Looking Back on Five Years of Windows XP

david.emery writes "In an article in the Washington Post entitled If Only We Knew Then What We Know Now About Windows XP, post technology columnist Rob Pegoraro points out the 5 year legacy of Windows XP. The article starts 'Windows XP is turning five years old, but will anybody want to celebrate the occasion?' This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP, although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors." More from the article: "Consider stability, the single biggest selling point of XP. The operating system was meant to stop individual programs from crashing the system, and it succeeded. It takes an especially malignant program to send my copy of XP to a 'blue screen of death.' But that's not the only way XP can crash. Drivers, the software that lets XP communicate with hardware components, can still lock up the system. If you've seen an XP laptop fail to wake up from standby, you can probably blame it on buggy drivers."

Comments

Laptop Drivers

[JeepFanatic]

But that's not the only way XP can crash. Drivers, the software that lets XP communicate with hardware components, can still lock up the system. If you've seen an XP laptop fail to wake up from standby, you can probably blame it on buggy drivers.

My Thinkpad R52 at work still has this problem when I'm booted in Windows. I dual boot Ubuntu on the computer had have zero problems when I'm running it instead of Windows. I find that I'm now doing most of my work in Linux instead.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[Pxtl]

The other feature Redmond needs to work on: "not listening to a single damn thing Adobe Reader says".

Nothing like strolling into the office in the morning and finding your computer still at the shutdown screen... and what is it holding it open, pray tell? Not the IDE. Not the source control client. Not the database browser. Nope. Adobe Reader is sitting there smugly asking "are you sure you want me to shut down?" holding up the whole system from logging off. FFS, it's VIEWING TEXT - it can shutdown when I damn well ask it to.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[Psykosys]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's found that drivers can crash Linux perfectly well, too.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[walnutmon]

Here I am, Jerking off to Microsoft hate/Linux love, and then you bust out with your Linux can crash too bullshit. It is like I was just staring down Jenna Jamisons tits, as they delightfully flop back and forth, when, just at the moment of climax, the camera focus shifts to sweaty balls slapping her ass hole. Except this was worse.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[Geekbot]

But what if you lost your place? What then, smarty pants? The end of the freaking world, that's what!

You should hear me cursing as I *attempt* to shut down an entire lab only to have all the computers hang waiting for me to confirm that they can close whatever program is too stupid to close at shutdown. There are a few of them that have hung me, Adobe is the most frustrating.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[ceejayoz]

Wait... it's Microsoft's fault that Adobe makes a poor quality product that interferes with the normal Windows logoff/shut down procedure?

It's their fault the app is able to interfere with that operation.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[bigbigbison]

If it is just reader, ditch Adobe and go with Foxit Reader which is a lot better than Adobe's version (and also free as in beer).

Re:Laptop Drivers

[wildstoo]

Not a Windows issue, per se, but the last few versions of Adobe's reader have given me nothing but hassle. Takes forever to load, hogs resources, holds up the system, causes Firefox to freeze, etc.

There's a much better (imho) free (as in beer) PDF reader available for Windows and Linux called Foxit Reader. It is far smaller and faster than the nasty, slow, bloatfest that Adobe offer.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[ceejayoz]

Ah, so it's not a problem at all. That's why Windows Vista is fixing it.

You give the app a grace period and inform the user. It shouldn't be able to halt the shutdown permanently.

Re:Laptop Drivers

[jZnat]

What Linux (and other UNIX OS's) do is send SIGTERM to all processes which allow them to clean up before shutting down. Then it sends SIGKILL which effectively kills the remaining processes that don't feel like terminating quickly enough.* If Windows would send some sort of SIGKILL after a certain amount of time, programs like Acrobat wouldn't be able to give a shit about being terminated since the kernel would deallocate its memory and shut that fucker down.

* Of course, there's the rc init scripts that need to be shut down in a specific order and possibly some other shutdown shit I'm forgetting, but the SIGTERM/SIGKILL is the last step of the halting process.

It just amazes me

[Travoltus]

how people are willing to put up with all the bugs that Windows has, and all the restrictions it is now tacking on.

MS will require all PC software & games be XP compatible whether the consumers want it or not, and people will just obey.

Whatever happened to consumers dictating how the market changes?

Re:It just amazes me

[GFree]

Whatever happened to consumers dictating how the market changes?

I'm not so sure this happens with software as much as some other business models. I use Windows XP because that's where the software is, at least for me. I'm sure that's the case for most other people who continue to use Windows even when they know of the alternatives.

We obey because it's the path of least resistance. I sure as hell ain't gonna start using Linux exclusively and abandon the stuff I like using just to stick it to Microsoft. Doesn't do a damn thing in the long run.

Re:It just amazes me

[Bonker]

XP is not a bad OS when you tally up the features vs. problems. Saying that 'I can't believe people are willing to put up with the bugs' is about like saying 'I can't beleive people are willing to put up with compatibility issues' when discussing the Linux distro of your choice. They're not the same problem, but they're about the same order of magnitude.

Please don't mistake me for a Microsoft apologist, though. XP does have some serious flaws.

My take on the worst flaws of XP:

Kernelspace Hardware Drivers - A driver that locks up the system is BAD! I'd be willing to bet that every Windows XP user has at least one such driver on their system.

Cryptic Registry Settings - I've never quite gotten why it was determined that putting all your settings and configuration in one basket was deemed to be a good idea. I can't think of any positive justification whatsoever for this.

OS-level DRM - Bad for so many reasons.

Enabling executeable content by default in Outlook Express - The source of the vast majority of Windows Specific internet worms. This is not really an OS specific issue, but Microsoft is pretty keen on insisting the OE is an uninstallable part of the OS.

No real super-user - You can get 'SYSTEM' user access in Windows via illegitimate means. There is no mechanism for a machine administrator to get this without some sort of hack or workaround.

Crippled IP stack - There are a lot of features between the desktop and server distributions that are crippled to try to keep people from running servers with the desktop distros. Completely fucking pointless since the real money in server distros is not licensing fees, but the support contracts companies.

Re:It just amazes me

[dave420]

I don't have any problems with my install of XP, so clearly not all users have issues, hence XP still being as common as it is. Saying anything else is just ignorant bullshit, something we don't like microsoft spreading around.

I use XP because it has all the software I want to use (as does OSX), and it has a good UI that is very keyboard-friendly (as are most Linux flavours I've encountered), while still allowing me to play all the games I want to (currently just XP here), and watch any media I might want to watch, regardless of codec or DRM-infection (again, only XP does that for me). I use my computer to actually use it, not to make a statement :) As soon as any other OS is better-suited to my needs, I'll switch in a heart-beat.

Acting all surprised that people still use it, then insult them as if they're brain-dead drones following what Big Bill tells them is a bit rude. There are plenty of competent non-fanboys out there using Windows, as it does what they want. Just as there are plenty of non-fanboys out there using the many flavours of Linux and OSX to do exactly the same. Again, I use my computer as a tool, not a statement.

Re:It just amazes me

[Sycraft-fu]

Just a few things:

1) About the kernel mode drivers. Isn't this the case on, well, pretty much every desktop OS? Unless I greatly misunderstand the may the monolithic Linux kernel works drivers on Linux are in kernel space too, even complied as a part of the kernel. It seems that it is just how things are done to provide the speed people want on a modern OS. One can argue that it's fine, drivers ought to be well written. After all what would you rather have: A well written kernel mode video driver that is fast and essentially never locks up your system, though it could, or a poorly written user mode video driver that is slower and crashes all the time (causing your display to restart) because the developers can be sloppy?

2) The registry is one of those kind of good idea/bad idea things. The little appreciated good part is that being centralized it provides a place for everything to find the information it needs. Things like file associations, locations of installed software (and associated required files) and so on. I think there's probably a better way to do it, for example have the registry contain only minimal information like where an app is and a pointer to its config file, but don't discount the advantage of having a central store for information on the system. It means that I can install an app that interacts with another app and they can both get the information they need on each other easily, even if there's been verison changes.

3) What is the OS level DRM you refer to? I've yet to encounter it. The only MS DRM I'm aware of is the Windows Media DRM and the Office DRM. Both are specific to their programs. I suppose you can argue, to an extent, that the WM DRM is OS since media playback is a part of the OS, but it's not automatic or anything. If you try to play a DRM'd file it whines at you and asks if you want to get the licenses for it. However either way it functions on media files only. You can't DRM up an executable or something. It is functionally no different than DRM built in to other media players.

It's also purely optional. It's not like a WMV file needs to have DRM. Most don't and in fact you have to install more software to protect them. You are perfectly free to make unencumbered files if you want to. Same deal with Office. If you want, as a company, you can install the DRM features and control distribution of documents you make, but by default there's no restrictions on anything.

I realise that DRM is unpopular around here but the answer is to simply not purchase DRM'd media. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything. If you don't like it, refuse to play ball. However I don't think it's appropriate to get mad at the people who provide the technology to use it. That's along the same lines of "We shouldn't have done atomic research because it can be used to kill people." Most technology can be used for good or bad, you can't really get pissed at those that make it if people use it for bad.

As an example of good DRM usage, suppose I decide to use streaming media to do technology briefs within my company. I keep employees up to date on progress on new projects via a media stream, rather than staff meeting. However this is all confidential stuff, it's works in development and for it to get out would be harmful. Well, DRM allows me to control that and make sure someone doesn't just save the file on their laptop and walk it over to a competitor.

The people to be pissed at are the content producers that feel you shouldn't own your own content, not the technology producers that make the DRM technology. You don't have to use it if you don't like it, it's just an option.

Re:It just amazes me

[ctr2sprt]

Kernelspace Hardware Drivers

I don't think that means what you think it means. If it's a hardware driver, it's got some piece in the kernel. That doesn't just go for Windows, it applies to Linux and everything else too.

Enabling executeable content by default in Outlook Express

Just because it ships with Windows, that doesn't make it part of the operating system. I guess we're arguing over semantics here, so I'll leave it at that.

No real super-user

Windows isn't supposed to have a superuser, not the way you mean it (ignores all access controls). Windows is meant to function more like SELinux, where the OS can impose restrictions not even the superuser can bypass. The problem is really one of implementation, not design.

Which brings me to my primary complaint about Windows: It could be pretty damn good, if they'd take a break from adding features and finish the ones they already started. That's, I think, why Win2k was so good, at least by Windows standards: from the perspective of a desktop user, all they did was finish what they started in NT 4.0. The net result is that everything was polished, remarkably stable, and MS very ably accomplished its goal of mergin the 9x and NT lines, producing something that was better than both of them.

Re:It just amazes me

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You can say that users should never be delving into the registry, but the plain fact is that sometimes it is necessary because software screws things up. Even Microsoft's knowledge base says that certain registry changes need to be made to make repairs.

I can see your explanation for the creation of the registry, but no explanation as to why Microsoft hasn't seen fit to deprecate its use over a better method.

In comparison to what Linux and OS X has, the registry system simply makes Windows look bad, and indeed, in my opinion, it severely hurts the maintainability of Windows. It is also one of the things that make program installation and removal potentially far more problematic than it needs to be. Heck, there doesn't even seem to be a validation system to test or correct the registry.

Re:It just amazes me

[Foolhardy]

You can say that users should never be delving into the registry, but the plain fact is that sometimes it is necessary because software screws things up. Even Microsoft's knowledge base says that certain registry changes need to be made to make repairs.

You should need to manually edit the registry about as often as you need to manually edit conf files. The process, risks and need are very similar.

I can see your explanation for the creation of the registry, but no explanation as to why Microsoft hasn't seen fit to deprecate its use over a better method.

Because it works the way it's supposed to? Almost all the 'problems' people have with the registry are due to misuse; problems that would exist regardless of how configuration storage was implemented.

In comparison to what Linux and OS X has, the registry system simply makes Windows look bad, and indeed, in my opinion, it severely hurts the maintainability of Windows.

How do you figure?

It is also one of the things that make program installation and removal potentially far more problematic than it needs to be.

The Windows Installer has been the only sanctioned installation method for application software since Windows 2000. Do you have evidence that the Windows Installer is causing these problems, or is it third party apps that disregard guidelines? All modern platforms have rules for installation, and disregarding them can cause problems on all of them. If apps are leaving remnants of themselves strewn about after uninstallation, it's the app's fault. How is leaving remnant keys different than leaving remnant files?

Heck, there doesn't even seem to be a validation system to test or correct the registry.

What are you asking for? The structure of the registry is journalled and expected to be self-healing. A fsck type fix is applied automatically if needed. Its recovery is akin to a journalled, auto-fsck filesystem. As for the content of the registry, every software component has its own needs and validity constraints-- there's no way to build a tool that would know about all of them. It'd be like asking for a /etc verifier.

Re:It just amazes me

[tomhudson]

I think its not so much "kernel-level drivers" but that Windows, unlike the *nixes, absolutely requires graphics mode.

If your X server craps out, you can just restart it, w/o having to reboot. Or try a different module. Or you can work from a console. The only option under Windows is to reboot (if it doesn't just halt by itself).

Re:It just amazes me

[misleb]

1. Kernel Mode Drivers - Once Linux actually gets drivers for something, support tends to be rock solid-- a fair bit better than XP. However, this is the one place BSD-type OSess really outshine Macro-Kernal OSes. Even though my home Windows and Linux PCs are far faster than my work Mac, sometimes I cry when trying to get odd hardware to work on them. Even if you have some crap pieces of hardware with a crap driver, you can axe the driver rather than the whole OS in OSX.

What do you mean by "BSD-type" OSes? All the *BSDs have a monolithic kernel (kernel space hardware drivers) just like Linux does. Darwin is the exception. It has a highly modified BSD kernel. And it certainly isn't any more stable than Linux or *BSD in practice. I use Macs all the time and I don't notice any benefit from the pseudo-microkernel design.

-matthew

Markedly better?

[RedWizzard]

although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors.

I don't think it is markedly better than Win2000. Marginally better, sure. Perhaps the article's authors feels the same way.

Re:Markedly better?

[CastrTroy]

To be fair, Windows 2000 never released a home version, so for most consumers it was never really an option. Sure you could run windows 2000 Pro at home, and many people I know do, but it's priced a big higher than what most people are willing to pay for an operating system. Also the fact that windows 2000 never came in a "home" version means that it wasn't offered on very many home computers. Non only that, windows 2000 only came out about 20 months younger than windows XP. That leaves a pretty small window for buying windows 2k, and deciding to wait for XP to come out. So, for most people, windows 2000 never really existed, and the predicessors are windows ME/98/95, which were all pretty terrible operating systems. However, I found that windows 98 was pretty stable provided you didn't install tons of crap you downloaded off the internet.

Re:Markedly better?

[RedWizzard]

To be fair, Windows 2000 never released a home version, so for most consumers it was never really an option.

You're right, but my point is that WinXP was an upgrade for Win2000 too, not just 95/98/ME. To only consider the home use angle is a bit unreasonable, IMHO. How many of those 480 million installs are business installs? I'm sure it's a significant percentage.

Sure you could run windows 2000 Pro at home, and many people I know do, but it's priced a big higher than what most people are willing to pay for an operating system. Also the fact that windows 2000 never came in a "home" version means that it wasn't offered on very many home computers. Non only that, windows 2000 only came out about 20 months younger than windows XP. That leaves a pretty small window for buying windows 2k, and deciding to wait for XP to come out.

A lot of people were exposed to 2000 at work and a lot of people ran it at home. 2000 was a vast improvement over 95/98/ME and people who experienced it did not want to go back. And people who were on 2000 have tended to stay on it rather than jumping to upgrade. Personally I only upgraded about a year ago. Also, keep in mind that at the time no one knew when XP was actually going to be released (just like no one knows now when Vista will be), so I'm not sure just how many people would have held off upgraded to wait for XP.

Re:Markedly better?

[brucmack]

2000 was a vast improvement over 95/98/ME and people who experienced it did not want to go back

You're still comparing home OSes to business OSes. 2000 was a vast improvement over NT 4, while it may or may not have been a vast improvement over 95/98/ME. For me, I couldn't run half of the games I wanted to play under 2000, so I dual-booted until XP came out, at which point I could run everything I wanted under one OS. So if I were an average home user, I would never have considered 2000.

Windows Wins

[Anonymous Coward]

The early 21st century saw an unprecedented array of attempts to dislodge Microsoft from its dominant position in PC operating system market share. From Linuces of may sorts to Apple's new OSX, word was, the time for Microsoft's fall was at hand.

Then came Windows XP.

Right away, Microsoft's revolutionary new revision of the Windows operating system was a hit with home and business users. It is no exaggeration to say that the modern computing world as we know it, the innovations of bittorrent, the deep and involving fun of World of Warcraft, the wide ranging social networks of Myspace and Facebook, none of these would have been possible without Windows XP.

From the stylish new interface, to the easy-to-use features, to the vast improvements in security and reliability, Windows XP has proved to be worthy of the title Greatest Operating System of All Time.

Re:Windows Wins

[Epsillon]

Right away, Microsoft's revolutionary new revision of the Windows operating system was a hit with home and business users.

Aye, that it was. Why? Because MS had deals with OEMs to keep their OS outlay to a minimum as long as said OEMs didn't use any other operating system. In other words, every fscking new computer sold had, and still has, a copy of this rot on it and people found they had to use it. After all, Joe Sixpack can hardly install any operating system from scratch without help.

Windows is the de-facto standard because MS's marketing department is the best there is. There's nothing technical about it, nor is it the vote of the end users. It's the fact that MS has the manufacturers right where it wants them: With their bollocks in its twenty tonne press and the salesmen, watching they don't break the agreements, ready to pump the handle by making them pay the "going rate" for the OS if they sell so much as one PC with another OS on it.

Dell was bloody lucky the n series with FreeDOS didn't bring the wrath of Redmond upon it. Of course, FreeDOS isn't much use to anyone these days unless you're flashing the odd firmware or two, so they probably weren't worried about Joe Sixpack discovering that Linux et al are just as simple as Windows XP when someone else installs it for him.

I miss Windows 98

[CrazyJim1]

Windows 98 fixed problems with Win95, and was the last version to support DOS. Seeing as I built a massive DOS library in C/C++, I'm ticked I can't keep coding in my DOS mode. If I switch to coding under WINXP, will they obfuscate that too, so my code library will be lost again. I'm just at a loss because I have problems running DOS emulators too.

Contradictio in terminis

[CatoNine]

"(1) This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP,
although it does fail to (2) credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors"

IMnotsoHO, these two statements contradict each other. Not making myself popular around there, I'd say that WinXP, about the third greatest thing to happen to PC users (after MS DOS and Windows 3.1). Finally a real operating system for PC's without serious limitations, with enough backwards compatibility for the enormous installed base of Windows software. I can race through Need for Speed Most Wanted while downloading the latest, errr, content plus webserving my site. Without ever crashing. Sure, I have to reboot every week or so with some patches, but that's the price of any main-stream OS. Lunix-ers will have to pay later too... So: Hooray for the Borg! Cheers, Richard

MS as a home builder

[Dracos]

You can think of Windows XP as a house with a second floor built of spackle, wood filler and duct tape.

This is correct, but misleading. The main floor of Windows is built of balsa wood with a nice hardwood veneer. It looks solid to the casual observer, but isn't. As for the foundation, styrofoam sure can look like concrete blocks with a nice coat of gray paint.

And as someone else pointed out elsewhere, you're renting this house, and the landlord insists that all you need for a back door is strings of beads, which they add more of every time someone just walks into the house.

The main difference between all versions of Windows is that the house just keeps getting bigger, but not much stonger.

Re:MS as a home builder

[obeythefist]

And Linux is like a house, but you used to have to build it yourself, but not so anymore! Because every two weeks some company or other makes a new house that is always so much better than the other companies houses, and the other houses made by that company, but it's usually designed so that only scientists or people with 500 children or people who keep angora rabbits can use it because it's the angora rabbit house distribution.

Anyway, the house is free and you don't even have to build it yourself anymore, the company comes around and arranges everything perfectly depending on the size of the land you have and the available power and water. It looks really great! Then you try to get in the house, but the doorway is bricked up. You look for an easy way to open the door but it just isn't going to happen. Turns out the only way to get that door happening is for you to wander up and down the street looking for other people in Linux houses to find someone who knows enough about masonry to teach you how to rebrick the area around the door so you have a doorway that works right. One all-nighter with a bunch of bricks and cement you've gotten yourself into your new house!

So you go out and you buy a sink for your new kitchen, it's a really popular sink and everyone in the Windows rental houses has one. You try to install your new sink and the pipes are all wrong! But your neighbour has a linux house and he had a similar sink, it's easy, all you have to do is get a metal pipe and an oxy-acetaline torch...

Re:MS as a home builder

[kisrael]

[I went to a party at one of these places, and it was quite a surreal experience walking into a bathroom that just like an ordinary bathroom, but with all dimensions doubled!]

Good god... how did you avoid falling in?

Re:MS as a home builder

[njh]

As for the foundation, styrofoam sure can look like concrete blocks with a nice coat of gray paint.

Most houses around here have styrofoam+concrete foundation slabs.

Re:Windows = the problem

[plastic.person]

The current versions of Windows are supposed to be the OS that was rebuilt from the ground up, based on NT. It's the DOS based Win95 OS that was scrapped.

Windows is satisfactory IMO: a point and click interface that doesn't crash. It's Internet Explorer that needs much fixing.

Re:reasoned review?

[AnodeCathode]

I agree. Patching an OS is unreasonable. And the fact that they back up what they patch in case you have to remove the patch is unreasonable (source of the bloat in size). This is why I still run my original Slackware 96 distro. I can't get anything done, but boy it still is running.

print view

[oscartheduck]

For those not wanting all the crud that surrounds the article on the linked view http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/09/23/AR2006092300510_pf.htmlhere is the print view.

Re:Windows = the problem

[Quantam]

...why not just move straight to Linux and save the complete redesign and recoding? Oh, that's right, because Windows is THE standard in software. Remember that NT has been around for longer than 95 has, and it only overtook the 9x line with XP, despite NT being a much better OS than 95. Want to know why? It's very simple: because 95 ran all the existing programs and NT didn't; the only reason XP overtook 9x at all is because it brought compatibility with old programs up to 9x's level. Linux has fought tooth and nail for every 1% market share it's gained, and still that number is dominated by server computers that don't need to run all of the legacy apps. So I guess that's just a roundabout way of saying: your suggestion is absolutely crazy. It'd likely be a decade before the new OS became the new standard and Windows disappeared for all practical purposes. And who knows, maybe that'd be Linux' chance to crush MS (or at least MS' OSes) once and for all, and the new OS would never become the standard.

Um, Win2k?

[foo fighter]

This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP, although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors."

WinXP is little more than a skin or theme for Win2k plus the downgrade of mandatory product registration. Please note that 2k is Windows version 5.0 and XP is 5.1. I acknowledge some enhancements to the OS, but most could have made an appearance in 2k SP5.

Whenever I bring this up I always have someone come back with "But XP is better for games." I've never seen this. To this day I play all my PC games on 2k with absolutely no problems or notable performance degradation.

2k is all the Windows OS you'll ever need on your desktop.

Re:Um, Win2k?

[Wilson_6500]

2k is all the Windows OS you'll ever need on your desktop.

Not if you want to play any new PC games that use DX10.

WinXP vs Win2K

[JeepFanatic]

IMHO the best "improvements" that XP has over 2K was the built in CD Burning, .zip support, and the ability to fool old programs into thinking they're running on an older OS. Most of this is a non-issue though because there is good software out there that can remedy these missing features of 2K. When I last dual booted XP and 2K on my system at home I found that with a clean install of each OS that XP would boot faster but once booted 2K actually was less of a hog on the system. Not that 3DMark is the best tool for comparison but I would always score higher in 2K vs XP (no extra services or processes running on either OS). XP basically boiled down to eye candy and the addition of features to remove the necessity for some 3rd party utilities.

Re:WinXP vs Win2K

[Pxtl]

The whole "compatibility mode" is a service available under Windows 2k, it's just disabled by default. So scratch that one. WinXp was 90% just adding UI boosts to 2k to help combat the incredisexiness of OSX that had just come out.

OS X, Markedly Better

[MBCook]

First, remember that the "markedly better" comment references what HOME users were using before, Windows ME. For businesses, XP isn't much better (or is much worse).

But let's look at what OS X has done in the past 5 years (I only converted early last year). OS X has hardware accelerated it's GUI. It has gained Spotlight and Exposé, probably the two best inventions in improving computer use in the last 5 years. It has had little touches like spring-loaded folders. It manages to get basic window use right.

The fact that Apple did the first 3 things (OpenGL GUI, Spotlight, Expose) which MS sat around (really: spent all their time on patches) is just sad. MS has improved things (the wireless handling was abysmal compared to today's XP), but not others. I took a job last month that has me using a Windows box for the first time in a year and the result of having to use it for long periods is jarring.

Let's ignore the lack of Spotlight (which I love). Let's focus on something simple. Something that was in Windows 95. Something that was in Windows 3.1. Something that was there before that (don't know which version exactly, probably 1.0). Let's talk about the Z-ordering of windows.

At least once a day I seem to run into this. Let us consider 3 windows among about 10. We'll use FireFox, Outlook, and Calculator. Let's say those windows are all maximized (as are all others) except for Calculator. Calculator has been buried to the very bottom of the windows (or near). Firefox is on top, with Outlook below. Now click on the taskbar button for Calculator. What happens?

What SHOULD happen is you see Firefox with Calculator on top. That is what happens most of the time. But some times, for some random reason I can't find, doing this will bring Outlook to the front window behind Calculator, so you see those two on your desktop (Calculator on top). You can often repeat this 3 or 4 times before Windows "gets it" and things are put correct. By this I mean you can switch back to Firefox (which works), then click for Calculator and have it happen again.

I have NO IDEA how this happens or why, but how hard is it to keep a Z ranking of the windows I have?

I won't even touch on how hard it is to manage 10 windows with your only tools being the taskbar and Alt-Tab. Exposé is so intuitive and simple. From the screenshots I've seen (I haven't looked hard) Vista only seems to have a graphical version of the current Alt-Tab.

There are no spring-loaded folders (terribly handy for moving stuff around).

Windows DOES have a Cut command in Explorer, something that still boggles my mind about the Mac (how can Finder not have a Cut?)

Windows hasn't really improved at all (other than in security) since 1999 (when Windows 2k was released). Look at the changes OS X has made from 10.0 to 10.4. I'm not even including the cool stuff that's coming in Tiger. OS X even gets faster.

I'm glad to be off Windows for my personal use. And since my job is all Java and HTML, I'm going to ask for a Mac when my current Dell is no longer powerful enough. I think Exposé alone will vastly improve my productivity.

My 2 cents

[B3ryllium]

Having used FreeBSD, Linux, Windows XP Pro, and Windows 2K3 Standard, my opinion is this:
FreeBSD for servers, Windows XP Pro for the desktop.

It works very well for me - in fact, well enough that I'm considering trying out Vista when they release that. Part of the reason it works so well for me, is that instead of being locked in to IE, OE, and Office, I have opted instead to use Firefox, Thunderbird+Lightning, OpenOffice, and other OSS tools (like Eclipse). Theoretically, I could swap out Windows XP Pro and barely even notice the difference.

Why don't I? Because I don't feel like it just yet. It's comfortable.

Reverse FUD?

[wbren]

This article is complaining about a lot of things Microsoft has no control over. Drivers causing the OS to crash? You're telling me Linux/MacOS cannot be locked/crashed by a bad driver? I don't have much experience with MacOS, but I know it can happen in Linux.

"Microsoft doesn't write most of that software, so it asked the companies that do to submit their work for its own testing... many developers have ignored Microsoft's testing requirements."

Damn you, Microsoft, why did you force all those developers to ignore your test requirements!?

Basically the same thing happened to Microsoft's attempts to clean up the look of Windows. Recall how simple a fresh installation of XP can appear, with only the recycle-bin icon on the desktop and a single column of programs in the Start Menu... The initial simplicity almost never survives contact with software installers. Most of them ignore Microsoft's programming guidelines by dumping shortcuts and icons across the Start Menu, the desktop and the "tray," that parking lot of tiny icons at the bottom-right corner.

Again, I don't know why Microsoft forced all those developers to ignore their guidelines! It's all Microsoft's fault!

The operating system has done little to ensure that programs move in and move out in an orderly manner; they can throw supporting files and data all over the hard drive, then leave the junk behind when software is uninstalled.

InstallShield used to do that by default, until they realized developers were often sloppy and didn't put their files in the right places. That led to missing DLL files, missing OCX files, etc. Again, is this really Microsoft's fault? I don't think so.

I can't say much good about the registry, since it clearly should have been scrapped a long time ago. Same goes for Windows Genuine Advantage, it is intrusive and prevents a lot of legitimate users from getting security updates. Service Pack 2 did a lot to improve security. I agree more could have been done, but SP2 was a positive step. Vista sounds like it will have some fairly good security tools built-in (depending on the version) for home users.

I have a tough time believing these articles, mainly because most people I know don't have problems with XP in general. When I go to customers' homes/businesses to fix problems, it's usually a result of them downloading porn or free screensavers. I don't really blame MS for that, mainly because a stupid user will find a way to screw up their computer. I don't think that will change with Vista, and I don't think MacOS/Linux are any different.

This article did make some good points about things XP did wrong, but it threw in enough complaints about minor or non-existent problems that I lost confidence in the article's content.

Re:Reverse FUD?

[Brandybuck]

You're telling me Linux/MacOS cannot be locked/crashed by a bad driver? I don't have much experience with MacOS, but I know it can happen in Linux.

That's too bad. Because it doesn't happen in FreeBSD.

p.s. Unless you use the *proprietary* NVidia driver, but that's another topic...

Re:Reverse FUD?

[Inoshiro]

"InstallShield used to do that by default, until they realized developers were often sloppy and didn't put their files in the right places. That led to missing DLL files, missing OCX files, etc. Again, is this really Microsoft's fault? I don't think so."

It sure is Microsoft's fault. Apple was smart enough to say, "Look, let's adopt some of these sane ideas that have been coming out of the OS research people. Like these .app files -- they're not really files, but a bundle of everything the program needs to run it its own sandbox. We'll let the memory manager layer and the program loader figure out when to use a shared or private copy. In the meantime, the applications just need to be dragged in."

And they do. If I want Camino in my Mac, I download the .dmg file and mount it (by double clicking it), then I drag the Camino icon to my Applications folder. With that taken care of, I can drag the .dmg to the trash (unmounting it and deleting it in one action). If I'm done with Camino, I can drag it to the trash, too. No registry settings, no OCX files, no DLL files, and no bullshit installers. If a stupid Wizard is the best answer Microsoft has to the task of installing and removing programs, they've already lost.

Some people have been pushing for this kind of ease-of-use in Linux, but it's hard to get the momentum that Steve Jobs can get. Autopackage was kinda easy to use, but most people (who are like myself) seem to be using Synaptic for new applications. It's still hiding the same garbage that Windows has, in terms of the swarm-of-files approach to application distribution (instead of .app blobs), but it's a lot easier to manage and handle since it's through a reasonable interface. That's two solutions that solve the problem you mention, and both were easily achievable 10 years ago as much as today. So why is it that you have to even mention Installshield? Because Microsoft is unwilling to take a serious stance on anything that's not about supporting other Microsoft products -- that's why they're a monopoly!

Yes - kind of makes you wonder...

[NotQuiteReal]

What is it that Windows does that Linux (or any brand X) doesn't.

I am no Windows "fan-boi", as is the perjoritive here, but I find that 4 out of 5 of the computers in my house do run Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

Clearly, "all computers suck" (feel free to quote me), yet somehow, people find them useful.

For whatever reason, they find Windows(tm) computers most useful.

Beleive me, I'd love some other OS to work for me, but somehow nothing is compelling...

Oddly enough I earn about 80% of my living from customers who want Windows software, and 20% from those who want Linux software. I am the tail, I am NOT wagging the dog.

Re:Yes - kind of makes you wonder...

[penix1]

For whatever reason, they find Windows(tm) computers most useful.

It isn't so much that users find Windows(tm) more useful but that they are resistant to change. Here are my top reasons why most users put up with Windows(tm).

• It comes pre-installed on their machine so why change?
• It is what their employer forces them to use at work so why change?
• The programs people have become used to are not available for the new OS so why change?
• My hardware manufacturer only supports Microsoft so why change?
• Local support of the alternative OS is almost nonexistant so why change? (ie ever call your ISP for setup instructions for Linux?)
• The learning curve of the new OS is too steep so why change?
• Files sent from other users won't work in the new OS so why change?

All of these are given at some point to justify why people won't change. Until these issues can be addressed, expect alternative OSes to always be relegated to the also run category.

B.

Re:Windows Wins, For Now....

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The early 22 century saw the fall of the Washington principality and its vassal state of Neo-Patriota. When the outsourced nations of new Canada and Greenland launched their massive offensive, the Redmondites placed all their hope in their new integrated Office 2109 communications software, running on Server 2104 with Microsoft SQL Server Warfare edition as a backend. This mighty system would integrate and focus the now awesome firepower of the mighty MS battle fleets into one precise and deadly, continent spanning living engine of death.

But fate was against the principality. And the plans of Emporor William Gates, the fifth of that name were all foiled. For it is said, the outsourced attack came at the very cusp of the next hardware upgrade cycle, and moreover, due to a great ion storm knocking out 802.11zzid coverage over half of eastern EU, the desperately needed hardware upgrades from CzechaMichDellia were delayed by over an entire release cycle.

And so, while the battle fleet was equipped with the latest interoperability software, it ran too slowly on the previous cycle's hardware, and by the time the first stirke was tallied and the volleys made ready, the war was already three weeks over.

And so the principality was defeated, but not destroyed. For instead of destroying Microsoft, the victors instead only broke the kingdom into seperate divisions, each responsible for a different part of their foul business. And, while there was much confusion and compatability issues for many a long year after, still the Windows OS ran deep and black withing the viens of the world; and the kernel source the victors did not take, for it was now completely written in x86 assembly, and had become terrible to behold.

Vista

[JustNiz]

I tried the RC1 (release) candidate of Vista.
Very buggy, very bloated, very slow compared to XP, the GUI has been redesigned to hide (even more) the system from you so now you can't do anything even slightly technical without really digging deep.
Also it kept crashing and wouldn't play a lot of my own media.

I used to think XP had lots of room for improvement. I went back to it after 20 minutes with Vista.

Re:Vista

[Tadrith]

Same here.

I think a lot of it has to do with what kind of computer you have. From what I can gather, Microsoft made a lot of improvement when it comes to high end machines, but clearly doesn't expect low end machines to handle it, so I don't think they bothered.

A lot of the little irritations I had with Windows XP disappeared. Small things like "My Computer" hanging for a little bit when waiting on a CD/DVD ROM drive, seem to have been addressed. It opens for me instantly without any of the previous delays. That seems to be the biggest improvement, for me -- a lot of the "little delays" that XP exhibited are gone. I think that perhaps a lot of the slowness that people see comes from people who have video cards that work decently for the most part, but can't handle Vista's Aero with the kind of speed they would like.

All of this is just observation, nothing concrete or benchmarked. When I get up in the morning and log into my workstation, Vista is actually pleasantly minimalist to look at, whereas XP (which I use in Classic Mode), seems harsh. Is any of this a good reason for someone to pay another 200 bucks and upgrade? Probably not. But work pays for my copy, so I'll be more than happy to use it.

Re:Vista

[JustNiz]

>> From what I can gather, Microsoft made a lot of improvement when it comes to high end machines, but clearly doesn't expect low end machines to handle it,

Heres my machine specs:
intel dual core 6800 extreme
two western digital 150GB raptors in raid 0
a factory-overclocked nvidia 6800 ultra (256mb video ram)
1Gb fast system ram

I guess my machine must be classed as a low-end machine then, because vista was noticeably (too much) slower than XP. The GUI has so many fades etc, it feels like walking through mud when you do anything. After a very short while all the graphical crap and bloatware going on is just annoying and distracting.

It seems funny that I can run a graphically intense game like Halflife 2 with all the graphical features on max and still get an excellent framerate, but Vista just crawls, relatively.

Furthermore vista's gui is way less productive. The GUI designers seem to have designed and prioritised the whole gui from about 20 use-cases written by business secretaries with no technical skills that IM or buy on-line media all day.

If you don't fit their mold the gui just plain gets in the way. Furthermore you can't do a damn thing any more without it asking you if you're really sure all the friggin time. Its all VERY annoying. Enough that Vista is really a functional downgrade from Linux or even XP (don't even get me started about all the DRM), so I won't be installing it again anytime soon.

got one thing right...enforcement

[Twillerror]

Slashdot posted to a story the other day that has a lot to do with MS woes. That was the story about MS not forcing their own employees to run as non-admins.

The home version actually seems to do this a little better then the Professional edition. My parents and my siblings login to their computer with their own accounts and all as non-admins. Of course they don't lock down admin, so they all install all kinds of stuff.

Vista seems to go a long way in stopping unwanted stuff from installing, but with such a mainstream system does is it really going to help? If a user has to switch to admin to install that screensaver that also is spyware does that really help? Does Ms have to be held accountable for Spyware that is purposely installed on a machine. If it comes in through IE 6...sure it is MSs fault.

Linux installers are applauded by most, but I wonder what will happen to them in the mainstream. Commercial software will probably still install with stand-alone installers if Linux where to take off. Linux ( and others ) has standards that adhered to via open source packages, but would another company really put up with it. So a user in Linux goes to run an executable off a web page...they get an error from it saying please be in root mode. If they login as root would Linux do anything to stop them from overwriting system config files? Would we blame the problem on Linux or the author?

The author seems to be misplacing the blame. MS has to be the app cops? I guess in this day and age yes...5 years ago...not so much.

In the long run I think all OS's need to force application to install in virtual file systems. When I go to install a major app I wish that it would just copy a big file and "mount" it to the machine. You wouldn't even need to be in root to do it if done via an API call. The app would be registered with the OS and given a small amount of hardrive space to write it's config files to that only it would have access to. When it goes to save data files for the user the OS would ask the user if it was alright for it to. We can run entire OSs in a VMWare like system, why not applications themselves.

Of course lots of apps, especially in OS use pipes and heavily rely on other systems and libraries. Back in the day when sharing a DLL was needed to save HD space it was a good idea...is it now. Should we require all the apps to include their libraries? This would make code injects a lot harder as well....sorry botters.

The fundamental idea of an App installing needs to be re-engineered. Some OSs do a better job then others, but they all fundamentally invovled the installer coping files around, which will always lead to the types of problems we are seeing.

Re:got one thing right...enforcement

[doshell]

Back in the day when sharing a DLL was needed to save HD space it was a good idea...is it now. Should we require all the apps to include their libraries?

It's not simply a matter of HD space. One very important advantage of shared libraries is that you can upgrade them (for example, if a critical security bug is found) by overwriting a single file. Imagine having to reinstall 50 programs on your system just to get all the copies of the library updated. And that's assuming the developers were kind enough to release a patched version quickly...

Nah, there's just too much goodness in shared libraries to throw them away.

Re:got one thing right...enforcement

[Kaenneth]

Running each application in it's own VM sounds like a good idea... until you need to move data between applications.

The Clipboard.

Such a basic thing that users take for granted nowdays, but really quite complicated; are you cutting from an RTF document, and pasting into a spreadsheet? Copying a bitmap and pasting it into a vector-graphic program? can that AJAX application in your 'secure' web browser blocked from reading the clipboard, what if you want it to?

Crash-proof drivers.

Good idea, in principle, you just have some lower-level drivers manage the basic ports (USB, Serial, Network, etc.) and higher level drivers handle the protocols to talk to the Printer, Music Player, Server, etc. But what the fundemental drivers? if a driver tells the device to go to sleep, who is allowed to wake up the device?, what if the device that's asleep controls the device that's used to wake up? Maybe wake-on-lan works great; but if you tell your USB ports to shut off, you can't exactly wakeup using the button on your USB keyboard.

Give a TabletPC a spin...

[Anonymous Coward]

It has gained Spotlight and Exposé, probably the two best inventions in improving computer use in the last 5 years

I would disagree. TabletPC has my vote. The ability to work with handwritten text and use your PC as a notepad doesn't sound like much until you actually get to do it. That and having a portable wireless lightweight(mines 3 lbs) web browser/game system/ebook reader a little smaller than a standard notepad, but with a 1024x768 screen 10" screen, totally changes the computing experience. A lot of people I've said this to have made some wise crack about handwriting recognition, but that's not what TabletPC is about. The real strength is taking notes *exactly* as you would on a pad of paper and storing them in your own handwriting. No redoing a letter over and over again in the middle of a meeting hoping to the gods that the system interprets it right this time before you fall too much further behind.

I anticipate within 5 years, the majority of slashdotters will agree with this, if not with regards to windows tablet, then in regards to the tablets that will become useable in the OS of their choice. In the meantime, they will be like I was and not want to trust anything M$. I was lucky though and got to play with one before buying. WindowsXP tabletpc edition is in my opinion, despite that I've been labled troll twice for saying this, the most innovative OS in terms of human interface available today. The big mistake I see people making with tablets is buying big fat giant convertibles, instead of going for a notepad size. That and buying without reading reviews. A tablet will change the life of anyone who uses notebooks/notepads for notes and whose primary job function is on computers.

Price of Windows

[Kadin2048]

The "price" of Win2k, to most home users, was the same price as virtually every version of Windows since (but not including) Windows 95: $0.

I say zero dollars, because in my experience, people either acquire Windows "free" with a computer, or they pirate it. Seriously, those two modes of acquisition have to be the largest two. Very few folks actually buy a retail box of Windows. They either use what comes on the computer, or they get somebody to 'upgrade' it for them, more than likely with a downloaded ISO.

The only version of Windows that I ever saw 'Joe User' run out and purchase was Win95, and I think that was more due to the media attention than anything else; that level of attention/media-circus has basically never happened again.

Re:Price of Windows

[Kadin2048]

(shrug) Kudos, I guess. Everyone has different experiences; I suspect these are influenced heavily by the socio-economic and age sector where you work and of the people you interact with.

The only retail boxes I've personally ever seen of Windows that didn't say "95" on them, were WinXP Pro boxes, seemingly used mostly as an upsell at big-box stores, for the salespeople to push to people who were buying systems that only came with Home on them.

I'm not making a moral judgment one way or the other, it's just that in my personal experience, I'd say that the overwhelming number of Windows systems are ones that were pre-installed. After that, I'd say that a majority of the remaining installs are pirate copies, or are at least installed from pirated media.

The situation might be different among older people, but in the college and post-college crowd, finding a pirated Windows ISO is about as challenging as finding change for a $20, and carries about as much social stigma. Add to this the fact that most computer don't come with real OS install CDs, and some don't come with CDs at all, and you have a huge demand. People's computers get messed up, they want to do a reformat-and-reinstall...what are you going to do when you don't have the CDs anymore? You find somebody who does have them. (I question whether this is actually all that illegal; if it's the same version of the OS and the computer had a license to use it already...you're just using alternate media to re-install it. At any rate, I digress, because most people don't give a damn.)

Now, this is only my experience, YMMV and all that; it's quite consistent with other people that I've talked to in other areas, however. Perhaps when you get into age groups where there's less social interaction or it's less socially acceptable to walk around and ask your neighbors if they can burn you a copy of Office XP, the situation is different.

You can call me a Ballmer/MS shill (I've been called a lot of things, but that is definitely a new one), but I'm just giving the truth as I've seen it. If Windows isn't the most-often pirated piece of software in the world, it must be in the top 5;* or it's prevented from being there only because it's so widely pre-installed. On a personal standpoint, I would love to see Microsoft implement all sorts of draconian anti-piracy measures. All those pirated installs that I mentioned are all MS marketshare, and more importantly mindshare, at the end of the day. They'd only be shooting themselves in the foot by making it harder to do. But by all means, Mr. Ballmer: turn them all off, if you possibly can and dare to.

I think the computer ecosystem would be healthier in general if pirated copies of Windows weren't so widely available; it does nothing but artificially deflate the price of Windows and make it harder for legitimate alternatives to exist.

* An interesting side-note: taking the top 1 and 2 place on the Pirate Bay's list of top torrents in the Windows category are Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows XP SP3, respectively. http://thepiratebay.org/top/301

Re:I said it before and I'll say it again

[GFree]

I'd agree with this in the sense that bad drivers OR bad hardware are the primary source for the BSOD. I remember when I would suffer a BSOD fairly predictably in Battlefield 2, and also sometimes at a certain point during a reinstall of XP. Turns out my video card was dying (a suspicion proved when it eventually exploded); a new card was obtained and the BSODs simply disappeared.

I tried running things like Doom 3/Quake 4 in Linux with the same card before it exploded, and instead of a BSOD which Linux prides itself on not having... the games simply froze up requiring a hard reset. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be better than a BSOD, but at least a BSOD provides some information (even if it's often unintelligible).

My perspective is different - my rant

[dbIII]

...why not just move straight to Linux and save the complete redesign and recoding? Oh, that's right, because Windows is THE standard in software.

Not everyone uses a computer as a glass typewriter. It depends on the software - some of the very expensive commericial software people use in my office has never run on a Microsoft platform and linux on basicly 1U gamer godboxes is the cheap way to use it. To look at the displays you can use Hummingbird Exceed on MS Windows or just use linux instead with a faster X windows as part of the standard install. To print on plotters you can spend many minutes and wasting metres of paper trying to get the page setup to the correct size in MS windows applications (if you can remember which application to use for a specific graphics format so you don't run out of memory) or on a dozen kinds of *nix you can just tell it to go away and print the thing or even just dump the file in the plotters memory by ftp if you want. As for network printer setup - someone went to sleep at MS that day.

As for compatibility - some new machines where I work had Windows98 installed on them so that old stuff developed expensively in house over many years would run (so yes - there is some redesign and recoding going on - and it will run on a lot of platforms), as well as things like expensive A/D conversion cards which just don't have drivers for newer versions of MS Windows. We even have to keep a DOS machine to get some stuff around - possibly buggy and incorrectly written to a poorly documented API but there are a lot of old programs that just will not run. A lot of scientific software was written in VB back when it was basic, then pascal and now it is java instead - so a lot of stuff really has to be rewritten from scratch even if you stay purely on the MS platform. If some guy has spent three solid years working out how to do some brilliant method of manipulating data in a certain way to solve a scientific problem you don't want to have to find their notes five years later, teach someone in their field how to program and get them to redo it in on a different platform - you want to just run the thing.

One last thing - having a single standard OS to rule them all is the stuff of meglomanic fantasy and ignores the idea that people want to do different things with their computers.

Re:Windows = the problem

[drsmithy]

Why couldn't they just write some kind of compatibility layer for legacy apps?

They did. It's called WoW (Windows on Windows). That's how NT runs old Win16 apps.

Note, however, that there is much old software Windows NT will *never* support, because of the way it expects to access the hardware and OS internals.

I also think it's worth mentioning that they would never do this with Linux; if they did (and I'm not saying they will) they would use one of the BSDs.

Neither Linux, nor any of the BSDs, would provide any technological advantage. At best, they'd be a step sideways. That's the single biggest reason Microsoft would never use them as a base.

It works for me

[PopeRatzo]

I've used WinXP for all of that 5 years and it's been a productive platform for me. I've edited and processed video, ran a digital audio workstation, built web pages, wrote documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Photoshopped, Skyped and played the hell out of Half-Life 2 and Eve-Online. Even made a few java apps. BitTorrent is my window to the world. I have actually had Windows Restore save my bacon a few times.

My computers talk to each other, and with liberal application of Kaspersky's finest, I haven't had a single bit of virus damage on my home wireless network. I can open a link to my network at the office and it also has not been taken down by virus or spyware, thanks to a moderately small application of care. I go more than a month without rebooting regularly and haven't had to reinstall the OS since 2003.

Although it costs about 150% of what I think it should, so does my car and iPod. I don't like the way Microsoft does business and I hope the Zune goes right down the crapper. I'm extremely apprehensive about Vista, and the WGA has been foul in the extreme.

But Microsoft made a pretty good OS in Windows XP.

Re:It works for me

[ozmanjusri]

But Microsoft made a pretty good OS in Windows XP

Maybe XP is "a pretty good OS", the trouble is, it's not significantly different from the OSs that preceded it, and that's because the Windows monopoly is acting as a huge roadblock across progress in the field.

The Curtiss JN-4 was a pretty good aircraft for its time too, but there were people who had visions of fast monoplanes, of jets, of cargo lifters, of helicopters, of seaplanes. Our situation with operating systems is as if aircraft designs had standardised on JN-4s in the '1920s so that airports could all be the same size.

The operating system should be a fairly minor part of our computing experience - fundamentally, all it is is a way of getting our applications to run, but because currently, OS choice also means format choice, including executable format choice. That means lockin, monopoly, and stagnation.

Computer users should be able to run their applications of choice on the OS of their choice, running on the hardware of their choice. If the world were to shift away from Windows now, the time and money already invested in Windows PE apps would be wasted. The computer industry should be planning for a future where that waste will not repeated, where users can take the applications they've purchased and use them on any new platforms which offer better performance.

Sadly, instead, the software industry is gearing itself towards selling their customers the same application over and over again.

Re:It works for me

[ozmanjusri]

He's talking about applications made by third-party vendors that target the Windows platform.

In that case, using Direct X to marginalize Open GL, deliberately breaking Java, patent encumbered and closed data formats, APIs and communications protocols, etc, etc.

It's amazing that anyone asks this question anymore - you'd have to have been hiding your head under a blanket for the past two decades not to have seen hundreds of examples of their predatory business practices. What do you think the whole EU/MS anti-trust thing is about?.

Re:It works for me

[ozmanjusri]

are you on crack or did you never use win95/98. XP is a massive improvement. Crashes are few and far between and there is a lot less "format/reinstall" problems.

Still struggling with the whole "social skills" concept, hey?

Curtiss JN-4Bs crashed a whole lot less than 4As as well, but they're recognisably the same plane and worked pretty much the same otherwise.

Failing to crash eventually became an expectation rather than a hope in aircraft. One day that may also be true with consumer operating systems.

Re:It works for me

[UltraAyla]

Maybe XP is "a pretty good OS", the trouble is, it's not significantly different from the OSs that preceded it, and that's because the Windows monopoly is acting as a huge roadblock across progress in the field.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Windows XP has stability whereas 9x was severely lacking. WinXP SP2 has a modest attempt at built in security (though it could be better - still 9x had nil). WinXP has broadband support natively whereas 9x and even ME had none (I realize that broadband was rare then, but it is still an advancement). Remote Desktop, System Restore, easy hardware installation, a halfway decent media player, DirectX 8 and 9, NTFS, and the list goes on.

Computer users should be able to run their applications of choice on the OS of their choice, running on the hardware of their choice.

Exactly what windows DOES allow users to do. I don't use Windows Media Player, I use Winamp. I don't use Outlook Express, I use Thunderbird. I don't use IE, I use Firefox. Ok, I do use Remote Desktop, but that's because I think it's better than VNC in many respects (but I could use it). I use my own backups in conjunction with the excellent system restore, and many games I play use OpenGL instead of DirectX. In addition, most of these things that I personally use can be set as defaults overriding the use of microsoft's own applications. However, by bundling their own applications, they give me a functional and diverse OS straight out of the box. As far as the "hardware of my choice" - I have upgraded almost everything in my computer since I bought it and kept the same WinXP install. I have a different motherboard, hard drive, and video card than when I originally installed, and have added and removed various expansion cards. All installed quickly and painlessly from plugin to use.

The operating system should be a fairly minor part of our computing experience - fundamentally, all it is is a way of getting our applications to run

While that philosophy may still be held by some, it is fading with most (except some Linux distros) - however, the most common Linux distributions, plus Mac OS and Windows all are including more and more, because that's what the users want.

The computer industry should be planning for a future where that waste will not repeated, where users can take the applications they've purchased and use them on any new platforms which offer better performance.

This I agree with. It would be very nice to see more of this. We do see some efforts toward this with things like Wine, but even that isn't really cross-platform compatibility. Interpreted languages are excellent for this, and there are many full-scale apps that will run cross-platform because they were written in Java and not C. The internet itself practically runs on portable code, what with html, css, apache, perl, php, ruby, python, etc. Unless you include a platform specific module in your code, it is all cross-platform.

Sadly, instead, the software industry is gearing itself towards selling their customers the same application over and over again.

Well, that is the basic premise of an OS. If you'd like, you can keep running on DOS or Win 3.1 which will do, as you say, the basic tasks of "getting our applications to run" - However, if Microsoft wants to sell me the same application over and over again, but with all of the functions I listed above added in, I'll gladly pay for the new features. People have been critical of Vista for being very similar to WinXP - I cannot argue for or against since I have no hands-on experience with Vista - but it doesn't matter in the context of this discussion.

Re:Windows = the problem

[Overly Critical Guy]

Um, XP wasn't built from the ground up. It's derived from the NT line that began in the early 1990s. Additionally, XP's API layers (Win32, registry, etc.) are the same APIs dating back to the Win 9x line, which themselves date back to the original Windows 1.0.

There is much more that needs fixing than Internet Explorer, so much so that Windows developer Phillip Su called the codebase "overly complicated" and full of dependencies, many of them circular. There are hundreds of layers, and you may only ever understand two or three of them. It's so bad, that after a minor Vista refresh codenamed "Fuji," Microsoft wants to start with a rewrite codenamed "Vienna" and use virtualization technology to run pre-Vienna apps.

Of course, it remains to be seen if any of that actually comes to fruition or how long it will take. In the meantime, Vista is a mess both bug-wise and interface-wise. I count at least five different styles of menus and various conflicting dialog styles...some of them are the same dialogs from XP and even Windows 3.1, like the Install Font dialog. Don't even get me started on how many contradictory light source directions there are on the default Vista desktop's icons and interface. They quickly slapped Glass together to look like Aqua, and it's so obvious, even down to ripping off the OS X save dialog in IE7 all the way down to the disclosure triangle in the lower-left that reveals the filesystem browser. And UAC is absolutely horrible and intrusive, rather than the occasional password prompt you recieve in OS X.

I seriously fear for anyone planning to trust Vista on their machines with all its 1.0 APIs and untested technologies and further bloat on top of the aging Windows codebase. It's five years later, and we're still getting patches for XP and IE6, at an increasing rate, in fact. I have to admit to a bit of schadenfreude in anticipating how many pieces Vista is blown up into by black hat hackers on release, like stopping to watch a roadside accident..

Hindsight

[TrisexualPuppy]

Maybe I am in the minority, but I have had huge success with Windows XP Pro in installation, management, troubleshooting, and day-to-day operation. If you have installed Windows XP regularly enough to really understand its quirks, shortcomings, and nuances, the reality is that you can have a viable, stable system up and running in literally minutes. Create an unattended install disk, and on a newer PC, you can be online and productive in a very short time.

It's so easy to disparage Windows XP and Microsoft, but compared to its predecessors, Windows XP Pro really has matured into a decent product. The other night, I helped troubleshoot one of my wife's work computers running Windows 98, and I was frustrated by the lack or "mispalcement" of utilities, settings, and system tools that are always and predictably available in Windows XP Pro.

This is certainly not to say that it is without faults, security and vulnerability being the biggest issue. Microsoft should forget about the whiz-bang Vista approach, and re-write Windows XP Pro from the ground up. THAT would sell.

My only real complaint with Microsoft and Windows XP Pro is that they have never provided cost-effective licensing for home users to legally maintain multiple computers. WIndows XP Pro is really the way to go, but at its original $300+ price, it was far out of the reach of most home users. I bit the bullet and purchased multiple copies, but if Microsoft had provided a more cost-friendly option, I would have promoted it and recommended it much much more.

Re:Hindsight

[daviddennis]

It's worth comparing Windows XP licensing with Apple, which will cheerfully sell you a five-user license of their latest and greatest for $199. And they don't saddle you with a crippled "home" version, either.

However, I will contest your idea that Windows XP is intuitive while 98 is not. I remember very distinctly seeing my company moving from 98 to 2000 and XP, and in those years it was hard as heck to figure out where everything had been capriciously moved in the newer operating systems. You just think XP is more intuitive now because you haven't used 98 in a long time.

Recently, I've been looking at average people's average computers - ones not maintained by corporate wealth - and all of them suffer from confusing maladies. XP was advertised as something an average home user can maintain successfully, and despite a lot of money spent on anti-virus software, it doesn't seem like most home users can manage at all well.

Now, there are plenty of Slashdotters who have good Windows experiences, and I'm happy for them. But the real contest is what non-technical people face, and in that respect I have to call XP a shameful failure.

D

Re:Hindsight

[arminw]

......ALL MacOS X intel versions are intentionally crippled by Apple to prevent them from running on generic PC hardware......

Why is it that smart /. users STILL cannot get it through their heads that Apple is a HARDWARE maker who happens to make their own OS. There is nothing that prevents HP, Dell or any other hardware company from doing this also. if the did, would HP customers clamor to run the Dell operating system? Do Ford users clamor for Mercedes engines in their cars? Why should Apple write their OS do it would run on a Dell or other brand?

Re:Hindsight

[moranar]

There is nothing that prevents HP, Dell or any other hardware company from doing this also...

They (for some values of "them") do, for laptops: you wouldn't want to use one of their laptop recovery discs to install Win XP on another computer.

Re:Hindsight

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope you're insinuating that OSX is the better replacement and not Linux. If said home user wants to change some setting, he will probably poke through his XP control panel for a while and has a decent chance to find the checkbox or dropdown associated with the change he/she was looking for. In Linux, said user will never in a million years open up a terminal, type man somecrypticallynamedconf.conf, find the appropriate boolean, integer, or string value in the man page, su to root, fire up an editor and point it to /etc/rxcgsd.d/init/conf/somecrypticallynamedconf.c onf, make the appropriate edits, and restart the service.

Before you pounce on the Windows Registry, just compare the number of times you have had to regedit a value, to the number of times you have edited a conf file. I think you will find the argument stands.

I'd like to see *nix succeed, but you do it a disservice by declaring it ready for Grandma when it is clearly not.

When every Linux app comes with a small plugin to a configuration management GUI, that adds the conf settings to a panel that allows you to view and edit them visually, maybe we'll have made some real progress. Upon launch, config manager asks for root password, then loads all plugins that come installed with all Linux apps.

Panel opens, there is a list of all the programs that it is managing configurations for on the left, and upon clicking, opens a nicely tabbed and organized layout of all the options with tooltips so I don't have to flip back and forth between the man page if I need further information.

Conf files are reparsed on every opening, so manual edits to confs will show up as well, and leaves that as an open option to 'advanced' users that are used to them.

It's such an obvious idea yet nobody has made a real attempt at it. I'll even give my 'revolutionary' idea away for free. Please God, someone use it. /MLS

Re:Hindsight

[Kremmy]

Dell DOES do this. Although I haven't used a Dell-branded Windows XP CD, their Windows 2000 Pro SP4 CD would only boot on Dell hardware. If you tried it in another machine, it would just say "This CD only works on Dell blah blah" and stop.

Re:Windows = the problem

[drsmithy]

I don't think his suggestion is crazy. Why couldn't Microsoft start from scratch with a totally new OS, and include a legacy compatibility environment?

They did. It's called Windows NT.

Re:W2K FTW

[Breakfast Pants]

My thoughts exactly. The article said, "although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors," and frankly that is just bullshit. It was not markedly better than w2k by any means.

The NT line was basically stolen from Digital

[leonbrooks]

It was basically a derivative of VMS 5 called MICA; for a while, NT and MICA were patch-compatible; Microsoft hired many of the key Digital people (there was even a lawsuit about this) & still couldn't make it anywhere near as tough or secure as VMS routinely was.

So... even with such a blatant head-start, Microsoft couldn't make it anything but rattley.

No change there in decades.

Re:The NT line was basically stolen from Digital

[dcavanaugh]

Back in the day, Digital wanted to compete on hardware vs. Intel. They figured they could sell VMS (and perhaps Unix) as upgrades over NT, so long as the customer bought Alpha-based hardware from Digital. Robert Palmer was the CEO. He came from the chip manufacturing division, and he saw the ability to sieze the CPU market with superior technology. Letting Microsoft conquer the low-end market was part of the plan. The theory at the time was that Digital made money selling hardware -- the OS was just part of the hardware sales pitch. As a result, they were perfectly content to help Microsoft get into the game.

After all, the real enemy was Intel. And Intel's main attraction was the dumb and cheap OS that ran on "PC clone" hardware. Digital wanted to be just as dumb and cheap, with an upgrade path that Intel lacked. Such was the plan, and Microsoft had a role to play. Nobody (at Digital) realized that the people who bought the "dumb and cheap" OS would be willing to accept the limitations. Today, a generation of IT people is satisfied with NT/XP -- accepting the limitations that were unacceptable 20 years ago.

Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of NT, you can see the missing pieces. Certain key parts of VMS never made it to NT because Microsoft didn't hire Digital people from those groups. Consider the VMS job queueing system vs. the NT/XP job queueing system. Oh wait, there isn't one! Scripting languages -- DCL vs. MS-DOS batch language. Then we have clustering, where Microsoft has yet to catch up with Digital's 1984 technology.

But it was not a totally one-sided comparison. Microsoft beat Digital's print drivers, price, and third-party developer market share. I would rate security as a toss-up (both were vulnerable to all kinds of mischief). Ditto for Internet support (an afterthought for both). Even so, when all things are considered, NT is a poor knockoff of VMS.

Microsoft wins this battle, so there must be something really important about the areas where they beat Digital. If the past is any indication of the future, the key factors in building an OS are price, commodity hardware, and third-party developer market share. That's really all Microsoft had over Digital. Guess who leads in all of those areas today?

Lack of cut in OS X. Design of Windows vs. Mac.

[Jimithing DMB]

Windows DOES have a Cut command in Explorer, something that still boggles my mind about the Mac (how can Finder not have a Cut?)

I believe it's actually a design decision on the part of Apple. The traditional way to move or copy files on a Mac has always been to use the mouse to drag them. This isn't hard at all when you have a decent sized screen and you can simply stagger the source and destination windows then drag from one to the other.

It is interesting though because dragging files is really something someone needs to be shown. My experience has been that people don't just pick it up without at least some minor prompting. Once you show someone on a Mac they seem to understand it quickly. However, I've had a hell of a time showing how to do it on Windows PCs. It just seems that people can't get their mind out of the one maximized window mindset and it's rather hard to drag from one maximized thing to another. Of course, you can drag through the task bar but that's another learned behavior, one that doesn't make that much sense compared with a normal drag.

This, I think, is one of the major shortcomings of Windows. Microsoft has basically crippled the UI to the point where it's nearly impossible to run more than a few apps with more than a few windows open. Unfortunately, it seems that Vista doesn't really fix this shortcoming. They have a cool looking alt-tab replacement but it's just that, cool looking.

It would be very hard for Microsoft to move to the Mac model here. Part of the Mac model is that the menubar switches with the app you're using and that all the toolbars and pallets disappear when the app is not active and switch when you switch which document you're working on within an app. Contrast this with the Microsoft style of putting giant sidebars on all four sides of the document area within the window. It makes the windows too big to be sized anything other than maximized on many screens.

Of course, some people have a preference for the Windows way. They say it "looks cleaner" because they only see what they're working on. Maybe some people really get distracted by having portions of other windows behind their active one still visible. Funny enough, that aspect of OS X never bothered me. I found it relatively easy to get used to the idea that windows generally exist on the screen and don't try to own the entire screen. To me it seems similar to the way one stack of paper sometimes obscures another on my real desk. I never stack everything neatly in piles and grid them out like tiles. I've got one pile of papers that's half covering another so I can see at least part of what's under it to know it's there. This way I can put a lot more crap on my desk and still know where it is. Now I know I'm not the only person whose desk looks this way

Still, can I really blame Microsoft for these things though? Not really. They made these decisions years ago trying to get people to move from DOS to Windows and then later from Windows to newer versions of Windows. The latest trend I'm seeing is for some people to get dual monitors on Windows. This way they can have two apps maximized, one maximized on each screen. I ran dual monitors on OS X for a while but lack of real maximization (and no desire to have it either) means you wind up with a good sized worksurface with a huge line in the middle of it. I've since decided that Apple is defiitely on the right track with the bigger displays. Particularly if you have the 23" you can begin to see how it completely changes how you want to interact with the computer. You're not going to maximize things; even at the smaller 20" size a window would be ridiculously big. What I find myself doing is just staggering more and more windows all over the place. It looks just as messy as my real desk. This, I think, is exactly the point. Apple has taken the desktop metaphor one step further with these huge displays.

And what has Microsoft offered us? More of the same. Compu

Re:W2K FTW

[1u3hr]

As far as I can tell, people who still use 2000 by choice are either ignorant or just dumb.

Or cheap, or just don't see a need to install a more demanding OS for no discernible benefit. I haven't found any software or hardware that refuses to install or run on Win2k, for instance. An OS is just a platform to run apps. If it does that without crashing, why change it?

Re:W2K FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe he is more saying that win2k did that first.
Early on, it was Fischer Price and quite a few problems.
Now it seems decent.

For your ASSuming of ignorant or dumb: I legally own windows 2000.
I do not legally own or wish to pay for yet another version of windows 2000.

Re:W2K FTW

[Simon Garlick]

XP is basically 2000 with added multimedia, games, and hardware support ... As far as I can tell, people who still use 2000 by choice are either ignorant or just dumb.

Or maybe they see no reason for buying a whole new hideously-overpriced operating system for "added multimedia and games" if their hardware is already supported by Win2K?

As far as *I* can tell, there's only one thing that XP has over Win2K: a terminal services client "out of the box". XP Remote Desktop is bloody good.

Re:W2K FTW

[Mistshadow2k4]

Having used both for months, I will tell you what: reliability. XP may be more user-friendly, but the user-friendly components have a tendency to break occasionally. When that happens, they tend to screw up the system until you can fix them. Nothing like that ever happened to me when I used 2k for two years, but it's happened twice in the 6 months I've used XP. I now have XP on this machine and 2k/Debian on my main machine; XP is on the gaming rig.

Re:W2K FTW

[whoever57]

Here's an honest question: Ignoring the cost, just what is it that you think is so much better about Windows 2000 compared to XP? I've used both and I'll tell you what: Nothing.

One word: Activation. W2K does not have this, XP does.

Also, W2K does not have the broken implementation of access to shares that XP home has. I know that XP home to W2K is not a fair comparison, but the point is that MS took something that works and deliberately made it less functional. An example: a person in my office cannot access a SAMBA share from his XP-H machine. He then accesses his home directory on the same machine and now magically, he can access the share that was previously denied earlier.

Re:W2K FTW

[LurkerXXX]

So for someone who likes the old basic theme that doesn't use needless resources, they get exactly what out of XP??? Need for a driver? Every hardware manufacturer I know has those available from their website. Is downloading drivers for the 4 or 5 pieces of hardware you probably need the never drivers for that hard? That might be worth the price of an XP upgrade to you, but not to me.
So you'd be ignorant or dumb one for doing that in my book. (BTW, I have other machines with XP on them. So I know exactly what I'm (not) missing on my 2k boxes).

Oh, I forgot, with XP you get that wonderful *activation* feature that's missing on 2k.

Re:Windows = the problem

[Eideewt]

Because it's not done ye.

I've wondered about the stability claim

[93 Escort Wagon]

People like to say "I've never seen my XP box lock up". Thing is, unless you're right there when it happens... you won't. XP automatically reboots after most crashes.

Ever come back to your box the next day, or after a weekend, and think to yourself "Huh - I didn't think I'd logged out"? Well, you probably didn't.

Yeah, yeah, I know this'll get modded as flamebait.

Re:I've wondered about the stability claim

[oz_paulb]

>> People like to say "I've never seen my XP box lock up". Thing is, unless you're right there when it happens... you won't. XP automatically reboots after most crashes.

As you state in your next sentence, you *will* notice it when it happens (by the fact that you're back at the login prompt when you don't expect it).

So, anyone who states "I've never seen my XP box lock up" is either correct (it didn't lock-up/reboot/etc), or they are lying (of course, there's no way to know if someone is lying).

Manufacturing scenarios ("unless you're right there when it happens...") to help your side if the argument *is* flamebait.

Re:W2K FTW

[John Miles]

Here's an honest question: Ignoring the cost, just what is it that you think is so much better about Windows 2000 compared to XP?

Product activation. If I tried to sell you my car, but insisted on keeping the starter-kill remote, you'd tell me to go jump in the lake. For some reason, people don't subject Microsoft to the same scrutiny.

Product activation is bad enough at the application level, where individual programs have to phone home to receive permission to run. It should be absolutely unacceptable at the OS level... which is why it really, really sucks that everybody accepted it.

As far as I can tell, people who still use 2000 by choice are either ignorant or just dumb.

Yeah, OK, that must be it.

Can bad drivers crash/hang/kill Linux?

[oz_paulb]

Is Linux somehow 'magic' in its ability to defend against bad drivers, or would it suffer the same problems as WinXP does?

A bad driver is a bad driver: it can bring down the OS (no matter what the OS is).

Why is this 'issue' considered to be XP-specific?

Re:Can bad drivers crash/hang/kill Linux?

[dbIII]

Is Linux somehow 'magic' in its ability to defend against bad drivers

The drivers are linux - it is an operating system and not a distribution. The bad drivers don't get merged in - people like the reiserfs people and many other groups will tell you that some of the good drivers don't get merged in because of a conservative approach. Development versions of linux do of course crash all the time before the debugged code gets merged in for others to use. It's not magic it is management of a project.

It is an XP issue (among others) becuase you often have no choice but to use drivers in kernel space that are not under the control of Microsoft - however some of the "signed" stuff approved by Microsoft could have done with more testing as well. There are also lots of other applications that have their hooks right into the kernel - which is one of the hassles with 64 bit versions of MS Windows and applications that are not written for it that fit into this catagory as well as generally buggy ones that can crash it. Microsoft gets the blame because they set the rules that allow these things to happen - as well as having a few nasty programs of their own (Outlook not so good - that's one way to Express it).

Re:W2K FTW

[Bedouin X]

This is absolutely false. XP was absolutely more of a resource hog than Windows 2000. I used to support Win2K desktops in an office environment running standard productivity apps with 128 MB of RAM (2K required 64MB) and it ran fine. Try doing that on XP. I did, and it wasn't pretty.

Re:W2K FTW

[Siberwulf]

Acutally, I bought my copy of XP Pro from Office Max in the golden days. I got a free scanner, a free Mic, a free printer, a free joystick, and free antivirus. I sold them all on Ebay, and made $15 for "buying" Windows XP Pro upgrade.
 
Maybe that was an isolated case?

Re:W2K FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, I wonder who funded that lab?

uh oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pasty-white elitist nerd slap-fight at 12 o'clock!!

Re:W2K FTW

[egarland]

just what is it that you think is so much better about Windows 2000 compared to XP?

Windows 2000 doesn't have activation spyware in it. As long as I can get the OS working on the hardware.. I'm good. I don't need approval from Redmond.

Windows 2000 is much lighter and cleaner out of the box. Everything you need, nothing you don't. You can hack XP to work like 2K but why spend the time when 2K will work just fine?

Windows 2000 is simpler. There are less services, less interdependencies, less things to break and go wrong. There's this strange notion going around that as long as it's "behind the scenes" people shouldn't care about it. That's complete BS. The stuff behind the scenes matters.

Hardware compatibility with XP is also an issue. Not all hardware vendors roll out new drivers perpetually. Sometimes the old software just stops working on new OSs and nobody bothers to fix it.

There are some machines that simply haven't been upgraded since the Win2K days. I know.. it's hard to believe a Microsoft OS lasting that long without needing a reinstall but it happens. Upgrading Microsoft OSs is a crap shoot. Even ignoring the cost of the software and the cost of the time to upgrade there's the risk that at the end of the day it just won't work.

As far as I can tell.. people who can't see the valid reasons for running 2K over XP are.. well.. let's just write that one off to lack of experience and immagination. It's ok though... teenagers often have a hard time grasping points of view outside of their own. You should grow out of it.

Why I am still on 2K

[Lord Prox]

I tend to reinstall my OS every 6-9 months. Swapping hardware, testing drivers, the occasional software that just won't uninstall all adds up and makes all versions of windows glitchy and crufty. The Solution? Reinstall the OS.
I refuse to pick up the phone and explain to MS why I should be allowed to reinstall XP. 2k no suck problems.

My reason for sticking with 2K until I am forced to move? General F'ing Principal.



Place a curse on Microsoft.

Re:Why I am still on 2K

[Rhipf]

If you reinstall every 6-9 months you won't have a problem activating XP (which I assume you were referring to with the "phone and explain" statement). The limits on number of activations resets every 120 days. So unless you reinstall on a monthly bases you should be ok.

Re:W2K FTW

[dwlovell]

Transferring a copy of XP is far easier than transferring a car license. You give someone the product key and media. They try to install the OS on their machine and it may say its already been activated and it shows a phone # to call. You call up and say "Hi, I am trying to install XP and it told me to call in". They ask you why and you say "I am rebuilding my machine, I changed machines and am moving the license to this machine." They say "okay, type in these numbers as I read them." Whala, its activated. They dont ask your name or any other identifying information. Activation is never tied to your name or other identifying information. To claim its difficult to transfer to another person just goes to show how ignorant you are about how simple the XP activation process really is.

Transferring cars requires a form to fill out and a visit to the DMV for the purchaser, along with a registration fee. XP activation is a toll-free phone call and thats it. In many cases, it wont even complain if there has been a long time since the last activation.

-David

Re:Lack of cut in OS X. Design of Windows vs. Mac.

[Tom]

Windows PCs. It just seems that people can't get their mind out of the one maximized window mindset

Bingo. One thing that I've always wondered about. Why is this unique to the windos world? Every Mac and Unix user I know has their windows scattered around the screen in whatever way makes sense to them, while windos users work with maximized windows all the time. What's a windowing system for if you don't use it? And why is it that only windos people work this way?

Re:Windows = the problem

[RLiegh]

Ok. Who mentioned candlejack agai

Re:W2K FTW

[uvajed_ekil]

ere's an honest question: Ignoring the cost, just what is it that you think is so much better about Windows 2000 compared to XP? My entire supposition was based on the fact that cost was irrelevant. Perhaps I wasn't real clear on this, as everyone seems to have missed it

Okay, how 'bout this for a great reason not to run XP over 2000 (and certainly the most common one): I already have 2000 installed on my machine(s) and it does everything I need; 2000 was available, i tried it, and it ain't [too] broke yet, so I'm not going to "fix" it by upgrading, which could only lead to problems.

Initial cost is not necessarily even a factor in choosing software/OS. Sure, I could buy a $400 air compressor, a $200 nail gun, and some assorted accessories, but if I only need to put a roof on my shed, "upgrading" beyond my trusty 16oz rip claw hammer would just be dumb.

old clichés

[namekuseijin]

"In Linux, said user will never in a million years open up a terminal, type..."

the problem with /.ers is clichés from years ago. Your cliché of a common joe typing in xterm is just as laughable as penguinists seeing BSoDs every few weeks in XP...

Use Ubuntu, Suse or others and tell me you have once to type in a command-line except you really want to.

YaST anyone?

[TheNinjaroach]

Not to flaunt my SUSE fanboyism or anything, but YaST handles most .conf files very well. A couple of years ago when I first made the switch and was checking out different distros, SUSE was way ahead of the crowd on the control-panel like access to almost all system services and settings.

TCP/IP settings, add / remove users, add / remove software, power management and firewall settings are all available in the same spot. And for the most part the panels they open are easy to understand, offering much more help towards the options than Windows does.

We DID know it then.

[argent]

A lot of the stuff that's wrong with Windows XP was already known to be wrong as early as 1997, back when Windows XP's precursor was Windows NT 3.51 and the integration of Windows 95's shell was the big obvious change in Windows NT 4.0.

As a result, something that should have been fixed in Win 95 -- the way Windows slowly chokes on the leftovers of old programs -- remains a problem.

Something that should have been fixed in Windows 3.1, you mean. By 1997 this was a huge and obvious problem in Windows, and one that we'd already been fighting for five years.

Microsoft also did nothing to make the system registry -- the collection of settings that constitutes a single, system-wide point of failure -- less of a nightmare.

Relacing INI files with a binary encoded version of the same INI files (look at a registry dump some time) was obviously a huge step backwards... in 1994 or so.

Note, also, what Microsoft never thought to include in XP: anti-virus software ...

Anti-virus software isn't necessary in a competantly written system. The OS and applications should be held responsible for keeping viruses out in the first place, rather than trying to catch them after the fact. In 1997 Microsoft completely blew it, introduced the greatest virus distribution system the world has ever known in the criminally incompetant "Active Desktop" and everything that it's spawned. The only "antivirus" I use now, and from 1997 to 2002 the most important standard "antivirus" for the systems I supported, was "no Internet Explorer or Outlook", and then later (as they started using the HTML control) "no Windows Media Player or Realplayer".

This stuff was obvious years before XP came out. A headline like "If Only We Knew Then What We Know Now About Windows XP" only means "it's not just the political reporters who can't remember what happened a few years ago".