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60% Of Windows Vista Code To Be Rewritten
Alien54 writes "Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft new Vista operating system is set to be rewritten as the Company "scrambles" to fix internal problems, according to this report. In an effort to meet a deadline of the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas Microsoft has pulled programmers from the highly succesful Xbox team to help resolve many problems associated with entertainment and media centre functionality inside the OS. Much more at the link."
Am I the only one who thinks that things like media and entertainment should not be core parts of an OS, but rather should be handled by applications that run on the OS? We're not buying a television, after all.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
I have been installing and testing Vista since the early betas. To the last one, build 5308. I have seen things getting better all along the way, from better graphics, speed and more reliability. It looked like a mess earlier, but then they cut features and made schedules more realistic.
Build 5308 is feature complete, and has not crashed even once. It supports all the devices on my machine. Now why the hell would they rewrite 60% of a perfectly well running system??? Microsoft has said that most of the work remaining is related to security and performance. I trust them, because I have seen it.
I read the article, I could not find the source of this information. The memo that was included does not speak about this 60% figure. They have not mentioned any other sources. Now why is this making news!!!??
Life is just a conviction.
1. Internet Explorer 7 still has major security issues that plague Internet Explorer 6
.NET tools in developing bundled applications that will ship with Vista, instead opting for lower level languages that are more suspectible to security issues.
.. oh wait, we don't have updates because we are delaying ALL of our major products..)
2. Microsoft Office is delayed
3. Vista is delayed.
4. Microsoft restructures the Windows division before a major OS release
5. Daniel Lyons from Forbes is underwhelmed with the Vista presentation and finds it complex and of little added value.
6. Microsoft elected not to utilize its
7. Throughout all of this, the security team at Microsoft decided to school Apple on security (I wonder if no one at Microsoft was paying attention?)
8. Businesses sold on the "Software Assurance" and other licensing gimmicks are getting very aggervated at was could be considered bait-and-switch (get SA, get updates
9. There is the possibility of major rewrites to Vista (though until it is confirmed by another source, I'll take it with a grain of salt..).
Interesting.
Clearly. This was supposed to have been Longhorn by now, wasn't it?
They've been announcing later release dates, fewer features, delays in their Office suite, and god knows what else.
When a critical security bug is found in IE6, and then immediately found in the supposedly completely redesigned IE7, it gives one pause for concern.
It is beiginning to seem that Microsoft is becoming a victim of their own intertia. They built a huge, overly complicated beast, based entirely off proprietary technologies of dubious value. They've been promising the moon for years, and now they're starting to promise the next county because the moon is unobtainable.
I asked this yesterday in another thread, but I never got an answer
Certainly all of those shiny Longhorn features they touted have been dropped from it. It sounds like it's a minor evolutionary upgrade to Windows at best. Hardly the Earth shattering, Next New Thing they've touted it as being.
And in the mean time, people might just decide to buy a Mac.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Apple could thrust one hell of a spear into the beast by releasing osx on standard intel now or very quickly. Yes it would be a frigging bold move but sometimes it takes a bold move when you want to make all the bucks. Yes of course drivers would be a big issue but I think that is a problem that could be solved also.
Got Code?
I've heard that MS is putting a lot of effort into the idea of running all applications as normal, restricted users. Up til now, many legacy (and not-so-legacy) applications had to be run with power user or adminstratrator on XP because they expected to be able to write to Program Files or even to the windows system directory. I understand that Vista will have a very sophisticated virtual file system layer (talk about a kludge) that will virtualize some of these areas of the disk for these bad applications so that they can still function. The app will think it is writing to the windows sytem directory or the Program Files area when if fact it is not. On one hand this seems to me to be a pretty brilliant solution to the crappy legacy app problem, but on the other hand seems to be a horrible hack.
How about they just use a working kernel like say linux, something from a bsd, etc.
Generally speaking, the Windows NT Kernel is a superb piece of code. The problems come in when Microsoft abuses the kernel rather than working with it. The fact that everything runs with Administrator permissions (because all the users run as administrators) is not the original intent of the kernel. Windows Terminal Server Systems tend to be a little more on track, as they default deny administrator privleges to regular users. Unfortunately, they also feel extremely unweildly due to the lack of SUDO-type permission elevation, and the fact that individual desktops are only partly separated from each other. (e.g. Installing new programs is often just as hard as on Unix X Sessions. Many programs don't allow you to install for only one user.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
As someone who works on Windows Media Center for Vista, I can certainly say that we're not rewriting a bunch of code. I'm using MCE for Vista on my living room PC right now.