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Windows XP To Get Longhorn Technologies
SilentChris writes "According to CNet, Microsoft is revising their plan for Longhorn. In addition to scaling back WinFS, they will also have separate releases of Avalon (the new graphical system) and Indigo (a new network architecture) for Windows XP and 2003. If most of the updates will be available for current versions of Windows, what is the incentive to upgrade?"
Silly Chris, It'll introduce more bugs and keep you more tightly bound than ever to Microsoft Update, because you'll have so much time and energy vested in keeping your system going you'll be terrified of switching -- I think it's something like the Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe it should have it's own name: Redmond Syndrome.
Further, you'll probably find everything doesn't work as well with your current video card and networking so you'll have to buy *NEW* stuff from vendors -- stuff endorsed by Microsoft as being up to snuff with their shell-game specifications.
As for Longhorn, you'll still buy it like all the other cattle (Ha! Longhorn! Cattle! Now I see the connection!) when it comes out, by the way, I expect the successor to Longhorn to be Bighorn (Guess the species! ;-)
Now please excuse me while I bash my head against the wall for having made sport of my Sith Master, Bill in a prior post.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"[W]hat is the incentive to upgrade?"
I want to know that too. I'm running Win98SE without any trouble. Why should I upgrade to Longhorn?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Why does there need to be an incentive to upgrade? People allways complain that Microsoft "forces" them to upgrade (not that they ever have in my opinion), shouldn't we all be happy that thats not going to be the case (assumming that these two things are the only diference between XP and Longhorn, not that they are)?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
What the the reason to upgrade to ME from 98? What was the reason to upgrade to XP from 2000? People like upgrades. Upgrades, no matter how small, bring features. Upgrades have the appearance of better quality and more "on-the-edge."
Plus, even if two technologies get ported, Longhorn is supposed to be a "unified" desktop with Internet, mail, etc. This is one major reason to upgrade for the tech-newbies and possibly the tech-geeks.
You upgrade because DirectX or XNA, or whatever the hell they call the next graphics subsystem used by games will only be available on Longhorn. Why else would you upgrade?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
What was the incentive to upgrade from Windows 2000 to XP*. Let's see, we had:
- Rearranged control panel
- A new theme
- Ummm...the search puppy?
The die-hard fans will upgrade because it's the latest and greatest, everyone else will get it with their next computer, and the corporate world will wait 3 years and then take the plunge.
This is still a blow to Microsoft, but not a major one. Maybe another baby step away from the OS monoculture.
*I know there was more incentive to upgrade from Windows ME, but I'm sure many a 2000 user switched over as well.
Microsoft is adding these features to Windows XP and Windows 2003 server in order to give developers a reason to use these technologies. So they can use Avalon and Indigo in their applications and still have people on older OS's be able to use their applications. Much like how .NET was backported to Windows 98. Developers wouldn't develop applications in .NET if they knew that only a small percentage of Windows users would be able to use it.
It's a win-win IMHO, Windows developers get to use new features and develop application using more intuitive and powerful tools and Microsoft gets a larger application base for Longhorn.
-- D3X
If Avalon and Indigo is the new ways of displaying and programming applications. As a company why would I start porting my apps to it if it won't be used until 2006! If I have a pratical application now, then when 2006 comes out a lot of "native" apps .
I suppose they do this so that developers can deploy their new apps (based on Avalon and Indigo) on the XP platform as well. It makes sense - and will give a more rapid transistion. (Instead of waiting for Longhorn to get the marketshare needed to have custom Avalon/Indigo-apps written for it).
;)
But what do I know?
(The color theme for it.slashdot.org needs a revision btw)
...because MS and Adobe would work together just to screw you over.
Chances are the Adobe app is making use of features _new_ to XP. So, what you are essentially bitching about is that these new features were not back ported to whatever previous version of MS OS you used.
And of course, if MS did back port these new features, you'd be bitching how MS is always adding new fangled features to released version of OS that do nothing but add bugs, insecurity, and instability.
Just admit there is nothing MS could ever do to appease you, and quit fucking using their software. That's why god gave you Linux.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
This is a smart move. First they schedule the release way ahead in the future, so the competition thinks they have plenty of time. Then, they release the new futures early, so that they are first to market. By the time Longwait is released, there will be plenty of application support already. In the meantime, the hype their technologies sky high so people will forget about looking for alternatives, let alone implement them. Wow, respect.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
What are you attempting to say? That XP SP1 and SP2 cost money? That W2K sp1-4 cost money? That NT4 SP1-6 cost money? I don't get what you're saying.
;)
And SP1 broke XP machines? I've never heard of that, and I've upgraded around 20 AND read slashdot regularly
Jeez, if I had mod points I would mod you "unintelligible"
> While I realize that the majority of the /. crowd is from the UNIX world
Oh please. A majority of the /. crowd are poseurs. A majority run a variant of Windows.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
What do you need 64-bit support for?
What do you need XAML for?
What do you need Avalon for?
Look, I've gone over to a Mac. Mac OS X has some of the nifty features that Microsoft's talking about. Quartz Extreme is really cool and I'm sure Avalon will be just peachy. But these things are not why I use my Mac... in fact my Mac just barely runs QE using a third-party hack, and I've got it turned off right now. It's a G4-upgraded G3 with no AGP and second-generation PCI. It doesn't run Panther (I tried) and it won't run Tiger. But I still consider it an upgrade over my 1.7 GHz P4 even though it's 1/4 the clock speed and has 1/4 the bus bandwidth and 3/4 the RAM and nowhere near enough expansion slots.
So.. it's not the new features. It's the fact that it's a hell of a lot closer to the "it just works" ideal. It really does... just work. I don't have to deal with all the hassles of Windows, I can just use it. Yeh, Apple is heading into the same feature mess, and maybe it's a good thing that I can't upgrade to Tiger. But if I could have upgraded to something as (relatively) bug free on that P4, even if it came out of Redmond, I'd have done it. Even if it had fewer "features" than XP.
THAT would be an incentive to upgrade. New APIs that I only need because other people have upgraded so I have to upgrade to be compatible? I'd probably do it, eventually, but I wouldn't like it.
I called it "scaling back" in comparison to what it once was: a SQL-like metadatabase for every file accessible on a computer. It was actually a very cool idea, and I'm not sure why MS abandoned the networking features (where I work, anything that should be catalogued is on remote servers, not on desktops).
Then there was some confusion, because "WinFS" sounded like a new file system. Then it was called a service on top of NTFS, which wasn't as dramatic. Now it's unclear what it'll end up being.
The 3 cornerstones of Longhorn, if I remember correctly from an early webcast, was:
* More robust file system
* A better windowing system
* Better security and connectivity
One is going to be "beta" and two are going to be released for current OSes. MS *has* scaled their plans back.
I'm sick of this tripe. I don't mean to jump on you alone, but I've seen way too much of this FUD parroted around Slashdot, and you're the winner of my rant. :-)
If Microsoft doesn't innovate, then why is it that the list of improvements in the Linux 2.6 kernel reads like a feature list of NT from the early 90's?
That's just comparing the kernel, and I won't even go into the features that NT has that Linux still hasn't implemented.
You probably didn't know that NT already had those features, because most people don't seem to know much about Windows beyond the GUI. They assume that what they see on the surface is all that goes on. (And don't make the mistake that the NT kernel is the only innovative part about Windows.)
My point is that you shouldn't yell about the lack of innovation in a product just because the feature you're looking for isn't there.
"It really does... just work."
I recently bought a Mac and I agree that most things "just work"... provided you stick with Apple-recommended hardware. iPod "just works". My Sony camera, despite having a basic firewire port that's properly handled in both Windows and Linux, doesn't. When you don't mind a monoculture of hardware, Macs are great.
That's one of the nice things about Windows, and one of its biggest drawbacks: you can pop just about any hardware in and it'll recognize it, configure it. I've been continually surprised digging up old ethernet cards, popping them into 2003 servers, and having them work as soon as the system starts up. Only problem is sometimes there's too much variance, and the system gets flaky trying to match 1980s hardware with 200x drivers.
(pssst... Funny doesn't help your karma (really, check the FAQ))