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Windows 7 Won't Have Compact "MinWin" Kernel
An anonymous reader points us to an interview Microsoft's Windows 7 development chief, Steven Sinofsky, did with CNet. He reveals that Windows 7 will be a further evolution of Vista, and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. "We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same. We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. Windows Vista was about improving those things. We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you've been talking about. The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well."
In my home business, I'm down to ONE program that runs only on Windows (ebay Blackthorne). ONE. (Wine doesn't cut it).
Otherwise, I could be running on OS X for 1 laptop and the PCs would be switched over to Ubuntu or something similiar, maybe RedHat.
Years ago, the internet was hamstringed by many windows only incompatibilities. Firefox evened the playing field there. Most programs were windows only (Quickbooks and Tax Programs can run on Mac now).
Windows grasp in my business is tenuous indeed. Granted, mine is a small business - but aren't many in America?
Plus in Linux, it's simple not to include a webbrowser. You can do the same in Windows, IIRC, (actually just turn it off), but there always seems to be a workaround on firing it up again. Those are one of the biggest productivity killers - my employees should be surfing at home.
It's not that I care about licensing fees, but my operation is too small to hire someone technical who knows how to do everything the right way and I find the Windows boxes need the most babysitting. Time killer = Money Wasted.
I disagree that MS hasn't hired creative people. They were the home of the "Cowboy Coder" who would do anything to make code faster. This was a big advantage in the 1990's, when MS products tended to be faster than 3rd party code. But these hack-fest programs are a bitch to maintain, cowboy code is littered with side effects someone else has to find and eliminate, and (worse for MS) compilers and computers have gotten better.
Good, maintainable, understandable code is now perfectly fast. MS's competitors now have the advantage from a good code bas. Meanwhile, the development process at MS as stagnated. (Remember the story of the shutdown dialog in Vista. Twelve people all working on code various degrees away from the trunk. Not good.)
But I agree with your assessment that MS hasn't delivered on the cool. Apple is eating their lunch in the good looking and working camps. Linux is still king of the UNIX-like environment that seems to be in a Renaissance now. Still, MS has a big install base. They've worked hard to use incompatible file types to build lock-in. The aren't going anywhere for a while.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
OTOH, consider this: Windows cannot be fixed without breaking backwards compatibility.
Therefore, in order to offer a new product, the old one should be abandoned, which cannot be done at the present point in time.
Imagine, then, that this possible decline of Windows is actually planned.
We know Microsoft is working on a new Windows kernel, on a wholly new operating system and whatnot... could it be that they are actually planning to lower their market share (thus dodging some anti-trust bullets), and then offer something new and improved, even if it proves to be Unix reinvented?
Or is it too much to expect from a behemoth?
Ignore this signature. By order.
Except that systems are powerful enough nowadays to run virtual machines. So Microsoft could have Windows 7 be backwards incompatible (taking advantage of any speed boosts that this gives the OS and Designed-For-Win7 applications) and they could include a free "Windows XP/Vista" virtual OS to run applications that require backwards compatibility. If done right, the virtual OS would be seamlessly integrated into the main OS. You wouldn't even know that Old Application #7 was running on a virtual OS instead of the regular OS (except, perhaps, for a bigger memory footprint and slightly slower response rate).
IIRC, Apple did this when they moved from their old OS to their current one and it did wonders to ease the transition while still allowing Apple to break free of the shackles of backwards compatibility.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Am I the only one who's leaving system administration over Vista?
It's being rammed down our throats right now and it's just way too awful. It's actually the reason I'm quitting my sysadmin job and am going back to college for a non-computer related degree this fall.
Regarding the Apple comment. Apple had a chance to really shoot forward in the OS wars, but they seem to have spread themselves a bit thin in the last two years. Leopard being delayed because of the iPhone was one, and the number of bugs in Leopard is another (I like it, but I've had more problems crop up with Leopard than any other OS X release, and I have run all of them).
Apple has a chance to beat Windows 7 to the market with an OS that would be absolutely superb. I hope they seize the chance. I fear that their rapid increase in marketshare and product range might make this difficult.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
You're treating Windows like you treat desktop Linux.
With the Linux desktop, whichever variety you choose, there remains large technological advancements before it is usable by the general public. With Windows, it works, and has been working for over ten years for the majority of people.
Vista has improved many small things that always ticked me off with XP. Better file browser, better wifi controls, but really, a countless list of small changes that make just make desktop life easier. If you want to see quantifiable changes with something that is about feel (the desktop), I'm afraid you won't find it.
Speed-wise, SP1 made everything more responsive and quicker, and switching between windows seems a lot better than on XP. And we all know that hardly anyone installed XP on old computers -- preferring at the time their old Windows 2000, but eventually XP won people over as they upgraded.
But, like another poster referenced, you likely wouldn't spend money on an os anyways. A few hundred bucks spread out over many years for something that I spend hours with daily, and makes things go easier IS worth my hard-earned money, and the frustrations saved over XP are worth it because I value my time.
For very similar reasons, when it comes to servers, I'll never use Windows, and instead stick with Linux -- less frustrations, more reliable performance.