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First Details of Windows 7 Emerge
Some small but significant details of the next major release of Windows have emerged via a presentation at the University of Illinois by Microsoft engineer Eric Traut. His presentation focuses on an internal project called "MinWin," designed to optimize the Windows kernel to a minimum footprint, and for which will be the basis for the Windows 7 kernel.
But what about all that legacy crap in the Bios motherboard, when can we expect that some company will actual create a board without 15 year old technology or other obscure settings that is no longer used by anyone except maybe a 386.
The os might load fast with a bare minimum but what about the excess baggage of hardware?
has mac done this or is it just that the OS on a linux bas system is just plain faster.
now i know linux fans and mac fans will say that they already knew that but can someone provide hard facts
So Microsoft tells something about the next version of Windows not long after the people have noticed that their current version isn't all that it's made up to be?
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
"Windows kernel to a minimum footprint"
It depends if you have size 24" feet (MS) or 8" feet like real normal OS's. No matter how big the foot, you can only reduce your footprint to the smallest size of the foot.
So that, as far as I am concerned, is a nebulous comment intended to fool the press and others that still believe every MS 'press release' they spew out.
Apparently it goes:
2, 3, 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7!
No wonder kids have so much trouble at math....
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I'm sure Microsoft developers have good intentions and big dreams for Windows 7. I'm sure they did for Vista at the beginning of the project. But they'll have to cut corners, meet dates, add legacy support, and all the things a behemoth like Microsoft always thinks they have to do. For all their failings, you've gotta give Apple credit for having guts to change things - the Mac has gone through three CPU architectures, and two completely different operating system kernels.
Much more information will be available next Friday...
I can't help but wonder if this is a reaction to OS X being used on iPhone and iTouch(mySelf). Maybe they're trying to consolidate windows/windows CE. Or maybe this is just another feature that will be cut in favor of demanding a DNA sample before allowing you to access the internet.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Microsoft has 'invented' the Microkernel? Sounds good to me, but seriously. The major reason for going with a microkernel I've always read was protection from drivers with memory leaks and such. I use windows at work and linux at home, and I haven't blue-screened in about 6 years. Still, a simpler design may be safer as well, ne? Fewer exploits via buggy syscalls?
I'm curious as to just how long Microsoft has had somebody trying to minimize the kernel footprint. It would seem, from mere observation, that their trend has been to make a kernel that's feature-oriented at the expense of performance. It's really sad that developers no longer seem to care much about optimization. After all, the end user can just slap another gig of memory or higher-spec video card right in, can't they?
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
too boost the sale
I would think that might be kinda hard, since they *just* introduced Vista with all of its new GUI effects and background services. To pull those out would make it look like they made a mistake with Vista. On the other hand, he said "optimizing the *kernel*" not all the other crap that bogs it down. Even if they made a brand new kernel that could run everything a "modern" kernel/core OS is expected to have, they'd somehow find unnecessary system services to bog it down...
I'm a Windows user (no jokes, please), and have occasionally dipped in to a Linux distribution, but I've never looked at Kernel Memory Usage. What is the standard memory usage for a Linux Kernel, just so I have something to compare with the numbers mentioned in TFA?
This seems to coincide directly with some recent patents filed by Microsoft. It seems what they're truly after is an al-la-carte style OS where DRM is used to control the subscription of such "base OS" additions. Read more on the patent here, http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220060282899%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20060282899&RS=DN/20060282899
Basically, you purchase the base-system and tack-on additional subscription based modules. My concerns are how the subscription model will function, the subscription pricing, and the potential for removal of prior features such as 3D acceleration on the 'base' system.
It also appears that DRM will be used extensively in this model and will not be solely limited to music/video as previously thought.
Honesty, and I'm not trolling here, but this looks pretty scary. This reminds me of driver-signing gone awry. I don't see the potential for open-source/free modules due to item #3. Arbitrary application, memory, CPU, and process limits are also concerning.
The whole "add-on" 3D support as well as "don't limit my desktop to 5 open applications/processes" seems incredible. I imagine the base system will be usable to about 3% of the population and the subscription-based add-on modules may be pricey. I can't imagine a DRM style approach for 3D gaming/enthusiasts being acceptable. Imagine having to pay $20/mo for 3D + multiple core CPU + 2G RAM and the minute you stop paying all those modules expire and are no longer active until you resume payment; like Napster and other DRM based music models work.
-evilghost
when its at least in beta.
It's going to have a database file system! It's going to be secure! No more rebooting! It will have a really good command line!
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
He is describing Windows v6. Where are the details of Windows 7? I've played with the beta of 2008 Core, and it is fun and all, but that's exactly what he seems to be talking about. As a matter of fact he does talk about it, yet he gives no details of Windows v7 past the ASCII boot screen. Did I miss something? Is that the big change? They save HDD space by using ASCII graphics?
The kernel hasn't been Windows's problem since NT 4.
The real problem is the middle-management clusterfuck. The direct result of which is the bizarro world of Windows the platform and its zillion libraries and APIs that have subtle (and not so subtle, but probably undocumented) incompatibilities.
Microsoft's own devs can't figure that shit out and they've been trying since XP. It has only become worse since they shoved all the digital restrictions management into the system.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
looks like Mistersoftie is up to their old hype the vaporware tricks to dissuade buyers from going with attractive alternatives.
You turn on the computer. You are greeted by an angelic chime that gets progressively louder until your speakers shake. You attempt to adjust the volume but it only gets louder still. A full screen Window icon ripples across the screen then all goes black. The product activation screen prompts you to enter your activation keys, printed on 27 pages of holographic alloy glue to the inside of the aluminum DVD case. For the next 3 hours you enter the activation key, taking breaks to use the bathroom, eat, and make phone calls.
... and so on...
After entering the correct activation keys, a dialog appears prompting you to select your social login profile group. You have no idea what that is so you click "Other Networks" The next dialog says "Connecting to networks..." for the next 5 minutes. A message apears saying "New Hardware Found" but it can't find the driver. Another popup appears "No networks found". Then your desktop appears. The wallpaper is stunning. The Internet Explorer icon appears to majestically float above the screen. You click it. A message appears warning you that the Internet can harm your computer, do you want to continue? You click "Yes". You are prompted to enter your administrator key. This key is on the sticker on the inside of your PC case. You shutdown the PC, get a screwdriver, open the case, write down the 18 digit administrator code, put the case back together and reboot.
After rebooting, blocking your ears during the chime assault, and oggling the amazing wallpaper, ignoring the "live folders server not found" error, you try Internet Explorer again. You dutifully enter the administrator key. You are asked if you want to save this key to your "universal keyring" You click OK. You are warned that the universal keyring is encrypted and your sending encrypted information. You click OK. After 3 minutes you get an error saying "No key server found"
You never do get to see the Internet. But the wallpaper is amazing.
Why bother coming up with a new list when 75% of Vista's original feature list never got implemented?
I wonder how much (if anything) the Singularity (http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/) project will influence the next gen Wintendo. I was talking to an MS engineer today (to whom I gave a SUSE 10.2 DVD) who is installing AD at our location.
He showed me that they apparently already have a VM of Singularity internally. (Of course, I couldn't get a copy...)
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Microsoft doesn't even have Windows Vista working yet.
Hardware suppliers have always counted on Microsoft to force people into buying a new system. If they design something that's optimized and competitive, they will lose their advantage and preferrential treatment by those vendors.
:-D
In other words, they have backed themselves into a corner. They must either continue down the path of slowness for their "partners" benefit or they must respond to the newer, faster systems that Apple and Linux offer people. More bang for the buck is what customers will want.
They have a real uphill battle because their two main market drivers were the variety applications that were available and the control of hardware vendors, which includes drivers, discounts, or whatever other "agreements" they have.
With Vista, there are driver and application compatibility issues just like there are with Linux (which is *much* less of an issue today). They are trying to toss away XP ecosystem and it puts them on a level playing field with other competitors. Suddenly, all the reasons for choosing Windows over Mac or Linux have disappeared!
These are interesting times. Microsoft is having to compete with themselves as well as others
Fresh horses and more whiskey for my men.
Take it from a former Microserf - this "internal project" will be taken to the nearest corner and shot (and maybe also mutilated and spat on). When you have a huge turd of a codebase dating back 15 years in some places, the last thing you want to do is dramatically rehash it. Projects like this are DOA at Microsoft after the WinFS fiasco.
Good. Small kernel is a good start. Now make it open source and let me install whatever the hell I want for a desktop manager and applications on top of it.
I've been saying it for years now. Windows should either be an open standard for operating systems to be built or be a desktop manager built on a Linux kernel. Of course, then what would the diehards bitch about on slashdot?
The game.
If they did control the hardware with Apple's rigidity, you'd be running a very stable and safe version of Windows right now. You'd be paying a little premium (as you do with Apple) for the hardware, and the experience would [likely] be similar.
The problem is that Microsoft puts out software that accommodates everything from generic video cards to 16-bit legacy programs. They try to please everyone, and succeed in pleasing very few people.
you bastard !!! knocked me off the chair in the dead of the night.
worth losing some karma
Read radical news here
Until the next great advance in OS technology, the kernel, the core OS is a solved problem by modern standards. Microsoft should build windows around the linux kernel and be done with it. they could refocus their huge resources toward all the great stuff they have cut out in the past. Even the massive wealth of Microsoft can barely compete with their proprietary system against open source developers. Why waste so much time on security issues when the answer is just there for the taking? Of course, they will never do it without a massive shakeup. it's just too threatening. This is their downfall, eventually, at least insofar as platform domination goes. they still have shifting proprietary file formats and forced upgrades, though, at least. what a business.
must... stay... awake...
I wonder what the new features are going to be... New GUI, more security (meaning asking user confirmation every time the user presses a key), Installation on 6 Blue-Ray Double Layer and an 8 core Processor 4Ghz, 16GB RAM minimum requirement... Microsoft should stick to making Xboxes only, that's the only thing they do right.
Legacy support can easily be virtualised. That's how Apple managed the jump from OS9 to OSX (the "Classic" environment was launched on-demand), and that's how Windows 7 should be built.
Sure, legacy apps will run marginally slower, but new apps will be free of the built-up cruft.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Its to be inflated with drm crap later. 2 years of Riaa lobbying should be able to get it to 5 Gb ram requirement level. Of course, it will need a cluster of 2 pcs for cpu power - for the new "On Live Demand DRM®" feature.
Read radical news here
This exactly coincides with the time major pc sellers started providing Xp again. please, use your mod points visely.
Read radical news here
The demo shows the very kernel and command line of Windows is something like 25 MB, and takes 14 MB of RAM.
Can't help but thing this doesn't fair well to Linux and BSD which have mostly the same features (or alternative).
DamnSmallLinux is 50 MB but that goes together with the: graphics subsystem, deskop, media player, ftp client, email, spreadsheet, firefox, graphics editor... etc. etc.
The demoed MinWin here can't display a picture to save its life (except in ASCII) and contained just a very basic HTTP server that spews the task list back to a browser.
But those little things don't matter anymore on the desktop, and with Penryn and future advancements in the x86 platform, they won't matter on the mobile devices either. Just I hope they manage to componentize the entire Windows environment this way. It'll mean much higher quality code, easier back compat, and much more predictable behavior of future Windows releases.
Maybe then someone at Microsoft will know how their process scheduler works.
I take it they're not referring to this MinWin?
When Windows 8.6 arrives... I'm outa here.
Say hello to my little sig.
Smaller memory foot print... maximized kernel... I think the codename will be "linux"
"dont worry Bill... we'll realease it under our new OSS license and we'll get money for other people writing the code. We just have to include a 5 DVD's of source with every purchase, and Piracy will drop to 0% and our support income stream will increase 500 fold."
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
And it is going to have a brand new type of file system called WinFS that is really a database! It has never been done before! It's true. Microsoft has been trying since Cairo an has yet to actually do it.
And I can't find a cached version of it anywhere.
Iirc, NT started at version 3 (maybe even 3.5) to keep up with the numbering convention of "everyday" Windows at the time (Windows 3). They've employed that practice several times now. Case in point would be the Office apps: Word for Windows jumped from v2 to 6 to get "in front" of Word 5.1 (DOS and Mac); Excel skipped v6 entirely; Access went from v2 to 7... so whatever way you look at it, counting the MS way can always be a little unusual should they so desire. We could add to the confusion by mentioning the difference between Win16, Win32 and Win32s back in the day, but whatever.
:-)
They're not the only company to do so, but historically they seemed to be one of the more regular offenders.
Are you really sure a floor can't also be a ceiling? - M.C. Escher
gentoo's portage system being ported to windows... emerge outlook
that's why we have virtualization. So we can cut those ties completely, and allow them to run it in a virtual server. With the power of hardware today, even virtualized, the apps should smoke the crap out of the speed it ran 16 years ago.
Jumbo shrimp
...
Military intelligence
A new classic
Efficient bureaucracy
Peace force
MinWin
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
That rocks! Windows 7 will finally provide that last push needed to rocket Linux into the mainstream!
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Every odd Windows Version being good?
1) Windows 3.1?
2) Windows 95
3) Windows 98
4) Windows Me
5) Windows XP
6) Vista
7) First Contact?
They should pull an Apple and take a BSD and use that as a base to start over....
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Let's start with that, since clearly Vista is in and of itself a beast completely independent of Longhorn.
> So Microsoft tells something about the next version of Windows not long after the people
> have noticed that their current version isn't all that it's made up to be?
Duh. They have been doing this same bait and switch for the life of the company.
Step One. Release wonderous New Version! It is THE must have thing.
Step Two. Everyone realizes it sucks but their money is already in Bill's pocket. And everyone realizes they have no choice but to adopt the new product anyway because of the three year hardware replacement cycle and the illegal (as certified by a US court) bundling agreements with the OEMs that continue to this day. Especially in the case of their OS but to a lesser extent with Office and the other crap they peddle.
Step Three. Microsoft begins hinting about the upcoming new version. It will fix all of the (not quite admitted) problems with current version AND add exciting new must have features. And it is coming Really Soon.
Step Four. Have their minions in the trade press obsess about Upcoming new version. All complaints about Current version are answered with "But Upcoming version will be out soon and will fix that problem." After a year or two make sure to begin writing reviews for competitors products by comparing them to features that Upcoming version will be shipping "Any day now". By this point EVERYONE must be lamenting how crappy the shipping version is to help generate the NEED to upgrade when the new version ships.
Step Five. As the death march to release continues and feaures get cut, spin it as a good thing. (We are focusing on the needs of our customers, blah, blah.) Now that there is beta (anyone else would rate it pre-alpha but.....) code get the drumbeat ramping up in the press with lots of articles and screenshots. Will your hardware be compatible? Can life as you know it continue without the exciting new features? Etc, blah blah.
Step Six. The product finally releases... See Step One.
Democrat delenda est
Why is it I get the feeling that Window's minimum footprint and Bigfoot will have something in common...?
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
That story is either fake, or you tried clicking Vista's 'add printer' button with a baseball bat.
Everything moved into userspace that possibly can (Usually only threads, IPC and address spaces are left in kernel space). (This is a true microkernel.).
Windows NT 3.1 (the first version) was a fairly purish microkernal. Microkernals came from the CMU Mach Project, and, when David Cutler was tasked for first developing WNT, he turned around and got as many key mach players as he could to come work for him.
Over time, MS has been shoving things into the kernel - this is because people complain about performance. For that, to this day, there is a crowd of people that says that WNT Daytona (3.51), was really the best Windows NT - as NT 4 moved GDI into the kernel. I think now, with the new driver model under Vista, a lot of stuff is being moved out of the kernel and back into user space, bringing Vista more back to its roots.
This is my sig.
They are going to start using Gnome? ;)
I just can't be bothered.
Seriously, this is really the only option for Windows at this point. Anyone who has seen the Windows source code has said that it's an unmaintainable jumble of subsystems that they're having a lot of difficulty continuing to wrap their heads around.
Microsoft sees what the open source folks are doing -- building quality operating systems around loosely coupled modules with separate developer teams and clearly defined interfaces -- and has decided "oh yeah, Windows should do that too." Of course it's a good idea. Microsoft steals from the best. Ironically, they'll patent it too.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Mod parent to +11 'insightful reference to history'
It's a common tactic from Microsoft. When there's nothing to say and a competitor may get some PR from a tech media looking for something to write about, come out with something about a product that's on the drawing board, or is only marginally closer to release than the drawing board.
Please mod this guy up!
With virtualisation tech going the way it is, taking this approach should be a no-brainer. There may be a performance hit but the potential for sandboxing that this approach offers may actually make running legacy apps in this way SAFER than using the original OS or building the same old cruft into the core of the new OS.
I seem to recall that Microsoft Research was working on an OS based on similar sandboxing concepts - Singularity http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/
Eric is one of the brightest engineers I've ever had the privilege to work with. Some of you may remember him from the Connectix days. If anyone can make this work, he can and this would be a very positive development for the platform.
The antitrust complaint about Microsoft has been that everything was bundled in Windows. Isn't this what the antitrust authorities want them to do? Isn't modularity one of the things that's great about Linux? An unbundled commercial OS would allow Microsoft to have a stripped down version to compete with OLPC, and home and business versions that charged by the feature. You don't want eye candy, you don't pay for eye candy. Not a gamer, you don't pay for DirectX. In theory it seems like a great way to tell developers what to work on (you'll see which features folks are willing to pay for) and a way to offer cheap versions of the OS for the folks that just want e-mail/browsing and expensive versions for those who want everything. You're thinking that they'll try to charge a lot, but really, how much worse could it be than what we have now? Most users pay microsoft a lot every few years.
Now this may be a technical and end-user nightmare, I don't know, but trying to develop an a la carte OS makes a lot of sense to me as a business move.
The same thing is starting to happen with cable more extensively than before: you don't want ESPN or the NFL, you shouldn't have to pay for them.
I don't know if this works across the board, but I've had luck with holding down several keys when powering on the system. This caused a POST keyboard error and gave me time to enter the bios setup.
How about disk-free?
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/10/04/vista-details-emerge
-Charlie
Where they trade out command line and GUI for a full emoticon-based interface.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
And now instead of being able to pressure hardware vendors they can only rely on vendor lock-in.
However will the company survive?
It was just 98 warmed over.
OSX was loosly based on NeXT. It's kernel is Darwin which is based on NetBSD.
Linux is loosly based on Minix only ditching the microkernel design and got support as the GNU kernel (another microkernel) was going nowhere.
Minix and BSD are based on UNIX, anyone can make a UNIX System III derivative for free as the code is public domain. Just most of the code is obsolete so you are better off making a BSD or Linux derivative (or Minix 3 if you want a microkernel)
So if you look at a family tree, Minix and Linux are brothers while OSX and Linux are more like cousins
Windows is the annoying friend that spunges off you for handouts and crashes on your couch
Make SELinux enforcing again!
Ok, running on only 40 MB of ram (with 7 free) you can run a text interface and an http server. How is this streamlined? Check out Damn Small Linux - I can get full gui up on it using 8 megs of ram, 2 of which are the wallpaper. If I boot up without X I'm using around 4 megs of ram.
Congratulations, you've booted Windows without a gui and a minimalist http server in only 33 megs of ram.
I touched Vista for the first time today, because a friend wanted help installing a printer, and my cries of "I know nothing about windows!" fell on deaf ears. It took me 3 minutes from power on to bluescreening, and 2:30 of that was the time it took to boot...True story.
Fixed.3: NT 3.51 is where we'll start
4: 2000
5: XP
6: Vista
7: Win7
95/98/ME are all a different code base with different versioning.
Should be:
3: NT 3.51
4: NT 4.0
5: 2000 (5.1: XP)
6: Vista
7: Win7
Or just look at this. I should have google'd it first. It's all right there.
Okay, I'll stop dreaming now.
I've been using vista since January, and it has *never* crashed or bluescreened. And my old printer was automatically detected and installed, and it works fine. Compare that with when I ran Ubuntu for a month: my USB flash drive would only auto-mount 10% of the time, sound completely stopped working one day and I could never get it back no matter what I did (including compiling a new version of the kernel--too bad we can't do that in Windows, huh), and getting the wireless on my laptop to work was such a huge headache that required using windows drivers in linux. I didn't even dare try to print in linux.
How about giving us an OS in it's entirety with a small footprint? Minuet seems to do the job, though I can imagine assembler programming to be a bitch. Damn Small Linux can be fully functional with a 250 meg install, just like Windows 98 had.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
So it'll include nothing except DRM?
So, this is a completely stripped back to the bare bones version of Windows. And it eats 40MB (IIRC?) of runtime memory. What I want to know is, what, exactly *is* included in this 40MB of running binary footprint?
Seems like a lot for a "minimal windows footprint", especially compared with, say, QNX...
Oh God... I can't believe this actually made news. In. Such. A. Horribly. Skewed. Fashion. But this is /.
You can watch the presentation HERE - http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/conference/2007/videos
It was ONE of MANY presentations given as part of the ANNUAL UIUC ACM-hosted conference.
Please actually watch the presentation and STFU. Please. All it shows is that Microsoft is working on fixing what it considers to be mistakes in the design of its NT system. That is it. It's work as part of Win7. It is _not_ Win7. Listen to the questions that students asked Eric about MinWin. Listen to the answers.
Please elaborate on the amusement?
I once had a crazy friend who was upgrading his Pentium III era PC, and got fed up with getting certain peripherals to work, so he started yanking things out of the PC with the power on. We then found that the sound card was hot plugable, it would dissapear and reappear in device manager every time.
I lost me sig.
I liked this one: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/4E2A8848-5738-45B1-A659-AD7473899D7D.html. The Windows 7 hype, however, probably has as much to do with the way people are fleeing from Vista like it's Mt. Vesuvius.
It's not the same market nowadays, though, and I think people will be generally less inclined to fall prey to this kind of thing.
In related news George Costanza is filing a lawsuit and claiming copyright on the name "7"
Let's hope they get the Windows footprint down to zero!
...generated with very little light.
.vs 8" footprints and extending the previously-started metaphor/meme, we can be sure of two facts:
That's how I approach most of the comments in a way-too-easy target for the linux-o-philes here.
While we're talking about footprint, and previous comments about 24"
1) If you're saying that the 24" footprint is the OS footprint of Windows, you can then be sure that what they say about shoe-size is true.
2) At least I don't have to cobble my own shoes together to try a new pair every few years or having to replace my shoe's soles by myself, and I can still put on new shoelaces without worrying if they'll fit in the shoelace holes that came with my shoes without having to use a leather punch to make new holes.
--ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
With Vista, Microsoft has succeeded at removing useful drivers, making the system harder to install and use, and increasing incompatibility. And with Windows 7, they will build on that solid foundation to improve Windows even further.
And says,
If you add a cal to module 'Xyzzy' it will cost the user another $5/month. We'll pay you $2/month.
Developer: But my product does not need to call that module.
M$: Ok, $3 per copy per month
Developer: Done.
Click
What I am saying is that could be pressure on M$ to get the main 3rd party application providers to include unnecessecary calles to addon modules just to the the system user(not owner) to have to fork out for these 'extras'. I smell huge number of RICO Lawyers sharpening their pencils as I write this.
This model is open to a huge amount of abuse and is therefore fundamentally flawed at the outset.
Just a little clue to the developers from someone who has written code for a long long time:
The UI goes on top of the OS, g'damn it!
threadeds blog
Since people apparently still do not get it, let me state again: cruft is Microsofts business model. The constant eruption of new technologies from Redmond keeps the Microsofties on their toes, requiring them to always be learning the latest and greatest brainfart yet considered. Why? Two reasons:
.NET 3.1.7 crypto/drawing/thingamabob API.
1. It takes time away from other activities. No time to learn about penguins, if you need to study the latest
2. Having invested so much in studying all that Microsoft crap, going to another system is a very unattractive proposition: suddenly all that hard-won knowledge loses its value, and all that time wasted.
Without a constant barrage of new "technologies", API's, and other things to study, Microsoft would start losing brainshare very quickly.
HIRE SOME FUCKING UI EXPERTS.
Sorry to be shouting and all but I'm a Windows guy, I always have been a Windows guy, sure I have that slashdot bone in me, wanting OSS to be huge, great, free and out there for everyone to share and love but let's be realistic now, for some people it's not an option, myself included.
Honestly I have been really quite satisfied with XP (after becoming accustomed to its own issues)
However after having recently tried Vista (multiple times) it's a disgrace, PURELY from a look and feel perspective, it's like 500 people designed it around a board room table but consistency and ease of use just aren't even considered.
I'm definately NOT an apple man by any means, yet having now used OSX for a week and an ipod for a year, they just get (most) stuff right, logical and simple - just how it should be.
Vista is wrong, it looks wrong, some of you can whinge it sucks under the hood or perhaps DRM ate your babysitter, maybe it has poor performance copying files and playing MP3's (doesn't bother me) but that UI? Good lord if you can't make it better at least give us back the XP one as an option.
It's time that MS made some RADICAL changes to the user interface, crazy out there stuff, which is actually USEFUL! rather than just re-hashing the same old thing, stapling on some stuff (poorly) and expecting us to enjoy it.
looks like Mistersoftie is up to their old hype the vaporware [wikipedia.org] tricks to dissuade buyers from going with attractive alternatives.
:P
Because, of course, you can't wait to have MinWin on your machine - the Windows that does only one single thing: publish your tasklist via HTTP.
Hmmm, so much better than Leopard
Come on, it's just a tech demonstration, Microsoft in fact closed themselves solid after the release of Vista. Management thinks part of the bad reception of Vista is because they were so open about the whole process for the entire 5 years.
For some part they are right. We'd never know about the dropped features if they were never pre-announced. Most products plan various features that get dropped or deferred in the process of development.
We'd also be surprised at the Aero Glass UI, and the new security features.
What we'd be most surprised about though, is the lack of consistency in the UI and stability/performance issues. So I'm not sure Microsoft has the right strategy right now.
Must be NT-based counting.
0. CP/M
1. VMS
2. OS/2
3. Windows-NT 3.1, 3.5, 3.51
4. Windows-NT 4
5. Windows 2000, Windows XP
6. Windows Vista
7. Windows 7
8. Ubuntu Octal Overlord
9. Plan-9
10. OS-X
Plenty of future, you see..
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The numbering system has nothing to do with this. Microsoft named it "7" in order to announce that they are finally catching up to MacOS's revolutionary System 7, from 1991. I for one can't wait for Windows to finally get "Balloon Help"!
So, basically they're saying they want to go back to DOS roots for Windows 7, right? 640k is enough for everyone, after all. :)
It was 3.1, the same as the version of DOS based Windows that was current at the time. 3.5 came next, then 3.51, before the Windows 95 UI upgrade which was NT 4.
It is how much are they going to break?
Win 95 broke some stuff. Win 98 did too. Windows XP broke stuff as well. Vista broke more stuff. But for the most part, making sure legacy code has a shot at working seems to be a priority at Microsoft.
If 7 breaks nothing at all..it will really suck.
If 7 breaks a little bit....it will still suck like Vista.
If 7 breaks to much...people will move to linux or mac.
vi +
Well moving everything outside the windows kernel into a device driver which at loaded at runtime does reduce the foot print. But only for booting.
Its the Microsoft answer. Technically correct but absolutely useless.
c:\ ver
Microsoft Windows [Version 5.7.1000]
Ha! I knew it!
Anyone else read that and wonder why the Gentoo maintainers had sold out so suddenly and so thoroughly?
Can't $random_unix_vendor patent 'small kernel footprint, other stuff in loadable modules and various chainable tools' and sue ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
News to me, but then I've never understood the whole AmigaOS5 OS4 OS3 Workbench, AmigaDOS, Intuition or whatever they're calling the OS next naming game thing.
They could be following the Star Wars system. Windows Epidoe 1 anyone??
What about IE8?
Good, maybe they'll sell another dozen copies...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
is to not use it.
If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.
And yet, that free OS can't seem to get it off the desktop, or the server, or the phone ... I predict you guys will chattering away at this when the next version of Windows is released the same way you did when 2000 was.
"Step One. Release wonderous New Version! It is THE must have thing."
That reminds me. When's the next Ubuntu out?
"Step Two."
But who will pay my bandwith bill?
"Step Three. Microsoft begins hinting about the upcoming new version. It will fix all of the (not quite admitted) problems with current version AND add exciting new must have features. And it is coming Really Soon."
So how's that Desktop Linux coming along?
"Step Four. Have their minions in the trade press obsess about Upcoming new version."
Gotta love slashdot.
"All complaints about Current version are answered with "But Upcoming version will be out soon and will fix that problem." "
I stopped RTFM and "don't complain, code it" a long time ago.
"Step Five."
Wobble my windows, baby!
...will Leopard be certified Linux-compatible?
However, this is not "case in point" by any stretch of imagination.
"NT Based
3.1, 3.5, 4.0, 5.0 (2000), 5.1 (XP), 6.0 (Vista), 7" - by hyeh (89792) on Thursday October 18, @10:54PM (#21035679) You forgot NT 3.51, & 5.2 (Windows Server 2003)
No biggie, you had the right point, but skipped a couple.
APK
let me get this straight, they're actually gonna strive to improve performance and reliability for once? holy shit. someone write this down!
If this post has multiple meanings, and one of those pisses you off, I meant the other one.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
minwin == minix?
> The whole "add-on" 3D support as well as "don't limit my desktop to 5 open applications/processes" seems incredible.
This is the very tactic that shareware apps have employed for years. Give away some crippled demo for nothing (as Windows is given away for nothing), and then charge big bucks to "register". Of course, then you have to enforce the registration, with, say, "what's the 5th word on line 14 of page 125 of the manual?", and constantly watching for registration codes for your software on pirate sites. I think that looking at the status of shareware today, we can infer how this new "Windows the Crip" version will fare.
Does this mean that they are going back to the microkernal design they inched away from to get added reliability? If so, the BSOD comes roaring back.
OR
Does this mean that they are redesigning the portable windows system (CE) yet again?
We may have to wait through 3 more years of marketing to find out.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Nuff said
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Apple: 15,810 Microsoft: 61,000 Microsoft has a little under 4 times the number of employees Apple has.
They both do Hardware: xBox vs Apple Line (I think apple probably has more employees on their hardware than Microsoft.)
They both do MP3: iPod vs Zune (It should be a wash in employee #'s)
They both do Office Suite: iWork vs Office (Office has obviously more employees than iWork)
They both do "Family" apps: iLife vs Microsoft Movie Maker, etc. (iLife probably has more)
They both do an OS: OS X vs XP/Vista. (With out a doubt XP/Vista has more employees on it than OS X)
You'd think that they'd be able to do something right. Heck AppleMaybe it's bureaucracy collapsing the whole thing. Maybe what Microsoft needs is a Steve, a dictator, someone that says what goes and no questions from above. Back in the day Apple wasn't run like this and we had Copeland and all other "Next OSes" there were some iffy products (OpenDoc). Then Apple bought NeXT. Steve came back and the rest is history. (And about 3000% in the stock market).
You see, It goes like this....
Windows NT 3.1 = Windows NT version 1
Windows NT 3.51 = Windows NT version 1.5
Windows NT 4 = Windows NT version 2
Windows 2000 = Windows NT version 3
Windows XP = Windows NT version 3.1
Windows Vista = Windows NT version 4
The thing MS is calling "Windows 7" = Windows NT version 5
The Windows 3.1 and Windows 9x code trees were unrelated dead ends and were abandoned. When keeping up with which version number Windows has gotten up to, you should only pay attention to the NT based versions.
The idea is that the kernel will have to shrink considerably in order to allow MS to cram in more DRM features -- both to keep people from pirating Windows, and as part of their ambitious program of colluding with the RIAA, MPAA, et al. There is not a guarantee that the smaller kernel will be able to do as much as at present, just more efficiently; it'll lose functionality. But they're betting that no one will notice since everything you do will have to be vetted by someone else who would generally prefer it if you didn't. (In order to reflect the long wait, the hourglass will change to a calendar)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Aren't the days of huge new operating system releases over now that web aps are on the rise?
NO!
This time they really 'got it'. Size IS everything. So if they are finally focussing on the most important aspect of an OS (from size comes speed, easier maintenance etc) this should be AWESOME.WSOME.SOME.OM....
(This is a test. If you got exited by reading this you still have not ridden yourself from the 'eternalNextUpgradeBug' virus. Reduce your surfing NOW!)
George and Susan, heading home from the restaurant. George is happy,
...especially a girl. Or a boy.
smiling and whistling.
GEORGE: I think they really went for that Soda.
SUSAN: What, are you crazy? They hated it. They were just humouring
you.
GEORGE: Ah, alright. Believe me, that kid's gonna be called Soda.
SUSAN: I can tell you, I would never name my child Soda.
GEORGE: Oh, no no no. Course not. I got a great name for our kids. A
Real original. You wanna hear what it is? Huh, you ready?
SUSAN: Yeah.
George uses his finger to draw a number 7 in the air, accompanying the
Strokes of his digit with a two-tone whistle.
SUSAN: What is that? Sign language?
GEORGE: No, Seven.
SUSAN: Seven Costanza? You're serious?
GEORGE: Yeah. It's a beautiful name for a boy or a girl...
Susan scoffs.
GEORGE:
SUSAN: I don't think so.
GEORGE: What, you don't like the name?
SUSAN: It's not a name. It's a number.
GEORGE: I know. It's Mickey Mantle's number. So not only is it an all
Around beautiful name, it is also a living tribute.
SUSAN: It's awful. I hate it!
GEORGE: (angry) Well, that's the name!
SUSAN: (also angry) Oh no it is not! No child of mine is ever going to
be named Seven!
GEORGE: (yelling) Awright, let's just stay calm here! Don't get all
crazy on me!
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
1) I guess MS are "embracing and extending" the "borg" title :-)
2) what happens after Windows 9?
Does this mean that they are going back to the microkernal design they inched away from to get added reliability?
First mistake: the NT kernel was never a microkernel. It has some features in common with one, but it's even less microkernel-like than Mach.
Second mistake: the biggest reliability hit Windows NT had was when they moved GDI into the kernel in NT4. They didn't do that to improve reliability, they did it to reduce latency and improve performance, and it hurt reliability.
Since they've decided that performance isn't that important any more (encrypting internal communication paths? Give me a break!) they could well be going towards a limited kernel and maybe even an actual microkernel design.
The palm-sized PC UI was a typical Windows 9x-derived 3d-style UI.
Pocket PC rejected all that and went back to a flat 2d Windows-3 style for all the gadgets and window details, and it looked way more attractive and professional than the 3d look in any version of Windows or Windows CE.
I don't know if the 3d look is the problem, but the Windows UI needs a lot of simplification. And I don't mean getting rid of menus or replacing control panel applets with "wizards" (which is what they seem to think 'simplification' means), I mean removing pure eye-candy UI elements.
Ok, need smaller kernel. Grab a copy of Linux. Nobody will know because we don't let them see the souce code anyway. We'll do something stupid to hide all the boot messages behind a scroll bar.
....
Next, graphical system. Swipe X.Open. Nobody will know because we don't let them see the souce code anyway.
Now, we need a gui interface. Either gneme or kde will work for that since they both want to look exactly like Windows anyway. Just a couple of tweaks to the graphics to change the command button to "start", and nobody will know because we don't let them see the souce code anyway.
Now, we need windows compatibility. Wine. What more needs to be said.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The next version of openSUSE will be 11. It will go to eleven!
That means that the next version of openSUSE will be at least 4 better the Microsoft one. If the next version of Windows takes 7 years again, openSUSE will be at 14. So openSUSE will be TWICE as good.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's pretty sad when 250 MB is considered a small install.
Used to be that you could fit the OS on a floppy. Yes, including the GUI.
SAN FRANCISCO, Redmond, Friday (UnGadget) — With Vista just out the door, Microsoft is drawing up plans to deliver its followup, Windows 7, codenamed Vienna, by the end of 2009. That would be a much faster turn-around than Vista, which shipped more than five years after Windows XP.
Vista's uptake has been stupendous, with copies flying off the shelves and midnight queues on release day turning into major street riots, with police deploying water cannons and rubber bullets, to rival the release scenes for the PlayStation 3. It is expected to give a significant boost to the computer hardware industry, per the Mended Windows Theory of economics. But Vienna aims even higher.
"We have a radical vision for Vienna," says Ben Dover, corporate vice-marketer for development. "It's definitely the one to wait for. You should avoid buying any other operating system or even looking at them until you see Vienna ... Except Vista, of course. That's pretty good. But Vienna is just so amazing. Wow! It's the most fantastic thing ever. Incredible. Mac OS 10.4 can't possibly hold a candle to it."
So what will be the coolest new feature in Vienna? According to Dover, that's still being worked out. "We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe it's hypervisors, or a new user interface paradigm for consumers, or rotating cubes like in XGL, or WinFS, which is definitely due to ship with Windows NT 4 in 1994. Or whatever Apple puts in Mac OS 10.6, really. Hell, I dunno. What's really shiny?"
The much-derided Digital Rights Management system in Vista will be worked over. "We'll be including user-downloadable 'tilt bits,' which you can configure to your own liking. It'll require every user to supply a blood sample for DNA analysis, but of course that's only if you want to play premium content."
Independent blogger Wiki Jellff was incontinent in his praise. "I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will surely go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, that will be all fixed with $NEXT_VERSION. And they'll finally be ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF. Also there will be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It'll be awesome! I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION."
"It's too early for me to talk about it," added Dover. "But over the next few months I think you're going to start hearing more and more."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
There is a theory going around the internet that Vista was actually software recovered from the Roswell UFO crash site and reverse engineered. This explains the hardware compaitibly problems, the kernal was actually designed to interface with alien hardware.
Sadly, there is a tremendous amount of software out there that we still need. This is especially true of children's educational software but a great many small businesses have data in legacy programs with no options to upgrade. Apple should continue to support all the old legacy software. It really isn't that hard to do and it would make their system more appealing.
apt-get install debian