You cannot "upgrade" your current OS to "Windows Premium". You can only get it on a new PC. Which means the only way this is feeding any coffers is if the new features drive sales of new computers that otherwise wouldnt have been sold (not likely).
Maybe you are referring to "Longhorn", which IS an actual upgrade that may create revenue. It will contain the upgraded file system you mention (which Windows Premium will not). If you think the goal of WinFS is to match some aged filesystem, you're only getting your MS information from Slashdot (hint: there are more reliable sources).
Longhorn is planned to be a dramatic new OS: a new presentation layer (not just a new color scheme), a new communication subsystem, and a new filesystem.
I guess it doesn't matter what you thought you were talking about, because either way, you have completely missed the mark.
(Obligatory Simpson's Quote)
That's from Episode [3F03] Lisa the Vegetarian.
You'll have to search for the quote. I think you'll get there pretty fast if you use 'he'd eat' as your string.
fs
WOW!!!
The entire My Documents section, they are indeed mine!
Try to lauch 5 copy processes of SINGLE LARGE files (isos, movies)
and 5 copy processes of FOLDERS with LOTS of SMALL files (kernel source dir would be fine)
then do the same on identical machine/hdd under linux 2.6
no matter how much vapour m$ pours at your drive, it will not make it faster!
From the article:
"XP Reloaded is designed to change that. It starts when Springboard ships and continues with a broad push to convince customers to use Microsoft's digital media technology. The company plans to release a new product, internally known as Windows XP Premium, that combines Windows XP Professional with an updated version of Windows Media Player. Premium will be available only on new PCs, not in boxes at retail. The new media player software lets online music stores -- including one that Microsoft plans to launch later this year -- snap right into the design, so that users can easily buy music from inside the player application."
So Microsoft thinks it wise to artificially limit its music store to only customers who buy new PCs with this new version of XP bundled. We all know Apple's business model for the iTunes Music Store is to push demand for their iPod. If this article is correct, Microsoft seems to think end users will be so desperate to use the Microsoft Music Store that they'll go out and buy new PCs. Fascinating. This is worthy of RIAA logic.
There are plenty of PC owners out there that strictly build their own PCs. They aren't going to go to the computer stores to buy branded PCs just to have the luxury to use the Microsoft Music Store. Just like with the Media PC scheme. There are probably a lot of users out there who would buy the "upgrade" if they didn't have to buy a whole new system. I believe this tactic was directly influenced by Apple, but the difference is, Microsoft is not Apple, even if one of the proxies is AlienWare. Its pretty pathetic that an end user has to use the *free* Linux operating system to use something like MythTV (and due note, I do not because I'm a TiVo supporter) since they don't have to go out and buy a whole new PC for similar functions via the OS. Come to think about that, the same goes for SMP support on x86 (or purchase Win2000 or WinXP Pro) or native Athlon64 support too.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
"Windows leaders are meeting through the middle of April to make the hard decisions about which specific features to cut from the operating system."
It's like a peacekeeping operation! The fate of the Windows operating system is at risk!
There's some deal where people who are members of msdn can get it for free. I'm not, so I don't have any more info than that.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
Yes they do. Usually in reference to your mom. ;-)
At which point I have a basis for a giant, company-shattering product liability suit. Yah, you sold me this piece of shit software, and on the day you discontinue support for it, the damn thing formats my hard drive, displays images of Bill Gates' ass and makes puckering noises. I want my money back, and treble damages for inciting me to commit suicide!!!
MFC DLLs are doing the proper thing. When you break binary compatibility, make a new DLL. Unfortunately, a lot of developers are braindead, and think it's a great idea to have 4 incompatible versions called foo.dll
Karma: Contrapositive
I have to elaborate on this...
One episode of South Park had the town trying to free a serial baby murderer. The judge asked "tell me one positive thing about killing babies." One of the kids answered "well, its easy."
Well yeah it probably is, physically, pretty easy. Babies are typically much smaller, weaker and more fragile than most adults. But that doesn't mean that everyone is going to go around killing babies. In fact almost no one does. Why not? Because its wrong. True its illegal, but even if it weren't people still wouldn't do it because its pretty cut-and-dry WRONG.
Likewise everyone has the capability to easily "steal" (as they like to say) music, whether or not there is DRM. Every DRM mechanism devised so far has been so trivially defeated that the industry looks foolish for trying. Yet the music industry thrives. Millions of people trade music on file sharing networks, but even no-talent hacks like Britney Spears and William Hung still sell massive quantities of CDs.
Its absurd. Go after the real "pirates" (whoever they are) using the existing and more than sufficient legal means. Price your products competitively so people can afford to buy them from you. But be realistic about it. Not everyone can afford to buy every CD at $15-a-pop. Friends share things. They always have, and they always will. Music and movies bring people together.
Build that into your business model and embrace it. Treat your customers right and your business will be viable way beyond the digital age.
blog
Well said from a technological standpoint, but I've always thought that the idea was just to prevent average joe user from doing things. Of course as long as the signal is usable, it can be recorded... but as long as 90% of the population can't do that, they've done their job.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
Way back in the day, companies used dongles to help enforce software license compliance. mm.. When was the last time you used a dongle, eh?
It's more expensive trying to fight the pirates than it is to just produce content. I challenge you to name a single (already viable, not starving) recording artist or software house that was driven into the ground because of piracy.
Pirates are people who wouldn't have paid for your shit anyway.
Which is a damn good point. If I could get digital copies of O'Reilly's books for $1 a pop, I would. But I can't, so Safari has to be good enough for me, and I have to hope that the resort in Jamaica has WiFi.
I can take my laptop anywhere. Taking my laptop + Internet + books necessary to do my job is tougher.
Longhorn isn't even in beta yet...how on earth could you have a copy of it?
"There are no such things as mutual fantasies. Yours bore us and ours offend you."
- Bill Maher
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-05-26
at the top of the page, the date shows about a week and a half from now!! this is a serious slashdot scoop!!
how can we play this to our advantage in the stock market?
They could, but until there is finacial reason, they won't. It's all about money, no morals allowed.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I don't know if it is so much as going back to their old ways, but just not focusing on that section anymore. So the inovation / coding becomes a little sloppy.
I know at my company when there is pressure to do things a certain way, they get done that way. If there is no pressure then people slack off and get sloppy, and no one says anything until it becomes a problem. Then we see a huge driver to improve quality again.
It is probably that way with a lot of companies...
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Let me finish that for you:
Naa naa naa...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've always thought that the idea was just to prevent average joe user from doing things... ...but as long as 90% of the population can't do that, they've done their job.
It only takes one person to break the DRM. As soon as that happens and the music is released online in non-DRM format then its over. Joe user doesn't need to know anything about breaking DRM or hooking digital outputs up to inputs and re-encoding. All they have to know how to do is open Kazaa and search for the tracks.
Even if all DRM on downloadable music was totally bulletproof it only takes one person to buy the cd, rip and share it. So not only do you need bulletproof DRM for downloadable music, you need it for cds as well. But then no-one buys your cds because they won't play in the car... or on your friends cd player which doesn't detect the latest DRM.... oh and when you put it in your Uncle's Mac it locks the cd drive so you have to call out a repair man.
Maybe you can arrest everyone who cracks the DRM or releases your music online, but by then it is too late. And you can bet your ass when the next generation of DRM comes out someone new will step up and crack that too. Once the music is out there it is freely available to anyone with basic computer skills no matter how great they told you the copy protection was when you bought it, its only effect now is to inconvenience everyone who bought the music legally. But then screwing the paying customers seems to be a standard business model these days.
> Longhorn probably won't be the "killer app" that gets people to upgrade
> like Windows 95 was.
Windows 95 wasn't either. Most folks didn't get it until they bought a
computer that came with it. A lot of people were still using Windows 3.1
(yes, really) as late as 1998 or 1999. (Admittedly, Windows 95 wasn't
readily available until early 1996, so that's only 2-3 years. Still, Win3.1
really sucked, and almost nobody cared.) DOS continued to be used even
*longer*, because of legacy DOS-based apps that wouldn't run properly in
Windows. These have been *very gradually* dying off, and at this point
*most* of them are dead, but DR-DOS is still selling a few copies, though
admittedly most of those copies might be running on VMWare or VirtualPC.
But as late as 1998, DOS was still almost as widespread as MacOS. Win95
was at that level in 2002 or so, and Windows 98 still will be in 2005.
If Longhorn comes out in January 2006 (which seems early to me), WinXP
will still be common as late as 2010 or 2011.
This sort of thing is not unique to Microsoft. I administer four Linux
systems (two at home, two at work); one of them is still running a 2.2
series kernel (hey, it works). At work, we have five Macs. One of them
is 8.1, two are 9.0, one is 9.1, and the newest one is 10.1.5 I think.
(We don't _just_ have Macs; it's a heterogenous network; we even have
one VMS system. We've not upgraded the VMS system since we bought it in
Fall of 2000, but I think 7.2 is still the current version.)
Heck, there are (a few) people out there still using Perl version 4.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
1. You only need a 3rd party tool for command-line support. The disk management mmc snap-in lets you do the same thing: right click on a volume and select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths'. (Actually, the drive letter itself is just a symlink to the device in the object manager namespace.)
2. Yes, it most certainly does work with SMB file sharing. Try it before you expect it not to work.
I just went to Whistler this year for my annual snowboarding vacation. (Had been doing Colorado previously.) A great place!
Until this posting. Now, when I'm wandering the streets, or eating at Mongolie grill, or riding down Horstman Glacier, I'll have this unsavory association with MS's long-awaited-now-castrated OS stuck in my brain!
I need therapy!
Imagine the uphill battle in several years to get businesses off 2000...
I have no plans to EVER upgrade to any other version of Windows from 2000. My next desktop change will be moving to a Linux-based platform.
I moved our NT4 server to a Linux/Samba system in January, and at that time, I made sure I did it in a way that made everything compatible with Linux workstations. It was a pretty seamless switch. The only thing the users notice now is that the network file shares respond faster.
I have totally given up on Windows. I've completely stopped caring at all. They can release Longhorn whenever the hell they want, it won't affect me at all. I've never even run XP on a system I own. What's the point?
Speak before you think
NTFS supports symlinks. The only problem is that there isn't anything in Windows to create them, so you need third party software.
m l#junction
One such program is http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.sht
I don't see a compelling reason for the existance of this "upgrade" other than to feed the M$ coffers and lock in a steady revenue stream for them.
Do you have the same feeling that I do, that other computer OS vendors enjoy putting more useful features into their OS? Hell, they even seem to enjoy the frivilous ones. Its like they care about the end users and moving technology forward. But Microsoft just doesn't care about anything but their revenue? It's just so frustrating. We could live in such a better world than we do, you know?
I'm not saying the others aren't in it for the money too, everyone's gotta eat, but the quality of motivation just seems different to me.
Windows Longhorn (beta) is brutal. We had a AMD 1400 with 512mb of RAM and it fucking CHUGGED. IE used over 100mb of RAM. Somthing aboutt he development librarys or somthing. It's a bloat piece right now and it's basicly Windows XP with some GUI enhancements. Nothing has been done to the core (that I noticed)
... we could acess the drive and such but could not acess the internet.
I also could not get the internet going. It refused to work and shows it on
It has ALONG way to go
Of course Suprnova.org should have a copy for you.
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
My error, I typed too fast - what I have is Longhorn milestone 6 build 4053, so it's technically an Alpha release, not a beta. (Incidentally, 4053 is the build from the original NT code tree, not from the start of Longhorn development.)
The reason I have it is - as someone else rightly pointed out - because I have an MSDN subscription (I have had for C~5 years now). I signed up a while back to do pre-release testing of various MS stuff: Everett, XP SP2, Whidbey, Yukon (MS SQL 2005) and Longhorn. I must admit it's kind of a buzz to try out stuff before it's available and I'm lucky enough to have the hardware and the impetus (I freelance and advise clients of upcoming software/hardware trends) to actually do it. As far as I know, it's not publicly available for download.
Just for the record, what I've seen so far has impressed me a great deal. There are some very neat things in there - probably too much to mention here, but you can check it out at Paul Thurrott's Site if you're interested.
I would feel insulted or take them seriously, though the same admins thought it was OK to use the default database admin account name and the default -- *blank* -- password on the primary image database server. It only processed 50,000 checks up to and beyond $100,000 USD, so maybe they were right to not bother with a password -- such trivial amounts after all. :-/
What company do you work for again? I have a withdrawl to make.
What build were you running?
I'm running build 4053 and I've not had many problems with it at all. The only chugging I've had which has really annoyed me was caused by the build running the Desktop Sidebar with a memory hole. Turning this off by default sorted that problem and now it runs pretty sweetly.
Hardware is a Dell 2400, 512MB RAM and a 2.4 Celeron.
That said, I'd agree, it does have a long way to go - and it will be interesting to see how the whole project pans out in the long run (no pun intended).
You could submit a story that Microsoft causes cancer...
Are you implying it actually doesn't???
The purpose of life is to find the purpose of life.
Keep in mind, obviously, to most users "eye candy" is essential. Do you ever try to do any image editing, or typsetting in DOS? WYSIWYG page layout is all eye-candy. However, there is no way that one could work in graphics quickly without it. Or without autmatic color correction. Or being able to fold/drag toolbars of preset pallets, which is more useless eyecandy, to some.
Of course, then there's alpha blending. Which allows a novice internet user (my gf) to navigate her desktop more easily, by making the dragged windows translucent. Yes, it's pretty, but it lets her do what she wants faster.
Productivity: I guess another bit of useless eyecandy has to be those table and drawing toolbars that appear when you've selected a table or drawing. I hate using those when I could be looking up keystrokes in a book, instead.
Media: I am so grateful for the On Screen Display of my keyboard's media functions. And highly detailed icons that actually let me distinguish between similar files.
So that's some ways that graphical wizz-bang goodies have made computing less excruciating for office, graphic and home use. Since there are about 50,000 other things that people do with computers, why is there always a bunch of people complaining about new things being added? There's still a command prompt you can choose run full screen, if winfile.exe is too frilly.
We were using Windows 3.1 on a 486 with 16Mb of RAM up until mid-1999.
Now, in 2004, we're using Pentium IIIs (Slot 1 variety), a couple of Athlon XPs, and several Dual Pentium II/III servers.
What a change in four and a half years.
-seaswahoo
I did the same thing, moved an NT4 Server to Linux and Samba, except I used Samba-TNG. Only real difference is that things are faster and the network isn't as sluggish (yes, NT was sluggish on a Dual Pentium III with Ultra160 SCSI). Oh, and nobody has to reboot the server any more.
-seaswahoo
Oh yeah, and don't forget to plan your RAM between disk cache and all the rest while throwing that BS* onto a poor box. Then don't allow to power it up and you're done even with worms hoping to deal with the rest of remotely expoitable thingies.
Why do these funny people trying to sell absurd "security" for absurd reasons make me smile? Especially when they mix up (mis)functionality and (in)security together with technical vs social problems. Oh well.
--
gvy
Oh, it gets better.
First, a folder and a junction pointing to it are *indistinguishable*. Looking in explorer, you can't tell which is the original folder and which is the junction.
Second, it's possible to create a junction pointing to a parent folder - thus creating an infinite-depth tree. (This is why you can't hard link directories in *nix!)
Third, if you delete a junction, you also delete all of the contents of the folder the junction pointed to. The original folder remains, but it is left empty.
All these considered, I really wonder what the hell MS was thinking.
Ack. I need to clarify this. What I mean by this is if you delete it in explorer, not using "junction -d".
The original folder remains, but it is left empty
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, wow, that was brilliant on M$ part!
Don't you just love the way their 24-year-old, just-out-of-college, no real-world experience programmers think?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
CDs sell plenty.
Damn right. Check out this report by Felix Oberholzer (Harvard) and Koleman Strumpf (University of North California): Report in PDF
"In total the estimates indicate that the sales decline over 2000-2002 was not primarily due to file sharing."
Not quite. There are three main forms of copyright infringment publishers should fear:
DRM can't do anything about the first two categories. However, there are legal remedies: counterfeiters and P2P sharers make themselves high-profile targets for arrest.
The third area is where DRM might be effective. If one person in a group of 10 friends buys a music CD, and then casually makes hard-drive copies whenever they visit each other, then the industry is (arguably) out 90% of their income, with little opportunity to prosecute the infringer. (Unless one of those 9 other people rats him out, which is unlikely)
To be successful, the industry only needs to create a barrier of inconvenience such that you can't simply jam a CD into the drive and click "Rip to My Music".
They're both general "mount points." NTFS has an excellent architecture for supporting local soft- and hard-links and network-managed links (Heirarchical system stuff). It's just that no one cares to educate themselves about it.
the court and DOJ were that the lockout only needed to be there for a few years, through like EOY 2005 or something. And competition would be restored...somehow.
Which is probably WHY MS delayed longhorn till 2006. They may call it the "replacement" for Windows, but when they release it, it will be a "NEW" system. It'll be called MEGA-OS, or Vader-OS or something, just so they won't be called to task on it being a Windows Upgrade.
Unfortunately, entirely in Hindi.
It's part of the new security system. When the code leaks, American script kiddies will be unable to read anything, and thus it will be SECURE*! It's brilliant!
*In the MS sense of the word.
SAILING MISHAP
You can get digital copies of some o'reilly books for free. Its all up to the author.
Digital copies aren't as easy to flip through to find what you want (which is how i tend to use O'Reilly books), but they're out there.
blog
We told you so.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Exactly.. remember the 80s and 90s? Almost all commerical games (sierra comes to mind) had some for form of annoying copy protection that just made owning a legal copy a big hassle.
Not then, not now is any game with the most "advanced" copy-protection safe from being cracked and made much more convient for the end user in the process.
The music industry simply hasn't learned from the game industry's mistakes.
Grown ups stopped making mother jokes years ago
n/t
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
So, once again M$ trying to impose their so-called standards...
Hopefully, by the time they release their new versions M$ WINDOZE will have ceased being relevant anymore...
They will go down with a fight anyway... so maybe it's not time yet to celebrate M$'s demise.
some people are under the impression that since they borrowed a CD from a friend, and copied that CD to their computer, it is now THEIR data.
And in at least some countries, they'd be right. In Japan, copyright law includes an explicit exception (section 30) that allows copies to be made for "personal, family, or similarly limited scope" use. Canada reportedly has a similar exception, though I'm not familiar with Canadian laws.
If you are sitting at 95% or more of the computer-equipped desks in North America, neither audio nor video have squat to do with your job. Stop confusing your hobbies and habits at work with what the vast majority of business machines are meant for.
The vast majority of North America does not need DRM on the desktop, and the remainder doesn't want it.
The very idea that businesses and ISPs are going to have to spend millions of dollars on upgrades and infrastructure regression testing so that Microsoft can field a properly DRM-enabled media player is obscene.
If this technology is so critical to the music and movie industries, let them pay for the impact. Not us -- and make no mistake those rollout expenses are passed on to you by every vendor, store, or supplier that is forced to pay for features that add nothing to the bottom line.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Sounds like it's all coming true.... againsttcpa.com
--John
IIRC (unlike windows, I have only had to install OS X once), iTunes comes on a separate CD, along with all the other iApps. Also, if you don't want it, to rid your computer of iTunes is as easy as dragging the application to the Trash.
sig under construction...
Tom's Hardware has a good article on what WINFS is and what its all about. I can't imagine that most people are going to use "virtual folders" to do anything other then confuse themselves.
d ex .html
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040129/in
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Hmm... I *thought* I smelled a European nearby.
Do you happen to know what kind of timeout they're using in Longhorn?
I have a computer illiterate friend who got somebody he knew to build his latest machine. When I dropped by to help him get his modem working, I was surprised to see that this other guy had installed Longhorn. I've been on a a bunch of MS OS betas in the past, so I know they typically time out in anything from a year to as little as 90 days. I just want to know what kind of urgency I should communicate to him to switch back to a regular release of XP or whatever.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
I cannot honestly believe that a decent regexp search is worse than page flipping.
Tho I did see the Subversion book is available online.
Longhorn is a bar that literally sits right at the base of both Blackcomb and Whistler Mountain, in Whistler Village. Whistler is also the name of the town there too.
The Bootpub is the name of another bar in Whistler. So they could always use that!
But it is also the only strip bar in the town...
Won't work over a network????? Is WinFS intended to store a couple dozen of your Grandmothers digital camera snapshots ??? OR 400,000 business documents a day in a networked enterprise business process ??? The world wonders......