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Microsoft Accommodating Eee With Lightweight XP
KrispyChips writes "In what could be a first Microsoft is working to create a special build of Windows, just because Windows doesn't run very well on a certain computer. ASUS' runaway success Eee PC is now 'officially' available with Windows XP, but (according to APC magazine) is not exactly a great experience. There are none of the nice pre-loaded apps that come with the Linux version, for example. And XP has some real problems coping with the screen size and limited system specs of the unit. As a result, ASUS says it is going back to Microsoft and working on a special XP build that will be lightweight and more suited to UMPCs."
This is where ASUS can come in a kickass, but bundling all the Windows versions of popular open source apps, like OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Inkscape, Audacity, MPlayer, etc.
Add in a little splash screen blurb that all of this stuff ALSO comes on the Linux EEE, which runs faster, more reliably, etc.
C'mon ASUS, whatdya say?
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Man, M$ is running scared on this one...I never though I'd see they day they'd go to intentionally design an OS that works better on a less powerful computer.
Now, will this OS be generally available? It would be nice to be able to breathe some extra life into some of the slower systems I have here at work.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
The Eee PC is not really being sold as a desktop replacement but more as a portable supplemental computer, and CE already has a GUI that works with smaller screens. So what does XP do that CE doesn't, thta's needed here?
Microsoft has been desperately trying to obsolete XP. They want it over and done with, gone, Vista is the new OS. But now this is introducing XP as the OS in a whole new class of machines, meaning Microsoft will have to continue to support it.
Now as I understand it, the way Linux is designed, everything is incremental improvements. The kernel is the only linuxy part shared across all linux distros and everything else bundled in is at the discretion of the distro owners. So even if some parts of the distro get a rebuild, there's more incrimentalism here than "chuck the baby with the bathwater" rebuilds leading to Vista-style clusterfucks. Is my understanding correct here?
Logically, Microsoft should have stuck with the incrimentalism. If they wanted a full rebuild of the OS, they should have done so, made sure it ran fast on the hardware out at the time of release, and included a VM-bundled copy of XP to provide backwards compatibility, the way OSX comes with a copy of OS9.
What I'm seeing here is Microsoft is forced to keep XP around longer which means there's less and less reason for people to think about moving to Vista. With all of the web 2.0 apps and things like terminal services, the laptop becomes a powerful dumb terminal. I've seen laptops that crawl running normal apps run like greased lighting once an rdp session is open, they can handle the client just fine. So the Vista upgrade strategy, already suffering from massive consumer blowback, is struck another blow. XP remains viable and on the market and Vista remains the "Now why the hell would I want to do that to myself?" OS. XP will continue to sell as machines wear out but there will not be the huge windfall of the entire install base making a migration to a brand new OS over the next several years. Seems like a proper marketing disaster here. Interesting.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
And they're doing it with Safari too. The other day, when I downloaded an update to iTunes (7.6.2??) it tried to sneak Safari in there. If I would have just kept on clicking next, it would have downloaded and installed Safari. Luckily I noticed, and unchecked the option for Safari. Apple is getting just as bad as MS.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
A lightweight version of Windows XP sounds like a wonderful idea. Perhaps they could then port it to desktop computers so they will be really fast!
(reality sinks in)
Wait, standard XP was lightweight when it first came out. It was also horribly insecure, that's why the service packs came out. The service packs made XP slower and of course your going to need an antivirus...
Never mind, it's a horrible idea. They might as well start from scratch on a whole new OS.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Are you kidding?
I own a Windows CE handheld (HTC Wizard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Wizard) full of hardware capabilities and the pre-installed Windows Mobile 5 renders it almost unusable.
Luckily I could join a development team that were porting Linux to it.
I've been using my Eee pc for a few months without a hitch. The standard OS is good, plus installing something like Ubuntu is a breeze. I've had random people asking me to show them how to use it, where they can buy it and so on. Nobody , and I mean nobody has asked me : Can I install windows on it ?
In my point of view, this article shows how desperate Microsoft is in the light of newly educated consumers making a valid choice to go with a free and friendly OS over their bloat-OS.
Not to take anything away from XP, as it has its place in the desktop arena and runs just fine for me as a gaming rig.
Vista was still in development when UMPC's and even tablet PC's where first released. XP, Vista, and yes even OS X make poor tablet and small screen interfaces. Even Windows Mobile has a poor interface.
Apple was smart when they designed the iphone. there is no dock in sight anywhere. Nokia created a new interface for the N750/800 that is simple to use, and yet is easily adapted to older software interfaces.
MSFT has everything so bundled into each other that putting a new interface on windows becomes a pain. let alone taking out the stuff that isn't needed to improve speed and performance.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Processor 233 MHz
RAM 64 MB
Free hard drive space 610 MB
All they would need to do is add Outlook Express, back in and it would probably work good
I have installed VS 2005 and MS office 2003 on WinFLP so it can't be that bad.
Dan