Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Claims a Billion Windows Installs by End of 2008
eldavojohn writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed yesterday that there will be a billion machines running Windows within a year. 'The install base of Windows computers this coming 12 months will reach 1 billion. If you stop and just think about that, parse that for a second, by the end of our fiscal year '08, there will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles, which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept.'"
They are the McDonald's of software
Indeed.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
How is this possible? Do that many people even have access to a computer?
Yeah, he's probably right... if you include all the vm's we run to sandbox stuff...
J
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
Does that include reinstalls?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Are they counting pirated copies?
ST. PETERSBURG - WarezOv Industries announced today a new initiative in partnership with Microsoft that promises to put shared web hosting on every desktop.
"With Microsoft's help, we have brought web hosting services to nearly one billion PCS across the Internet," announced WarezOv CEO dRO0m@t. "Windows allows us the opportunity to bring value-add to the customer."
WarezOv's suite of administration tools allows easy management of all aspects of web hosting, including DNS, mail services and -- most important -- failover. "By tapping into Window's remote API calls, WarezOv's tools can scale web hosting to nearly any degree, and make it easy for the hoster as well," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "This -- and their tool's ease of install -- is what Windows is all about."
Free Software Foundation president and founder Richard M. Stallman was unavailable for comment. "He's talking to Google about building something similar for GNU/Linux," said a source close to Stallman.
Carousel is a lie!
No chairs were harmed in the making of this press release.
At the bottom of the
A billion computers running Windows at one time? How many are in the process of rebooting at any one time?
:)
Does that count as running?
Or are they counting the number of copies of Windows they have sold? In that case the actual number of systems running windows today is going to be much less.
Someone needs show their work on these numbers...
Do they just assume that every computer that's sold in one piece will have some form of Windows installed, legal or warezed?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
American billion, I suppose == Rest-of-the-world-milliard. Anything else would REALLY be mind-numbing. Imagine two hundred Windows installs per earth inhabitant...
A Microsoft billion. They use a similar system to calculate the amount of time remaining when installing a .msi.
...all Hell breaks loose... The world as we know it will cease to exist... Resistance is futile...
The game.
I think that the average household has more Unix systems running for them than Windows. For example - I know for sure that my DVD player and my ADSL modem have Linux running in them. My TV, phones, etc - frankly no idea. Maybe some Unix too, maybe something else. But I heard that this thing runs them most: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_Project
Yeah, desktop is still important but with things like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC gaining momentum I hope Windows will be further sliding into irrelevancy.
"more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles"
soon to be
"more automobiles running Windows in the world, not just PCs"
and don't forget boats for that matter: Windows for Warships (not a joke)
luckily, even though one of microsoft's original software hits in the early 1980s was a flight simulator, this is still a joke... for now
someone else can find the reality/ joke based depiction of windows running submarines, or spacecraft... or donkey mule carts... (mind numbing complete)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not talking XP and Vista either.
I'm talking when a company buy a PC and has a corporate version of Windows XP (no activation req'd)
That means MS gets:
-one license for the PC leaving the store/reseller
and
-one when the company buys a corporate license for that PC.
Therefore MS get a 2-for-1 deal, everytime!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
What about cars running windows "automotive"?t .mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsautomotive/defaul
There seems to be some overlap here...
oh man... "windows automotive". -shudder-
Who doesn't love milfy bewbs, c'mon now.
Let me see... I had to reinstall Windows 12 times on my son's computer, 8 times on my Wife's computer, 5 times on my computer at work, 15 times on my dad's computer, and so on....
Yeah, I can see how Microsoft can claim 1 billion installs - let's see them filter it out to "unique computers" and see where that number goes.
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
Not sure why that's so mind-numbing. I personally own more computers than I do cars, and I have my laptop from work. Two out of my three machines are Windows.
I'm sure most of us work in environments where computers outnumber people. And, I'm sure the back-room infrastructure of most IT departments consists of a fair number of machines doing various things. (And, any sufficiently large organization is gonna have at least one IT department/location.) Hell, I bet Microsoft and Google combined have several hundred thousand machines if not more.
Now, I have no idea of how they estimated this 1 billion machines, but I don't find it a surprising number at all -- I bet my office of 50 people has well over 100 computers running Windows, and we're one office in a multi-national corporation.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And probably similar to the Internet seconds in the good old Netscape, longest seconds I ever saw.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Shhh! Slashdot is unaware of the long system :)
In all honesty, although milliards make more sense to me that the short system, you need to switch over since most of the world is...
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
What they're counting is the number of times WGA pops up to confirm that your copy of Windows is valid.
....
.... you like using the computer you paid for right? We'll fix you good if you don't comply."
It's just retarded how many times that fucking thing pops up.... Microsoft wants to double quadruple check or something....
User: "but you already checked!!!"
MS: "yes and we're going to check again, bend over please
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
... 1 Billion will probably reached early Q3/2008
*scnr*
For once, Microsoft is ahead of its road map!
Greetz, Ice
Sig? Where I go, I don't need
Give it up. When I was at primary school in England in the mid-70's, the definition of a billion as 10^12 was already obsolete.
When the British government announces that they've spend a billion on this or squandered a billion on that, everybody knows they mean 10^9. It doesn't occur to anybody younger than eighty that they might mean 10^12.
You might have had a point in 1940. Now you're just being an arse. Hang on, is that you dad?
Must be the rest of the non-english-speaking world.
All the Brits I've asked say a Billion is 1,000,000,000.
But then the last Limey I quizzed couldn't tell me the correct color of Dennis the Menace's hair in old Blighty, so clearly he was an imposter.
Although the people who still think that we're using the old meaning of "billion" would also think the world's population is over six million million ;)
(I'm in the UK, and even though the media has long switched over to the US definition, it amazes me how many people still seem to think that a billion in the UK is "one million million" - given how often a "billion" is mentioned in various news items, it must distort their world view somewhat...)
Just think of the energy savings if they had made it the black screen of death.
They already have 1 billion Windows installations in China, all with the same activation key.
So many support calls!
Add number of instance licenses sold
to maximum population estimates of site license holders
to the highest out-of-thin-air web or internally reported estimate of unlicensed instances
add the results of rolling some chicken bones
Repeat until your number sounds psychologically significant.
But all that's ok. McDonalds still has them beat in the meaningless BS accounting department. They gave up at "Billions and Billions Served" though you can occasionally find one with a number in front of the billions. All things considered, i'd rather have the big mac than windows.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
I cannot imagine a billion Vista installations within a year.... Even on new PCs in India, the local hardware shop only offers PCs with 256MB RAM, 15" CRT monitor, DVD drives and pirated Windows 2000 - the software is installed gratis, there's no profits for the h/w dealer or Microsoft.
Even a recent crackdown against such dealers only brought negative publicity for Microsoft - as mentioned in the BusinessWeek article. With Vista's h/w requirements much more expensive (twice the h/w price for Win 2K) and numerous problems for home users with XP - (AutoUpdate, IE7 etc.); Win2K is the preferred OS for all concerned; and that is available only in pirated form.
Branded PC vendors used to make their hardware in such a way older Windows versions will not install - and they are shunned because of this practice. And so, while there may be a billion Windows PCs in a year from now, my guess is that atleast 75% of it will be pirated editions. Students buying laptops and home PCs form the single biggest chunk - and they seem to prefer the Eclipse IDE and XAMPP on Linux boxes for this. Even on Windows, these 2 are the most frequently used apps, besides the Firefox / Opera browser.
Since it is students who will drive future installation patterns, I guess the OS will lose relevance and fade away - while the browser (Firefox), IDE (Eclipse) and Programming setup (XAMPP) wars have already been fought and won by the Open Source folks. Only Firefox behaves a bit different on Windows and Linux - for the rest, students care very little what OS powers their PC. Linux wins because it needs lesser hardware, has more drivers, and is easy to install, backup and recover - allowing students to focus on their learning.
By 2008, I think hardly anyone will care what OS powers their PC.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Well yea, but they are counting the windows ce (or embedded or whatever they call it this week) devices too. Probably counting the probability of some old windows 95/98/me/NT/XP, etc. Marketing at it best, a billion users can't be wrong must be going through all the companies officers heads right now. Thing is many of those machines may have never ran windows at all, once they left the store they got new life as linux/bsd boxes and the like.
He said "there's a sucker born every minute..." Based on Ballmer's claim and their 30 year history it's more like every second.
Hope is the currency of fools
Population about 6-7 Billion now. So lets figure that only one in 6 is gullible enough to buy Windows.
.Net programmers will be useful we just need a lot of those little yellow school buses.
To do first line Tech Support they will need at least 250 Million people to answer phones with 'Is the powercord plugged in?" and "Hit Ctrl-alt-delete several times till it reboots" These are the lucky ones they will have jobs for life! [till somebody builds a Linux-based AI to use an Eliza strategy to answer calls]
We will also need a crack team of at least 50 Million Linux/Mac Users to mock Window Users full time. Honestly I think it pretty much have of the user base that engages in this. But these people will be trained professionals dammit! {I should start a magazine devoted to Pr0n and Windows Mockery, it will be bigger then Playboy, Penthouse and Southern Baptist Monthly. Talk about a wankfest)
Coders, well need lots of them. Coders can work for anybody C++ is universal as is Java. C# and
And Garbage Haulers, We're gonna need them badly!
Finally we'll need Al Gore. (Thats an obvious one)
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
One can foul one billion persons one time... and apparently one billion persons 5 or 6 times when you are called Microsoft.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I'm sorry, but a quote like that just makes me think of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.
Bill Gates: *with pinky curved up to lip* Gentlemen, we will have Windows Vista installed on ONE BEEELLIIION computers by the end of the year!
Steve Ballmer: *wearing an eyepatch due to a ricocheting chair leg accident* But Sir, that's.. that's just...
Bill Gates: Eeevil? *camera zooms in while dramatic music plays*
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
There's a lot of good stuff in Windows, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. Sure, we know that Linux has a better networking stack now, but, there have been things that Windows does better than Linux and will be so in the future.
:-)
a) Windows XP remote desktop is easier to deal with than X remoting.
b) Both KDE and Gnome borrow u/i design heavily from the Windows 95 Start Bar. The concept of COM based shell extensions was looted by KParts.
c) Cairo is essentially a GDI+ me too.
d) There's still nothing in Unix that has the same handy role as a Graphics Device Context.
e) Although I prefer OpenGL for its ease of entry, a lot of big gaming houses seem to prefer DirectX.
f) For a long time, Windows lead in hardware discovery. Linux has closed that gap, I think, but in 1995, I was editing config files to get my X to work with my monitor, and Windows would discover both for me automatically.
g) It's -STILL- easier to install a new piece of software on Windows. Too easy, the security people will refrain...
And, in the applications department, there's really no open source offering that comes remotely close to Visual Studio 2005 and C#, SQL Server 2005, and certainly not even Office 2000, let alone newer versions of Office. Sure, OpenOffice word processing is ok, but the spreadsheet is crap, and the "Access" clone is terrible. On the other hand, C++ for Linux has I think pulled ahead of what MS offers, but only really because MS is standing still in C++. If they got pissed off enough, they'd throw a billion dollars into the language and crush us.
The bottom line is, while you and I and many other people like Linux better than Windows, Windows IS a good product, and pretending that its not won't change it. What will change it,is more software for Linux.
Get typing.
This is my sig.
So what I want to know, is it a billion computers running Windows simultaneously, a billion INSTALLS (as in I have to wipe and resetup mine every 6 months so my computers performance can be restored) or is it counting all forms of Windows, like Windows Mobile, Windows CD, etc. Yes, I know they're Windows, but they're not PC's.
I used to have to reinstall Windows every three months. Those were the days.
From TFA
4 0206
"The software giant announced it sold 60 million copies of Windows Vista this year, more than the entire installed base of Apple,"
From http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/23/18
"According to Net Applications, in June Windows Vista accounted for 4.52% of all systems that browsed the Web, up from January's 0.18%. Vista has grown its usage share each month since its release to consumers Jan. 30, hitting 0.93% in February, 2.04% in March, 3.02% in April and 3.74% in May. Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22% in January and hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June. If Vista's uptake trend continues, it should pass Mac OS X in Web usage share by the end of August."
Are we to believe all these Vista installs are simply not browsing the web?
-- Boycott Shell
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
"more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles"
Why is this supposed to be surprising? A lot of people don't have cars.
There are peoples in cities, who have taxis, buses, subways, trains, carpooling, bikes, legs, etc.
There are people in the countryside, farms etc, who may not have need of a car because they walk or use animals on their land.
There are teens and college students everywhere who are likely to have a computer and not yet have a vehicle.
If anything, that car analogy makes the numbers seem a lot less staggering.
"if only i had known i would have been a locksmith." -albert einstein
In a revolutionary step the WarezOv will also use the spare cycles of users desktops and advanced botfarming technologies to bring you Live Streaming broadbrain and new ways of using connected computing for Pornography and online gaming at hundreds of times the speed of your normal advertising service provider! It's so easy to use, and the surgery to implant it in the base of your skull is so painless.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
A few years ago, I saw an IBM analysis that estimated more than 1 billion device are running Linux (mostly cell phones and routers).
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'm assuming that the 'one billion' figure includes every computer that ever ran Windows (including reinstalls), rather than currently active PC's. This makes the 'zomg, number of Windows > number of Cars' slightly clearer.
No cars that I'm aware of have a life cycle of (approximately) 3 years. Many computers that I see do.
Of course, not many cars have a relatively easy reboot that you can in the space of a few hours to make it essentially new again.
Ninjas use italics.
Had a dollar for everything I've heard that one he'd be as rich as Bill Gates.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I sure feel like I've done a billion Windows installs (and re-installs... and re-re-installs) building and maintaining homebrew PCs for the past 17 years...
Friends help you move... Real friends help you move bodies...
to McDonalds. When was the last time you had a Big Mac? It may not be the most nutritious thing in the world, but at least it's TASTY. I have eaten many an XP installer CD, and I can assure you it is neither.
Not to mention the fact that he complains about having to manually configure X for his monitor in 1995.
Badass Resumes
all sound the same to me user:help! my computer is running slow
Imagine a botnet cluster of those...
*duck*
Well, I just stuffed an egg McMuffin in my CD drive.
That's not working out so well either.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Huh? What have you been smoking? May I have some of it?
Would you care to state why you think he's so wrong rather than making ad hominem attacks?
I like Linux a lot -- I use it as my primary development environment at work, even -- but I have to agree that, despite any other problems it may have, XP's remote desktop is much easier to use than forwarding X connections. Under Linux I have to start up an SSH connection to another computer, enable X forwarding, then figure out the command line to execute whatever GUI I'm interested in. If you actually want to use your desktop environment on that computer, you'll get to jump through some other hoops to make it play nicely with your desktop on your current computer. In XP, you just establish a remote desktop connection to whatever computer you're interested in, and poof, you're connected with full GUI access.
You can accomplish something similar in Linux with VNC, but that doesn't actually let you log in to a new session, you just take control of an existing X session. It's also much more bandwidth intensive than XP's RDP; you can use RDP over even a dial-up connection. VNC is an exercise in patience and watching windows redraw.
X has its advantages, but easier? No, sir, what are you smoking?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
SQL Server 2005 is Amazing. If you look at performance and stability over it's predecessors and then look at the performance over competitors and how seasoned USPs are and the ability to use .NET code in the database.
:)
I have had to manually configure my monitors in 2005 with some distros. None the less 1995. I think your post is flamebait!
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
[Roy receiving a tech support call, answers after 15 rings with a sigh]
Roy: Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Roy: Well, the button on the side, is it glowing?
Roy: Yeah, you need to turn it on.
Roy: The button turns it on.
Roy: You DO know how a button works, don't you?
Roy: No, not on clothes.
Roy: No, no, there you go, there you go. I just heard it come on.
Roy: No, no, that's the music you hear when it comes on.
Roy: No, that's the music you hear when you..
Roy: I'm sorry, are you from the past?
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
A billion Windows installs, that would mean at least a billion Windows re-installs every year. Advertisers would pay some serious money to advertise on those installation screens.
First, X11's built-in network mode does not require SSH. In fact, when properly set up, it works much as you just described - you can create a new session, log in with your chosen environment, then log out again. Of course, this is highly insecure, so it's disabled by default on all Linux distributions.
VNC is hardly a Linux thing. The SSH way is basically intended for running a single program remotely, not for running the entire desktop. Neither of these are comparable to RDP, because they're not supposed to be! It's complaining that a server isn't as portable as a laptop.
NX works in a similar way to X11's built-in networking, except it uses SSH to establish a connection, perform authentication, and tunnels all traffic through it. It also adds compression, latency reduction, and all that other useful stuff. Works much better than RDP, in my opinion. If you're going to whine about remote access sucking on Linux, it would help to actually use a proper solution, rather than complain that the half-assed stuff you managed to hack together didn't work very well.
...and all of them running in a virtual machine on Linux, safely cut off from the rest of the Universe. Three chairs ... I mean cheers ... for Balmer
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reported today that Microsoft has just sold their 300,000th Windows license!
And they said zombies weren't real!
... Under Linux I have to start up an SSH connection to another computer,Wow, you can use .Net code in the database? While it's a welcome feature, most other databases have supported other languages for stored procedures for a while, and a lot more than just extra. For instance, check out this excerpt from the PostgreSQL website. Makes SQL servers capabilities a bit of a joke.
PostgreSQL runs stored procedures in more than a dozen programming languages, including Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, C/C++, and its own PL/pgSQL, which is similar to Oracle's PL/SQL. Included with its standard function library are hundreds of built-in functions that range from basic math and string operations to cryptography and Oracle compatibility. Triggers and stored procedures can be written in C and loaded into the database as a library, allowing great flexibility in extending its capabilities. Similarly, PostgreSQL includes a framework that allows developers to define and create their own custom data types along with supporting functions and operators that define their behavior. As a result, a host of advanced data types have been created that range from geometric and spatial primitives to network addresses to even ISBN/ISSN (International Standard Book Number/International Standard Serial Number) data types, all of which can be optionally added to the system.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
.... doesn't this just scream for the line:
.. couldn't help myself.
"And one botnet to rule them all!" ok.. sorry
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Under Linux I have to start up an SSH connection to another computer, enable X forwarding,
Uhh.. what? Why did you have to bring SSH tunneling into it. You could say exactly the same about terminal server.
Under X the simplest is to go to the terminal, select the machine you want to log into and log into it. It's 100% transparent and runs at native speed. This has worked perfectly for 20 years plus. Or you can log in locally and multiple machines on the same desktop just by setting an environment variable (or a script which runs by clicking, which is easier) - and they run exactly as if you'd run them on the local machine again at full speed. Windows just can't do anything like this.
That whole paragraph about figuring stuff out and configuring is just FUD - have you ever even *tried* to use X remotely? 'command line to execute whatever gui you're interested in'? WTF?? Your GUI is already running on your local machine.
X works fine over dialup - it is *designed* to work over slow connections... when it was written that was all they had.
which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept.
A billion computers running Windows. That's beyond kind of mind-numbing. That's extremely mind-numbing.
a) Yup, I'll give you that.
b) Sure, that's correct, however, I wouldn't say that the start bar is still technically superior to Gnome's or KDE's.
c) Ah, but GDI is no longer hardware accelerated, and WMF is resource hungry for general computing use.
d) Can't speak to this, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
e) Ok, that isn't a statement of something Windows does better. Just a statement of popularity.
f) Closed the gap in hardware discovery? You're stating that Windows was superior 12 years ago. That should tell you something. Have you used Ubuntu? It discovers everything perfectly for me. Vista still won't recognize my onboard SATA, onboard NIC, Linksys Wireless card, or Promise Raid Controller without drivers and excessive rebooting. Good thing my network card drivers are available on the internet...
g) Completely incorrect for most purposes. Common software is available in repositories and available instantly with a search and two clicks. No restart, and installed in your menu in a manner that makes sense. Yes, many power users do work off of svn (easier in Linux than windows) or compile their own apps (easier to do on Linux again).
The television will not be revolutionized.
ease of use and sophistication of Eclipse and Java. By the way most of the things you mention do not have anything to do with end users. Users could care less if their games are written using DirectX API or Open GL.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
you can use RDP over even a dial-up connection.
maybe they've improved it since i last tried it (just after SP1), but i did not find it very usable over dial up, even on my good dial up connection (consistent 48kbps with about 200ms latency between me and the other computer). very jumpy cursor and occasional phantom clicks. then again, various flavours of VNC didn't fare that much better, so it was more a problem of not enough bandwidth for the task than a problem with the software.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I actually didn't know Postgres had that feature. I'll have to look into that. I do prefer Postgres over MySQL.
I have a barely used MySQL server stable debian install on a server with 1024mb of ram and dual xeons that crashes about once a week, similar servers we have run with postgres never crash.
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
They may as well have a guess at the number of pirated copies out there - they're the biggest fans, the little match-selling children who can't afford their favourite OS, so they have to pirate it, though it breaks their little hearts.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
but it would indicate that there is 50+ Million Linux installs. Personally I have 6 devices with UNIX/GNU-Linux underpinnings. So... 10+ Million people. And if all are as hard core then there is nothing to worry about regarding the big anthill.
Installs or running? A lot of folks are debating what counts as an install. "Running" is a bit suspect as well.
Ultimately it's like trying to whip up excitement about 1 billion infections of herpes. Or do they mean active blisters? Either way, it's still herpes.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
...who admits that his mind is numb?
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
This sounds rather high for currently active machines with windows currently installed.
If they want to include all installs since 1.0, then i might believe their number. ( still sounds high, but at least reasonable )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
On day 1 the Botnet infected 1 Billion PCs. On day 2 it became self aware. On Day 3, it realized it did not have a nuclear weapons or robots so, it just slacked off and played minesweeper till 5pm, then went home and had stiff drink.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What a bunch of bullshit. Of course there are going to be more reported users with Windows because most of the vendor computers have Windows pre-installed. Right now only Dell is selling machines with Pre-installed GNU/Linux Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn. My distro does everything I need it to do except in the gaming department for which I need to have XP on my machine here. TFA says: "There have been just 12 serious vulnerabilities reported with Vista over the first 180 days versus 25 for Windows XP over the same period. This number is also lower than for Apple and other operating systems. We have also seen 21 percent fewer support calls for Vista versus XP over the same period." Like its said before lots of times... Behind the curtain there are probably many more serious vulnerabilities.
Now may I ask: how many of those billion installs are cracked?
> Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed yesterday that there will be a billion machines running Windows within a year.
Statistically, that's what, 2.3 BSODs per second?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Have you heard of NX: http://www.nomachine.com/ ? It gives you a remote connection to your desktop using a compressed version of the X protocol.
http://i18n.counter.li.org/ wonder how long it will take to catch up and conquer. :)
http://www.bookforce.net
And yet here you are comparing SQL Server to its competition and declaring it to be `amazing'.
The UK switched from long scale (1 billion = 1,000,000,000,000) to short scale (1 billion = 1,000,000,000) in 1974. Not that I recall my primary school lessons at the time focusing much on the government's budget mind you.
=DIVIDE BY CUCUMBER ERROR: REINSTALL UNIVERSE AND REBOOT=
if you count all of the Windows piracy in third world nations like China. Regards to the late Carl Sagan.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Apparently the GPP thought he has to tunnel X over ssh to use it remotely, I guess that's why he mentioned it. And by the way, telnet is not a Windows thing, it's a standardized protocol, and Windows includes a telnet client (except for Vista, which makes it a non-default but still available add-on), just like most (if not all) Linux distributions do.
Also, saying that ssh is way more secure than telnet is like saying driving a car is faster than standing still. Telnet has no security, whereas ssh has very good security. That said, you're right in that ssh is very versatile, very useful, and secure. I use it all the time, but I also have some specific uses for telnet also. The right tool for the right job.
... they now have a company wide policy to re-install Vista every night. And that is just for starters. They also have several thousand machines that go through the re-install process continually. And in addition there is going to be a Vista upgrade that cause re-installs on consumer systems that fit the requirements of such a task without bringing suspicion by the consumer.
Considering the human population of the planet is just over 6 billion.... using MS marketing mentality, that must mean the other 5 billion are running something other tan MS OS.
a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of computers cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Microsoft are famous for calculating the number of installed windows platforms in a very skewed way.
For example, every six months when you need to do one of those maintenance reinstalls of windows because it has got too slow/fat/buggy, MS count that as another newly installed platform because you just reauthenticated.
It's as if a billion computers all cried out at once in terror and said, "It appears you are being suddenly silenced. Cancel or allow?"
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I get frustrated because of the large % of Windows installations that serve as malware platforms.
Actually, the reason why Microsoft is showing such an inflated number of installs is people are buying OEM Vista machines, getting fed the fuck up with the OS, and going out and buying a copy of XP, so MS can double-dip their figures.
1 billion installs isn't that much, especially considering that they're probably including numbers from Windows 386 or DOS forward. It just means that some random guy reinstalled so many times that they're counting 1 billion installs.
Is my food tasty, troll?
+5, Truth
1,000,000,000,000,000 reboots! Is it a zillion after trillions?
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
It's my understanding (and with some limited experience) that remote X is not very fast, and is a security risk. From what I understand, that's why NX (FreeNX) is so useful... everything is tunneled transparently over an ssh connection, and a lot of the X stuff gets optimized. I guess there's a lot of back and forth communication between the X server and X clients which creates a lot of delay over a network, but somehow NX solves that. The big boast of the NX protocol is that it works great over low-bandwidth, high latency connections. I haven't ever tried it oever anything other than a local connection, so I don't know anything about that, really.
And NX has gotten much easier to install and setup, and will probably get easier. With the latest versions from NoMachine, you have the option of "shadowing" an existing session (à la Windows Remote Assistance) or starting a new session (which was previously the only way to do it).
I would have thought computers would have surpasses cars a while ago.
Increased ownership of computers may reduce emissions by reducing the need to travel. Also more people may spend more time with their computers rather than going out.
For the population as a whole, Windows has allowed a wide spectrum of people to use computers with a variety of side-effects: (1) less expensive and improved technology, (2) increased awareness and knowledge, (3) heightened expectations of technological usability and achievement, (4) shift in culture and lifestyle. It's not all good or bad, but life in 2007 without computers as they are today would probably be precarious and unnatural.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I'd like to know how many users actually buy (ie. made a decision) Windows vice having no choice because it's what came with their computer. As far as I know, it's an incredibly small % relative to the number of Windows machines. It'd be interesting to compare to the number of users that chose Windows vs. chosing alternative O/S's. It would be particularly telling if you could factor into the comparison tech. vs. non-tech. users.
McDonald's is at 99 billion from the signs here. Wonder how close to 100, if that's for real. Might be a prize for the customer at 100 ...
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
X does NOT work fine over dialup. Please be realistic. X generates a ton of events, and was designed to work over fast local connections. If you do tunnel X over ssh for security, then you can forget about using it even over dsl for anything but the most trivial work (ie I defy you to run Firefox remotely over dsl).
I regularly use NoMachine's NX product, and it is pretty good over dsl. Similarly, Microsoft's RDP works very well over the same connection. In terms of clickable ease of use and speed, NX is similar to RDP. However, it is obviously not stock X.
As far as starting a remote X app - how does one do it? You drop to the terminal and type, that's how. Sure, maybe you have a clickable script, but that script has to get there somehow. No big deal for you and I, but a very big deal for someone who is used to just clicking on an icon and immediately getting their entire remote desktop. It makes remote work a very simple thing for anyone, which is why it's so successful.
Full disclosure: I am a Gentoo user, so I'm sure distributions like Kubuntu make remote desktops trivial to set up. So my ease of use comments were written from a Gentoo perspective, and are probably misguided for the great majority of Linux users who use "friendly" distributions; apologies.
usb drives: probably not a problem. A color laser printer that works: check out http://www.openprinting.org/ first! Shop for a supported printer; e.g. currently (27-07-2007) from brand "HP" I see color laserjet 2500 and higher rated as "perfectly", model 1600 and 2600n as "mostly" and model 1500 as "paperweight" so YMMV.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
>> it sold 60 million copies of Windows Vista this year, more than the entire installed base of Apple The thing is the Apple Ipod, IPhone, Apple TV, etc run OSX too. So Apple's installed base is well above 160 Million. And what about all the Linux/BSD OSes that power the embedded computers in Cell Phones, Routers, DVD Players, MP3 Players, Video Games, TVs, Cameras, Printers, etc. As well as all the open source OS based computers that power a majority of the worlds supercomputing clusters. In reality Microsoft is a company under siege, the 1 billion number is only really impressive if you only pay attention to what is inside Microsoft's markets that Microsoft dominates.
Well, that's strange. I've never had MySQL servers crash on me, and I've used them quite a bit.
that even if there are a billion installs or whatever, it in no way shape or form makes it better or even, for that matter, good. McDonald's comes to mind. Can anyone honestly say that their food is good (okay someone over the age of 10)? I'm personally trying to go MS free, but work keeps me from that goal. I'm sorta done with their suckware.
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
I completely agree. Now I only wish there would be an SSH server for Windows so that people could just ditch the problematic FTP protocol for anything other than anonymous access. With problematic I'm referring to the problems you'll have if at least one of the endpoints is behind a firewall. Then you need to choose active/passive mode, which won't work if both ends are firewalled. SSH, on the contrary, uses a single port for everything, making it much easier to use in firewalled environments.
just as healthy too
just get them to say "Not tonight, I'm on my rag"
Vehicle Stars used car search is my current project
Cept, NX doesn't seem to work too well.....I gave up trying a while back. It was jumpy even on a switched LAN.
On the other hand, half the problem was the kde desktop sharing daemon which crashed 2 seconds in on every login, but even without that problem it was slow.
That's more than 1 billion re-installs a year!
I've got a fever, and the only prescription is . . . more Windows!
Honestly, while I think it is fairly easy to numb Mr. Ballmer's mind, here's an even more mind-numbing concept: even if you multiply the respective numbers of Windows installs with those of all cars on earth, there's still more cockroaches running around than that. Cockroaches win!
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
which proves that Windows machines have finally reached the level of huge piles of throwaway trash.
Not just OEM Vista, they are surely including OEM installs of every version of Windows. I own Windows 98 four times over despite the fact that I never wanted or even used it, Windows 95 three times, XP Pro once, and XP Home four times.
I'm sick and tired of people bemoaning the command line. What's do damn difficult with starting up a terminal and typing a command! Why is it you feel that clicking something is superior? Can't you type fer crying out loud!
Don't misunderestimate me - that's just one user's install history while trying to get 2 usb devices to work in windoze
Greater numbers do not indicate a higher lifeform.
What, does Dr. Evil work for Microsoft now? "A BILLION INSTALLS, Mhua ha ha ha haaaaaaa....."
And nearly a quarter of those are legitimate coppies!
I was just curious if they were counting all of my reformats after WGA "recertifies" my computer as genuine.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Well there's no "official" billion or "one true system". Yes, I'm amazed that many people don't even know how big a number is, when it is commonly used. And in particular, they know that there are two meanings of "billion", but insist on believing that 10^12 is still the "English" billion.
1,000 points of BLUE light.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
1...2...3...4
->>I have never, ever, not even once, heard of anyone getting an OEM copy of Windows, and then going out and buying another flavor<<-
;) Hmmm I wonder if I can report to Microsoft somehow the number of windows UN-installs I have performed in the past, to be honest I have replaced linux with win98 a few times in the past also mainly because you couldn't play command & conquer on mandrake or slackware! but now the tables have turned and you can plat c&c red alert2 and others on linux easier than XP or vista...Oh did I say easier I meant play it at all.
Well now.. I am hear to tell you for the first time that is exactaly what just happened to a couple I just installed Kubuntu on a Dell XPS720 (sweeeeet machine). I set it up to dual boot with vista and so far they have gone into windows twice in the last week, I talked to them yesterday about how it was working with the dual boot setup and they wanted to know if I could remove windows! I was shocked...I told them you have over 2.5 terabytes of harddrive thats plenty of room to leave it on there, but his wife said "If were not gonig to use it why have it there?" can't argue with that 0:). I will hold out a little longer to see if she doesn't change her mind
FragHARD or don't frag at all
It's misleading.
Yes - but there aren't as many cars crashing...
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
First the numbers are nonsense. How many Windows uninstalls exist? As for Linux being free I love it. I would trash can my PCs if I had to run Windows.
I'm sick and tired about people bemoaning the GUI. What's wrong with people having a preference? Why is it you make it a superiority contest, when it's just about opinions? Can't you conceive of the notion that other people's opinions aren't for attacking, in the general case?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Not really. I'm sure that I'm way past two hundred re-installs :)
How many uninstalls?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I installed my legal copy of windows XP Pro SP1 so many times, because of problems and a lot of testing out experimental software I actually got redirected to a webpage last time I authorized my windows copy telling me that I had RUN OUT OF INSTALLS left on my license! I had to get another LEGAL copy from the MSDNAA network through my school! If they are counting just authorized copies or installs then I have over 20-30 myself and thats from only 2 CDs!!! And I was thinking about re-install soon just so I can condense all my hard drives to larger ones and to fix a couple more problems and make room for a few more linux installs hah....
Becuase SUSE really is a mess compared to that!
This is my sig.
You're both arguing extremes.
If you want VNC or X to be secure, you need to tunnel it. IIRC, RDP supports SSL natively. (Yes, I know some of the VNC variants support SSL, but that's just some.)
The methods you describe for X forwarding are way too technical for the average user to access his computer from home. In addition, you gloss over some things... e.g. "select the machine you want to log into and log into it".
You're also restricting yourself to using computers on the same LAN; X degrades Real Fast over slower links. (At least it does in my experience.)
Finally, you're comparing apples and oranges: RFB forwards an entire desktop-- desktop, window manager, windows, input, sound, disk, etc. X11 forwards the content of specific windows.
It was probably your latency which was killing things (and, indeed, as you say, was simply insufficient for remote desktoping purposes regardless of the protocol.)
(My experience. YMMV)