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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."
But please don't use this 60% figure as proof that Vista will suck. Because it doesn't necessarily mean that.
Once again, we have the Slashdot spin to deal with: Scrambling to fix problems? If they're saying their release date is sometime in 2007, I don't think they need to scramble. They actually seem pretty lax about when this is going to be released. Hell, I heard about Longhorn years ago and they sure haven't been "scrambling" to do anything with that. Stop making it sound like Microsoft is running around with their heads cut off. Because I highly doubt it.
I interpret this to mean that Microsoft is stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility. They have identified so many problems that it needs major revision and good for them.
Do you remember Windows 98, first edition? Do remember how much better second edition was? I do. Why the hell they didn't just wait on the release is simple. Money.
They could release Vista prematurely but now we wait until 2007. And if you hate Windows, like I do, why do you care? We're still going to be using Linux anyways.
So please, look at this move as a gesture to try and release a quality product and not slop out some POS OS that they are only releasing for the sake of income.
My work here is dung.
That said, I think there's trouble brewing for any company that chants “innovation” like some apotropaïc mantra: you have it or you don't (and it tends to go hand in hand with testosterone).
One can only hope.
That's a lot of GoTo statements!!!
Always add gaming programmers late in the project and to improve security and reliability.
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.
"Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." - Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month
I got nothin'
When has Smarthouse.com.au steered you wrong in the past????
Seriously, some of the shit that gets posted on Slashdot is the geek equivelant of a tabloid.
The hits just keep coming... I'm no Microsoft supporter, but that's a lot of bad PR for any company in one day - makes you feel sorry for them.
I wonder if all this negative press will affect their stock price in trading today. (Makes you feel sorry for their shareholders!)
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
When you run into a large issue, you don't pull people off another project to help.
It's like getting 3 women pregnant so you can have a baby in 3 months.
You need to define your new schedule and stick to that. otherwise you end up with a slower schedule and a different set of bugs.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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?
No, it's a normal day at Slashdot.
Nothing to see here, move along.
A good book and it discusses how adding MORE programmers to a task means the project will take LONGER to complete.
So, adding more programmers to a late project, and not slipping the date even more to account for them, [b]probably[/b] means that the final result [b]will[/b] suck.
Just not computer ready....sigh
I remember reading a good portion of their Rapid Application Development book. I sometimes wonder when I read these articles if they have read it themselves. The main rule in that book is to not set unrealistic goals. I remember hearing the first time about Vista that it might not be out until 2007. I think they should have stuck with that as their original goal. Dropping off features just to make a 2006 rush made them reset their programming team's focus too many times. The cost? Time. I realize that an operating system is not the easiest program in the world, but this is Microsoft. They have existing code to choose from, they have programming geniuses at their finger steps, and they were SUPPOSED to have an idea how to program efficiently according to that book with the Microsoft name on it. Lesson for Microsoft: take your own advice and use it!
Microsoft is pulling some staff from an finished project and assigning them to an unfinished project...targeting a similar market, no less...
Brilliant!
Go ahead. Do a find on the page. The only place where the number 60 is even in there is in the article's title and in a link back to the SAME article at the bottom of the page.
In fact, this 60% number is made up. Not only would this be impossible in less than a year, 60% of the code in Vista isn't even new to Vista.
Hey Slashdot editors... I know you guys are really into MS bashing and you want to satisfy the thirst that most Slashdotters have for MS blood, but at least check to make sure that articles your posting have a shred of truth in them.
Shut up, fools, 99+% of you are going to end up using Vista anyway.
Darn it, I read this post without my tinfoil accessories.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
Xbox code in Vista! Think of the possibilites!!
When we get the Blue Screen of Death we can simply wait a few seconds and respawn somewhere nearby our original desktop.
We can use a Gameshark to hack ourselves more time or chances to get our work done.
We can whip out a plasma rifle from "Halo" to frag Clippy with.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Apple moved this year's WWDC from July to August thus the need for Microsoft to delay & rewrite 60% of Vista so it can copy all the new geewhiz features of OS X 10.5 Leopard.
;)
Anyone who disagrees with me is a Microsoft fanboy.
You can think as little as you like of Microsoft's management (and you'd have to go pretty low to match me) but I can't see even them being so flagrantly (stupid|dishonest) as to promise a 2007Q1 delivery of a 60% rewrite of something that took five years to get this far.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
But to be worrying about 60% of the code in a one year timeframe, in light of the 10's of millions of lines of code...
If they're actually doing this (I've my doubts...), then Vista won't be out when they say it will be- it'll be delayed by another 2 or so years like Windows 95 ended up being (95 was started approximately 4 years earlier and was only supposed to take a year, year and a half to do- the delays were so bad that the press was making all blow and no go jokes with respect to the codename for the product, "Chicago".).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Let's see... if true, this would mean that consumers would get a double benefit - they would pay MORE for an Apple PC than a non-Apple PC AND (drumroll, please!) they would get to use "quality" Microsoft software on this PC!
If true, let me tell you what over 90% of the consumers out there would say. These are the people who are not Apple fanboys. "You seriously expect me to pay MORE for an Apple PC than a non-Apple PC just to run Windows?!? When both PCs will run it? Are you out of your freakin' mind?!?" And Apple soon joins DEC in the computer afterlife.
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.
& then Jobs reaches under the desk and pulls out a minigun. He jumps on the desk and sprays the boardroom with thousands of bullets, laughing manically. An SWAT team storm the building and wrestle Jobs to the ground. Then you woke up.
Folks,
Look at it this way: It takes major cojones to admit to a huge re-write (especially if the re-writes involve core bits and pieces). This is particularly true when you're talking about a system of software that literally affects many tens of millions of computers worldwide.
Looking at it another way. If I'm going to have to use it (at work, that is), I'd rather it be very stable and transparent to my work. If it takes them five more years, that's fine with me. XP spanks the 9x Windows clan, and seems more stable than the Win2000 desktop versions I had to use at work.
The good news is that Vista's delay won't effect my music, my personal computer musings, or personal software development - I'm perfectly happy with various Linux distros, Solaris, and OSX... Windows is fine, my family does use it from time to time, and I'd like to see if Vista can maybe fuel some future competition for better OS software.
A Passionate Independent Musician
perception is reality
... there are big ol' grammar errors and typos, three in the same paragraph. I haven't even looked through the rest of the article to find more.
"Microsoft has also admitted that it has major problems in it's Windows division and has has immediatly initiated a total restructure of the division, a move that comes after a costly delay in rolling out its Vista program."
Someone, somewhere is laughing at you :D
Great troll though.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
They've been on drugs, were they? If anything, Microsoft is scrambling to keep up with MacOS X; and not the other way round. Besides; who would trade in his shiny ferrari for a trabant?
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Nicely written story. But there's one major flaw that makes it entirely unbelievable.
No airborne chairs.
This would me MS's second try at a sucessor to the NT/2K/XP legacy. Best of luck - I'd rather see it late with the usual problems than 'ontime' and hopelessly broken.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Mini-MSFT wrote an extensive rant about why the Microsoft execs should be fired, and more interesting are the readers' responses.
I have roughly 1,500 machines (25% of the total) that would be perfect candidates for a Linux desktop roll-out but I'm still defending our non-MS infrastructure from the "Everyone else uses MS, why don't we?" every day. Actually trying to move away from MS at any level would be suicide at the first hiccup.
Until some major companies publicly dump MS from the desktop the rest of the world is going to stick to the "standard". Even Novell (home of the Novell Linux Desktop) employees still show up with laptops running WinXP (they do use OpenOffice at least) when they make a site visit.
http://digg.com/software/60_Of_Windows_Vista_Code_ To_Be_Rewritten
And yet we don't FSCKING care! If digg is do damned great, why are you here? Go back and play with the other digg idiots. Us Slashdot idiots don't want you here if the most constructive thing you can come up with is "We're already discussing it on digg". I'm sure it is being/has been discussed a lot of places online. Now we're discussing it on Slashdot. Get over it.
Karma be damned!
Nothing to see here
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?
Isn't it more likely that Bill is on the phone to Steve, asking "hey, since your OS runs on Intel and actually works and, you know, actually exists... umm, mind if we put our name on it?" no seriously (or as seriously as i can take this dumb article): why would Apple dump their great OS for one that may or may not be good... if it ever gets finished?
there is only the door, the door, the door.
Ahh, so you've used Windows ME too, then.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Are you sure this isn't from the Onion? :)
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
On the upside, Windows has needed a major rewrite since about 1995, so things are looking up.
________ Interesting Timing
The timing of this is interesting. It's coming after the European Commission lambasted their documentation. perhaps that horrid documentation is what they actually use and, when they went whole hog trying to document what they had in a sane manner, they realized in their guts just how horridly crusty their crown jewels really are.
In any case, With this major of a rewrite, I'm expecting Vista to be the kind of fiasco that ME was. I'd strongly suggest that people wait at least until the first service pack before they put this thing in production.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Yes, but since HAL would agree, using FPS programmers in this context leaves me a with a edge of nervousness.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
See their many, many comments on the MiniMSFT blog
Some particularly choice ones include this and this
Hell, I heard about Longhorn years ago and they sure haven't been "scrambling" to do anything with that.
I first heard about Longhorn under another name, in the early 90s when it was called Cairo. Take a look at the "feature list" of that vaporware sometime. Then recall that the feature list was in response to OS/2's actual features, that existed in 93...
How far we haven't come in 14 years.
BTW, take a look at the original feature list for Longhorn, and the current list. It's interesting too. And we're now 2 years later than the original "Longhorn" date, and only 14 years past Cairo.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Windows 95 was the start of the tree.. many of you put down 98 gold but it was better than 95 was. 98 SE was better sometimes, but the "support" for IRQ's managing themselves caused me a lot of headaches with soundblaster 64 cards, via chipsets and ati rage graphics! Aside from Windows ME, every Windows release since 95 got better in my opinion. 95, NT4, 98, 98se, Windows 2000, Windows ME (sucked), Windows XP...
.NET 2 runs on both so you can imagine that an app may run on both. Thats how microsoft keeps going. If you hate it so much, start running another os exclusively, write software to replace everything windows has and maybe you'll get lucky. Lets face it, Linux is missing some key software areas like Tax Preperation software (finance in general), games, Itunes compatible players (even if its illegal in US), etc. End users need to migrate what they use over to a new os and if they can't, they won't switch. The Windows to Mac transition is easier but has its own problems. You can get quicken, and WoW runs fine, but if you use rhapsody, ms access, .NET apps, etc you're in for a rough ride. I'm also a mac user and I'm never able to ditch windows because I like to game, write software and websites. I need to test websites in IE, I actually like to code in .NET, and games like Half life, DODS, CSS, most star trek games, and many old games only run in windows. As long as we need windows, consumers will want it.
Of course Vista will suck, they are messing with the kernel. XP was not a huge difference from Windows 2000 and so we're use to a "stable" release of windows (for windows anyway). I'll probably adopt Vista anyway when its released on my Windows machine with a dual boot or legacy install of XP so I can still game. Most likely everyone else will adopt vista as well. Which means we are stuck with it anyway. As much as most of us wish for Linux, OSX or something else to replace windows, its not happening on the desktop. Even keeping an old version of windows, helps keep windows strong. Why? Software will still be written for XP and Vista anyway.
In terms of stable, you need to define a baseline. I'm sure Vista will run better than Mac OS 9 ever did. It will run better than Windows 3.1 did and certainly better than 95 ever did. The standard is at least what people can remember and right now that means XP, 2000, ME, Linux 2.2-2.6, Mac OS 10.0-10.4. My opinion is that all operating systems suck right now. Read the changelog for the latest linux kernel.. time went backwards for christ sake! FreeBSD 6.1 beta's todo list is scary and most of those terrible bugs go back to at least 5.3. Mac OS 10.4 is a piece of shit even release. (all even releases of OS X are less stable than odd releases and often introduce more features) I've had to reinstall OS X several times on my laptop since it came out and on machines at work that I have to administer. People expect bugs. They don't expect blue screens anymore, but serious bugs are ok. Lets all raise our standards and then we can expect more!
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
This sounds like bull for so many reasons it is hard to start, but I'd list some reasons it seems absurd.
- The assumption that Apple matters to Microsoft is way off. Apple is a prominent but hardly viable competitor to Microsoft. It occupies a niche that MS tolerates (token competition) and even makes a little money from. But not even the iPod has boosted the Mac beyond its minority status.
- I'm sure the iPod is a thorn in the side for MS, but you can bet for sure that Gates wouldn't spend billions in delays to support Mac without massive, MASSIVE concessions in return. Including killing or otherwise diluting the iPod brand.
- Second you could not beat Vista into any kind of shape acceptable to an OS X user in 6 months let alone a year, short of virtualizing one or other system and allowing it to coexist with the other as a guest. Both operating systems are too distinct. A dumb cocoa / carbon port is not enough. You're talking frameworks, a Unix environment, the look and feel of every single application, the position of buttons within dialogs, the filing system. Everything
- Apple have already gone through one traumatic transition that must have annoyed some of its users. A move to Windows would infuriate the remainder and basically anihilate its developer base. After all, if its running Windows, why program for the Mac at all. They'd just be yet another PC maker. It would be as nonsensical as programming exclusively for Packard Bell machines.
- Where's the value add for Apple if it runs Windows? If a consumer is faced between buying an Apple running Windows and a Dell / Acer / Compaq / Sony etc. running Windows, what reason is there left for choosing an Apple?
- Apple has nothing to fear in the music space from either MS or Sony until both of them pull their fingers out when it comes to their confusing as hell and anal DRM. Plays for sure my arse.
- Finally, that Apple would trust Microsoft that much that it would be akin to allowing a mental patient to cup your furry balls in his hand while he holds a pair scissors in the other.
Now, strange things have happened before, e.g. AOL bending over for MS when they had their own browser, Apple moving to Intel. The move for Apple probably made sense, the AOL one certainly didn't. But this way out there.If there is any convergence between the two I'd suggest it is what I touched on slightly above - virtualization. It might serve Apple quite well to be able to run Windows apps at near native speeds, but even that path has dangers. Remember OS/2? That could run Windows 3.1 programs at near native speeds. The net result is few companies even bothered writing native OS/2 apps since what was the point?
Us Slashdot idiots don't want you here if the most constructive thing you can come up with is "We're already discussing it on digg".
It's "We Slashdot idiots."
"Sufferin' succotash."
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.
Now, I must preface this with the disclaimer that I myself prefer operating systems other than Windows. However, this is not an attempt to flame; by all means use what works best for you.
With that said, did anyone actually read the entirety of the article?
To be fair to Microsoft, this article was more than slightly misleading - and for that matter, contains little information relevant to its headline. The only mention about rewriting two thirds of Vista's codebase is in the headline and in the subheading that directly follows it. Whether informed by "an insider at Microsoft" or otherwise, there is simply not enough solid information to comment upon, let alone fill an entire slashdot thread with baseless conjecture.
We're all hoping for an improved operating system from Microsoft. God knows it would make my job many magnitudes easier without having to deal with the joys of insecure machines.
But please, withhold judgement until we receive a finished product.
It was all GPLed code that accidently got in.
"He's a real midnight golfer"
help resolve many problems associated with entertainment and media centre functionality inside the OS
The way I read this, 60% of the code that implements the entertainment and media centre functionality needs a rewrite --- not 60% of Vista. This is much more consistent with the fact that the Vista Business Edition (whatever MS is actually calling it) is still on schedule to release this year. With this interpretation, 60% does not seem totally out of line. Heck, I'd vote for re-writing 100% of media Player if it was up to me!
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
The ONLY reason I can think that "Vista" has not been released yet is because the "probation" period of the DOJ settlement is due to expire (probably) in November 2007.
Microsoft is a maximum profits kind of company and Windows is one of their Cash Cows. If it wasn't due to the fact that until Nov 2007 they have to somewhat play by "fair" rules, there would have already been at least 1 newer version of windows, I mean it has been over 4 YEARS !
Microsoft is just playing the stall game to keep itself in the media, trying to keep the public view on Windows and not GNU/Linux or whatever. Mark my words, the next version of Windows (Vista) will be released mid-Nov 2007, just in time for Christmas 2007. And yes it will probably include their own media player, web browser, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, Photo Editor, Desktop Search, Kitchen Sink, etc.
just look at the homepage of Slashdot
that's a lot of bad PR for any company in one day
In other news, the local pro-life newsletters had several scathing articles about abortion.
I wonder if all this negative press will affect their stock price [yahoo.com] in trading today
Not as much as if Vista was released and immediately barfed and/or succumbed to massive virus infection out of the box...
If I were waiting on Vista I'd be annoyed that it wasn't out, but then if I was such as big MS Software user then XP would still likely be doing ok for me, although lacking improved 64-bit/dual-core support. If I got a bunch of Vista machines that immediately started crashing or were infected in the new few weeks, I'd be a lot more pissed than annoyed.
I'd say taking the time to fix things is not a bad plan, and 60% sounds like BS to me. As the article seems to focus a lot on multimedia components it could be that 60% of the multimedia core needs revamping.
Apple went through a couple of years trying to develop the next version of its OS while still maintaining complete backwards compatability? They ran into a roadblock and just couldn't do it.
... it bought into a whole new OS by acquiring Next.
Seems like the same thing might be hapening with MS. Think about what Apple did to solve the problem
Could MS be headed down the same path? Could Apple and OS X be the target for an MS acquisition? Or maybe MS plans on building its Windows GUI on top of an open source OS?
Stranger things have happened.
What you need to remember is that Windows is the largest software product ever created, when measured in lines of code. Bigger than the previous record holder, IBM's MVS. Bigger than the Star Wars missile shield defense software that nobody could ever get to work.
Specifically, Vista is 50 million lines of code (Mloc). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_lines_of_code
To compare, RedHat 7 was only 30 Mloc, including sendmail, Apache, and so on. So saying Microsoft are going to rewrite 60% of Vista by January, is like saying they could start now and have the whole of RedHat 7 completely rewritten by January.
Or to pick another data point: it's like saying Microsoft are going to start from scratch now, and write another Windows NT 5.0 by January, and have plenty of time for debugging--because NT 5.0 was only 20 Mloc.
Now do you see why software engineers reading the announcement are more than a little skeptical?
If it's really true that they need to rewrite 60% of Vista, then my professional opinion is that there's absolutely no way in hell they'll have something good enough to ship in 2007.
Even if it's out by a factor of 2 or 3, they're still in big trouble. The original Windows NT was only 4 Mloc, and there was a 5 year gap between Windows 95 and the actual release of NT.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
A 60% Windows rewrite requires pushes the release date back only about another 3 months?
Change +0.88%
Not too bad a day for them all in all.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
I don't trust this source. The author barely has a handle on English grammar, spelling and general objective article-writing practices, and fails to cite his "facts."
David Cutler (project lead for DEC VMS and RSX11) walked out of DEC when management canceled the x86 VMS port.
It wasn't an x86 port. It was a brand new RISC architecture with a complex new version of VMS. The project was called Parallel Reduced Instruction Set Machine, or PRISM for short.
Supposedly he took the VMS (PRISM) source with him
Actually, it was slightly less illegal than that. Cutler took his entire team with him as a condition for working for Microsoft. They then proceded to redo much of the software work they'd done on PRISM. As you mentioned previously, Digital sued, but ended up settling on the condition that Windows NT be ported to the Alpha. (Fat lot of good that did.)
it was adapted to run DOS and OS/2 applications
I forget the exact terminology, but the kernel has pluggable "personalities" that allow it to function with different user modes attached. There is a decent Wikipedia article on its architecture.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So, on Monday, we'll find out that Microsoft is dumping Intel, and partnering with IBM to produce a new Personal Computing Platform based on PowerPC, and Vista will be ported to, and run exclusively on this new PPC platform.
(stranger things have happened: MacOS X86, Xbox360. . . . )
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
No one feels sorry for Microsoft shareholders.