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Fresh Air For Windows?

jmcbain writes "The NY Times has an opinion piece on how the next Windows could be designed (even through Microsoft has already laid plans for Windows 7). The author suggests 'A monolithic operating system like Windows perpetuates an obsolete design. We don't need to load up our machines with bloated layers we won't use.' He also brings up the example of Apple breaking ties with its legacy OS when OS X was built. Can Windows move forward with a completely new, fast, and secure OS and still keep legacy application support?"

10 of 645 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wine? by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 5, Informative

    WINE just provides a reverse-engineered implementation of the Win32 API. Microsoft has the real original code.

  2. Yes, it's been done before by LoTonah · · Score: 5, Informative

    Windows NT had an emulation layer that handled 16-bit apps. OS X had Rosetta and the Classic environments. And Microsoft now owns Virtual PC.

    They have the technology to make Windows a clean OS with emulation errors for doing whatever legacy OS you want. They just seem too lazy to do it.

  3. Re:Existing legacy support. Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Any software that was created in the past few years which vista 'broke' were most likely poorly designed or were associated with managing or doing the functions expected of the OS itself (with a few exceptions.)

    Vista really isn't that 'buggy.' It is top heavy and uses way too much resources if you are only using it for limited things, but as a general purpose OS it really isn't that bad. I would still prefer Windows XP on new computers simply because I can get away with more power with a smaller investment in hardware, but I'm not necessarily 'against' Vista.

  4. Re:Wine? by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Informative

    the windows NT kernel is fine. Moving to BSD or linux, or QNX etc won't improve it. OS X wasn't just a move to BSD, it was also a move to OO via Cocoa. The toolbox/Carbon is/was strictly procedural, much like the Win32 api. DotNet is OO, but so was MFC.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  5. Re:Short answer: no by bignetbuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Commercial versions of VMware allow multiple snapshots. The version you refer to is the freeware version.

  6. Re:Existing legacy support. Wait, what? by Toll_Free · · Score: 5, Informative

    Having run Vista32 on this laptop when new, and just recently moved to Vista X64, I agree.

    I turned most of the "eye candy" off on 32 bit, but 64 doesn't seem to get bogged down nearly as bad with the eye candy turned on. NOTHING else was changed, only the OS.

    Anywho, yes, Vista is fine. Pisses me off that I can't run Win16 apps on Win64 (like, install C&C, for instance), but oh well.

    I think I'll try 64 bit linux next.. Never tried a 64 bit rev... Any suggestions? I've always run Slackware since my first install, but it's not always the most "hardware friendly". It's a HP DV2000 based laptop, x64 1 gig ram.

    --Toll_Free

  7. Sorry, but by postbigbang · · Score: 5, Informative

    No. The code bases were to merge at Windows 2000 Professional. Windows 95/98/ME were based on DOS. Win2K was the merge point at server and 'desktop'. XP came after Win2K, sealing the fate. At Vista, support for 8/16-bit code using DOS functionality essentially died. Try Duke Nukem II if you're unsure.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    1. Re:Sorry, but by postbigbang · · Score: 5, Informative

      There was NT 4 workstation, and then 2000 Professional, and then XP. If you're talking about 'home' operating systems, XP was probably the one. The code base for developers merged at 2000. Look it up in 'historical' mags like Windows Magazine, or in other archives. I wrote seven books on Windows from 95-2000, not to mention others.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  8. Re:Short answer: no by postbigbang · · Score: 5, Informative

    I worked with the code from OS/2 and from the original WinNT SDKs (55 floppies of it). Sorry, but conceptually, Cutler had little choice but to take the OS/2 APIs and turn them into Microsoft analogs. I have the code; Cutler had marching orders to one-up IBM and he did it. No argument except citing anything from the WSJ as a technical history source.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.