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?"

Comments

heh, normal version

[javy_tahu]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/technology/29digi.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=technology&pagewanted=print

Short answer: no

[Anonymous Coward]

Can Windows move forward with a completely new, fast, and secure OS and still keep legacy application support?

Based on past performance: No.

This has been another edition of Short Answers to Stupid Quesitons.

Re:Short answer: no

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

The wise answer is "maybe". There are only two companies that have done something similar. Apple, tried doing it from scratch and basically killed itself in the process, had to adapt already written NeXT. Even that took forever and sucked for a couple of years before they got everything right. Microsoft did something similar with windows NT: a ground up modern rewrite that was mostly compatible with the existing windows, but there was a lot of time that passed between win NT 3.50 and win xp. So if they started right now from scratch, maybe in ten years they could have something that would be decent.

Re:Short answer: no

[frdmfghtr]

It could be done... in a sense. If they used their new virtualization technology (which actually isn't half bad, the beta even lets you take multiple snapshots, unlike vmware server), they could theoretically build in a "compatibility" model that could be enabled/disabled but could run older windows applications even if they new OS is radically different in how it handles such things.

Sort of like what Apple did with OS 9/OS X?

If so, the trouble with that might be that the legacy OS (Win XP or Vista) is so large that the legacy OS portion would double the size of the installation. If I recall correctly, the OS 9 support in OS X only added 400 MB to the installation, as OS 9 itself wasn't that large. What was really nice about it was that it could easily be removed if you didn't need the legacy support.

(I may be wrong in my size estimates or misunderstand the OS 9 legacy support, as I moved from Windows XP to OS X when Tiger was released and have little experience with OS 9.)

Re:Short answer: no

[bignetbuy]

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

Re:Short answer: no

[siddesu]

Yeah, indeed ;)

Or they could, like, ditch all their work done so far, fork wine and make the new OS run on top of linux+wine, possibly off a sqlite-based WinFS ;)

Then just port their platform libraries onto that, redo their visual tools as eclipse plugins -- and presto, you have best of both worlds.

And fast ;)

Re:Short answer: no

[v1]

Apple's policy is to provide approximately 100% transparent support ONE version back. They did an incredible job with classic (supporting OS 9 in OS X) and an even better job in the transition with rosetta. (supporting ppc on intel)

While it was fairly obvious you were running an OS 9 app in classic, almost no one notices a rosetta app running on an intel. Now notice, intels do NOT support classic. That's their "one hop" rule at work. And you can bet their next big one will drop support for powerpc.

So this can be done, but it's hard to get right. But when you get it right, nobody notices. And that's a good thing.

This is a bit like Windows. The problem they've had is that there's a lot more transition from dos to 95 to 98 to 2000 to xp to vista. None of those was entirely pleasant, and none of them were very transparent. Only half of them provided major new features, but all of them clung to numerous existing problems. So in the same timeframe, Apple has made just two massive leaps, with less "transition shock" in their two bumps that windows has seen in their five. The interim transitions (os 8 to os 9, 10.1 all the way to 10.5 really) were almost completely transparent.

They've got a lesson to learn here. XP probably would have been a good time to do a "major bump" such as mac did with 9 to X, but they dropped the ball. They chose to break less, but to fix less as a consequence. Eventually they have to bite the bullet and fix as many of the underlying design problems as they possibly can in one fell swoop. It's going to break stuff. Maybe a lot of stuff. But if they could provide something like Apple did with classic support for OS 9, it wouldn't be so bad. Apple proved that it's not necessary to just totally break all your old software if you can provide decent emulated support for your previous OS inside the new one, invisibly.

Sadly I don't see this happening with Windows anytime soon. Microsoft has never had a knack for making those internal transparent emulators like classic and rosetta. Unless they can get something like this together, it's either going to continue to be a wreck, or it's going to be a disastrous pill to swallow. Continuing to try to make these "baby step" fixes is going to drive the world crazy.

Re:Short answer: no

[lilmunkysguy]

I'm not sure how you were modded flamebite. I like your ideas.

Re:Short answer: no

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

The installation size probably isn't an issue given that the target customer, corporates who have invested heavily in Win2K/XP, will be largely using high end hardware (as opposed to the "new" low-end hardware a-la Asus EEE).

Memory requirements might matter; but since we're looking at release two years from now, then 2GB is a reasonable requirement. If they base the "compatibility" code on XP rather than Vista, then it might be viable.

The biggest problem I see is what to tell people right now. Saying, "oh yeah, the next version of Windows will be completely different" is not likely to go down well, and is unlikely to encourage anyone to "upgrade" to Vista prior to Windows 7. But saying "Windows 7 will be based on Vista" isn't particularly inspiring either!

The marketing solution will likely be to not really give any concrete answers for as long as possible whilst telling people Windows 7 will build on their existing investment. If they don't do this, people might start looking elsewhere!!

Re:Short answer: no

[postbigbang]

Windows NT was a re-write of OS/2 when Microsoft divorced IBM (or vice versa, depending on whom you believe). It started a new code branch, one that ran in 32-bit only (advanced at the time) and inter-version compatibility was often iffy at best-- NOT mostly compatible.

These two code branches merged at Windows 2000.

I smell a rat behind the entire thing. Windows 7 might be a hypervisor with plug-ins for whatever. I think Microsoft is floating trial ballons to see what might be marketable after the enormous and embarrassing mistakes found in Vista. It's an actual, along with a PR nightmare for them and justifiably so. Were I a stockholder, I'd have their heads.

Don't mistake for a moment that Microsoft is still seeking solutions to the enormous problems they have in stagnation. Vista was supposed to be a monumental endeavor, and it's a monumental disaster for them. Now that BIll's gone, who knows what's going to happen.

Re:Short answer: no

[bcrowell]

The wise answer is "maybe". There are only two companies that have done something similar. Apple, tried doing it from scratch and basically killed itself in the process, had to adapt already written NeXT. Even that took forever and sucked for a couple of years before they got everything right. Microsoft did some thing similar with windows NT: a ground up modern rewrite that was mostly compatible with the existing windows

It may be dangerous to reason by historical analogy, because the hardware situation is qualitatively different now. CPUs are no longer showing the kind of Moore's-law growth in power that they used to. Meanwhile ram and hard disks are ridiculously cheap. For the typical user who just uses a computer for websurfing, email, and word-processing, it's kind of silly to spend any significant amount of money on a new system. They already have more ram and disk space than they need, and the CPU isn't going to be that much faster. We're seeing perfectly reasonable desktop hardware now for $200, and it won't be long until you can get that same hardware for $50.

If I was one of the people at the helm of Microsoft, I'd be really worried about this, because when the hardware is $50, there's not going to be much room left for profit on the OS. Most retailers have been reluctant to sell cheap hardware, because their own margins on it are thin, but it's just a matter of time until that changes. Fry's sold $200 Great-Quality-brand machines for years, and WalMart is now selling the gPC online for $200. Once people realize that they can get a computer for $100, or $50, the dam is going to have to break, and retailers are no longer going to be able to sell machines at prices of $500 or $1000. It's going to be like the transition from the radio as a big wooden box to the transistor radio that you could carry with you to the beach, and throw in a dumpster if it got sand and water in it.

In this new landscape, there's very little reason for MS to exist. One of the few reasons left for them to exist is that people have money invested in software, and they don't want to have to buy new software. The insane success of the eeePC -- and even at much higher prices than they originally thought they could get --- shows how vulnerable MS is. There are a lot of users out there who just use their computers for word-processing, email, and websurfing. Maybe first they buy a $50 Linux box for their kid to use to write her high school papers. That works out okay, and pretty soon the kid is like, "Mom, are you crazy? You're talking about spending $400 for a new computer? Just buy one like mine."

Re:Short answer: no

[peragrin]

It is already beginning. I submit the EEpc, OLPC, and the sudden burst of real computers with real OS''s being shipped for under $400 right now Windows is holding back more development than anything else, especially with the intel atom processor. sorry you can't get a $100 OS onto a $400 device.

why do you think msft is still selling XP for only low powered devices that Vista couldn't run on if it went on a diet. Why do you think MSFT is intentionally trying to limit the specs of such devices when they are already as powerful as any computer of 6 years ago?

Re:Short answer: no

[Dog-Cow]

If by "These two code branches" you are referring to NT and Windows 9x, you are off by a release. They merged with XP, not 2000.

Re:Short answer: no

[Chrononium]

I'm definitely a big fan of Apple stuff and am likely more tolerant of the small bugs that come out from Cupertino, but I think many people here are missing the big picture: Windows is all about compatibility. That's why a business might spend millions of dollars developing apps on Windows, because they can milk that cow for a long time afterwards. Vista is a significant enough break from Windows XP that many businesses don't want to switch because it means a potentially lower bottom line. Windows has incredible software inertia, while the Mac really doesn't. Comparing Mac OS and Windows is, well, comparing apples to oranges.

Basically, if your bottom line depends upon a very slowly moving software architecture, then Vista is probably a bad thing. Making big changes, on the other hand, makes things potentially easier for Microsoft as there is less legacy and code can be refactored given years of experience.

Re:Short answer: no

[smallfries]

Erm, when did CPUs stop showing exponential growth in performance? Was that a memo that nobody sent to Intel?

Although clockspeeds are stuck because it is no longer economical to raise them, performance and transistor density are still scaling at the same rate. If anything we are in a period of performance increases that is slightly above trend, because now that the horrific NetBurst ISA has been killed off the Core2 replacement is rather lovely. Clock-for-clock it runs twice as fast as the old ISA because of shorter pipeline stages that have reduced instruction latency, and so far Intel have doubled the number of cores every 18 months. Given that they are ready to scale up to new fabs that can handle 2B transistors I would assume that they can continue to do so for the near future.

It would be a seismic shift for the industry if processor performance flatlined but I don't see that happening for a long time. What we are seeing with the introduction of the Eee Pc et al is actually a trend that has been going on for decades. Roughly every ten years a new form factor is introduced at the bottom of the market, with the same performance, but with the price halving each time.

So although your analysis of what changes are happening is way off, your final paragraph is quite accurate about what it means. The amount of performance that people actually require for most day-to-day tasks was exceeded when processors passed the Ghz mark. Now we are seeing cheaper and cheaper devices that deliver that (roughly) constant power. The effect on Microsoft is likely to be as you predict.

Re:Short answer: no

[Tangent128]

I don't know about the "Eclipse plugin" part, but I do suspect Microsoft has a contingency plan of that sort.

Move to a nix-y kernel, release a full .NET port; maybe fork wine, or just use some more dog-foody compatability layer.

I suspect they'd introduce/keep their own API, though. I wouldn't expect X Windows to be bundled with (let's say) "Windows X"; they likely would use the transition to more strongly push Windows Forms over the older system, though.

And of course, don't expect their addons to be Open Source, even if they do adopt the Linux kernel.

In short, see OS/X.

Re:Short answer: no

[Anpheus]

Eclipse? Fast?

Re:Short answer: no

[postbigbang]

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.

Re:Short answer: no

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Apple was dead, prior to the return of Jobs. There are many levels of dead, and life. Today's Apple isn't the same Apple. When you replace all of your computers internal components and reinstall a completely different OS, isn't it a completely different computer, even though it has the same case?

MY Posts may be correct, or may not be correct, but they are definitely not basically correct.

Re:Short answer: no

[Iron Condor]

Let's see what's wrong with Vista:

1) lack of hardware drivers, rendering many machines obsolete

...which is a problem with the hardware and/or the hardware manufacturer who decided not to support their hardware in Vista. It is NOT a problem of Vista any more than some hardware without a working Linux driver is a problem of Linux.

2) lack of support for legacy apps (although arguably, some of those apps were badly written)

every single one of which was badly written. MS had been spending years and uncounted dollars telling people how to write their apps so that they will remain compatible with future versions of Windows. If people insist on circumventing the Windows API and writing their own little gizmos to implement some functionality then they shouldn't be surprised when this functionality ceases to function when the underlying OS structure changes.

This, too, is not a problem with Vista, but with retarded children who imagine they're "programmers" because they get one kind of function working in one version of one OS and fantasize that from there on all OS progress must be halted so as to not break their crummy little hack.

3) intensive hassling of the user because of inept prior version code that make user root/admin

And you're pointing out yourself that this is ALSO not a problem with Vista. It's a problem with lazy and inept 3rd-party programmers who insisted on making everybody root. Which is decidedly a BAD idea. Which MS correctly identified and put a halt on. MS did every single thing right here and you call it "buggy".

That's why you're a Troll.

4) truly piggish DRM

Yeah - let's round it out with a statement that's not measurable or quantifiable. "piggish". Hum.

You have failed to name one single of the "enormous and embarrassing mistakes found in Vista" you claimed before. Not one. Because there are no particular mistakes in Vista. The usual slew of a little bug here and a minor annoyance there; but as I said, certainly no more of them than XP ever had.

That's why I call you a troll. Because you make an assertion of "enormous and embarrassing mistakes found in Vista" and yet you are completely incapable when it comes to naming some of them.

Re:Short answer: no

[hairyfeet]

You forgot some of my favorites. Allow me to add them. And before the parent tries to say I am a troll,let me tell a little something about myself. I have been a LONG time fan of MSFT products,going back to the days of DOS and Win3.X. I have used and made money off of their products,both in PC building and repair,as well as networking,for many years. And I wanted Vista to be good so bad that for the first time ever I was a beta tester for their latest OS. Not because I didn't have the chance before,because I was given the chance on both Win2K and XP,but because I really wanted Vista to shine. That said...

SLOW! Jebus H. Tap dancin' Christ that thing is slooooow! Have they never heard of optimizing their code? Networking? Ugh,I don't know even where to begin on the evil that was my experience with Vista networking. I swear I had less hassles when I was networking Win9X boxes through a discarded WinNT 3 server. Vista would just lose the connections,or they would just die,or Vista would just go blind to the entire network while the other three kept working just fine. And the only way I found to fix was through a reboot,which I hated because of the first reason.

Then add to that the constant thrashing of my HDD,which got so bad it actually killed the Maxtor that it was installed on,even though I had swap files on all the HDDs. I can only guess its load balancing sucked. I had even turned off indexing to no avail. Then just to add a little evil flavor they changed a bunch of stuff around for no particular reason,and things that would take one or two clicks in XP seemed to take five or six. Just for spite make sure there isn't a "classic" mode,so those of us that were happy with the way things worked since WinNT 3 would have to take it,like it or not, then add the constant CPU drag,making my apps run like they were running on a 486Dx with WinME on top. I mean,I know that a 3GHz Celeron with 2Gb of DDR3200 and a 256Mb Geforce 6200 isn't going to win any gaming contests,but on XP it flies. Could you leave a little CPU for me,please? I'm not even going to talk about the stupidity that is UAC,because most folks are probably going to turn that irritant off in less than five minutes.

And that folks,is my experience in Vista land. I have spent over a month trying to like it,searching forums for the magic "make it not be slow" button, and reinstalled when RTM came out followed by reinstalling again when SP1 came around,hoping against hope they had fixed it. I finally gave up and went back to XP. When you have fanbois tell you with a straight face that you need a dual core with 3Gb of RAM and a 8xxx series graphics card to get the full Vista "experience" that's when you know it's a turkey. I mean,I have had XP run well on a P3 733Mhz with 384Mb of PC100 RAM,and we go from that to needing a freaking dual core and 3Gb and a 8xxx card just to get it to run decent?

But on the bright side I am making more money off of MSFT than I even had before,because so many folks are coming in to have a brand new PC built with XP. I even had a guy that doesn't even use the Internet and has been happy all these years with his WinME(shudder) machine,ask me point blank "Can you build me a machine that is affordable now,but can be upgraded a lot down the road,so I don't have to get stuck with Vista?". So MSFT better work hard at making Win7 a lot more like XP,and a lot less like Vista,or I have a feeling I'm going to be building WinXP machines for a LONG time.

Re:Short answer: no

[Swampash]

One of the few reasons left for them to exist is that people have money invested in software, and they don't want to have to buy new software

I'd restate it as "One of the few reasons left for them to exist is that people have money invested in data locked up in proprietary Microsoft filetypes". I don't care that I have lots of .xls files on my hard disk - I care that I have tax returns and invoices on my hard disk. If Excel ever goes away, so does easy access to my data.

Re:Short answer: no

[MrEricSir]

Compared to NetBeans, Eclipse is a formula one car.

But to be fair, compared to NetBeans, a dead snail is a formula one race car.

Re:Short answer: no

[cjsm]

Let's see what's wrong with Vista: 1) lack of hardware drivers, rendering many machines obsolete

...which is a problem with the hardware and/or the hardware manufacturer who decided not to support their hardware in Vista. It is NOT a problem of Vista any more than some hardware without a working Linux driver is a problem of Linux.

Why is this a problem with the hardware manufacturers? Microsoft made major changes to the driver model, partly to implement their DRM, so writing new drivers is time consuming and expensive. So Microsoft gets to make a fortune selling Vista; but the hardware manufacturers are supposed to spend a fortune writing new drivers for old equipment they sold years ago, so everyone upgrades to Vista and Microsoft can make even more money. Microsoft should pay the hardware manufacturers to write new drivers.

Re:Short answer: no

[Dun Malg]

They merged with XP, not 2000.

No, XP was only a point release of 2000 (i.e. XP = WinNT 5.1, 2000 = WinNT 5.0). Win2K was the merge point. Anyone who was using NT before that remembers the pain of getting DOS/Win3.1 things to run properly under NT 4 (or 3.51!)

Re:Short answer: no

[ucblockhead]

Though you are generally correct, it is important to note that doubling the number of cores doesn't improve performance as much as doubling the clock speed (or improving the number of cycles the average instructions take) because of troubles running serialized software software in parallel. Doubling is great, quadrupling is pretty good, but eventually you just don't get much bang. (Or, at least you won't without serious software improvement.) It's a serious problem the industry will soon face.

But as you say, it is questionable if most people actually need more performance.

Re:Short answer: no

[Saffaya]

I'm not sure I understand your questions.

The DOS emulator on Unix was faster than native DOS on the same machine.
I can't recall the Win 3.1 emulator on unix having any performance issues, to the contrary.
Don't some of the Windows games that currently run under WINE have more FPS than natively under Windows ?

So, yes, running Microsoft originated OS on Unix can result in a faster and more stable experience.

Re:Short answer: no

[ozmanjusri]

I find it hard to believe that an OS that was even further abstracted, by being placed on top of another operating system, could be faster or more stable.

Surprisingly, you're wrong.

Sandboxing an unstable app or OS is a good way of improving the overall stability of the system. Check this out, for example;

Vx32 is a user-mode library that can be linked into arbitrary applications that wish to create secure, isolated execution environments in which to run untrusted extensions or plug-ins implemented as native x86 code. Vx32 is similar in purpose to the Java or .NET virtual machines, but it runs native x86 code, so plug-ins can be written in ANY language, not just Java or C#.

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~baford/vm/

Re:Short answer: no

[gbjbaanb]

remember that MS has just embraced .NET and with it the mantra "memory is cheap". So even though the world is moving towards lower-resource systems (especially power), Vista is stuck in last years attitude of "use more for more features (that no-one really wants)".

I am a MS developer for years, since NT came along and blew the hideously expensive Unix workstations away. I've been in love with their dev tools and documentation, but not any more. I feel the lock-in of C# now (yes, and I remember MS's "interoperability" programmes for years back, none of which were designed to do anything but act as marketing for non-crippled "do it on windows instead").

I think the passing of Gates will be seen as a turning point for MS. Media analysts are asking "where now for MS", the world is asking for the opposite of Vista, the DoJ is making sure all the dots are slashed at MS now, Linux is making inroads (slowly) everywhere you look.

MS only hope is developer lock-in with .NET, to ensure that Windows has a future because of all the 3rd party software that is written for it means businesses cannot live without it, or cannot get the same software on Linux.

That's the way things go - the world moves on no matter how big you used to be.

Re:Short answer: no

[Bert64]

Modern OS's do sandboxing already, ie running everything in its own memory space with copy-on-write shared libs, and no write access to the kernel space or other apps. It helps stability a lot compared to the older OS's with a flat memory space, but it hinders performance too. AmigaOS ran in a flat memory space, and was very fast, but one program could easily crash the whole system. On the other hand, the inherent instability forced app developers to write decent code instead of relying on the OS to bail them out.

As for wine, it's not so much further abstracted, as abstracted in a different way. Your not running windows game on top of windows on top of linux (ala vmware) as the quote suggests, your running windows game on top of wine on top of linux... Which is really no different than running the game on top of win32 on top of NTKRNL. If the code implementing wine is more efficient than the code implementing win32 on top of NT, or if the linux kernel does things more efficiently than NT, or if your drivers do their work more efficiently, then the linux/wine combination can be faster.
If you look just at the kernel level, windows has far more complexity relative to linux, all that added complexity comes at a performance price.

Re:Short answer: no

[Heather D]

Microsoft people have openly said that they want fewer hardware manufacturers. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a major reason in changing things the way they did.

Re:Short answer: no

[mea_culpa]

Same here.
I do consulting for small businesses and the only people that don't complain about vista are the ones that use it to play solitaire and check their email. (not computer literate in the least)
The ones that complain the loudest are those that picked up a brand new computer to replace their old one only to find out the new one runs much slower. I have 'upgraded' many vista laptops and desktops to XP in the last year each charging the same as a virus/rootkit removal plus MS license. Laptops are the worst, especially HP, it is like they are intentionally hiding XP drivers for things as simple as a sound cards. I'm still able to find workarounds but in all my years working with PCs I have never seen support for a predecessor OS being unsupported so quickly. Even with the push for 2k/XP there were several years of support for 9x users.

I still try to keep an open mind, I was skeptical of 2000 and XP when it first came out, but I am finding it very difficult to swallow vista.
My most recent endeavor trying to make vista work for someone was on a brand new state of the art quad core computer. It ran at a decent speed, no complaints other than the printer (brand new HP officejet pro) would intermittently fail to respond. The network card would work for 5 minutes and then go to 'Media Disconnected' status for no reason even after replacing the motherboard (on-board nic), building wiring, HP ProCurve module, patch cords, etc. I could boot a knoppix or ubuntu live CD and have no networking problems at all. Checked the latest Marvell drivers, Bios, etc. The only solution was to install XP.

I have yet to see with my own eyes a power user that is happy with vista. So far I only hear about it on the internet from fanboys. By power user I mean someone that runs multiple applications in a productive environment and are able to do so at the same speed or better than XP without having to know how their computer works.

I keep trying vista myself as it is my business to do so, but I haven't seen any compelling reason yet to recommend it to anyone. To me it is still a downgrade. I'll keep trying it as future updates come out.
Part of me thinks those touting it on the net are shills from MS. Just like aliens, until I see it with my own eyes I'm not going to believe it.

Existing legacy support. Wait, what?

[jeffmeden]

Remember Vista? Supporting legacy apps is already something MS has no interest in, apparently.

Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that Bill Gates is retired from Microsoft, the editors should get with the times and lose that dated, painfully unfunny logo they use for Microsoft.

Most people probably wouldn't get the Borg reference to begin with, and now Bill Gates era at MS is officially in the past.

Only MS gets this ridiculous logo..now its finally the time they get rid of it.

Re:Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon

[Spy der Mann]

I vote for a chair breaking a Window :D

No, I'm serious. Get a picture from the Microsoft Headquarters, and from a building, add a chair breaking a window and falling to the floor. Cartoonize it, and you're done! :)

Re:Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon

[bigstrat2003]

If anyone doesn't get the Borg reference, they don't belong here, they should be at the geek office turning in their geek card (or educating themselves, whichever they prefer).

Re:Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon

[antdude]

How about a dancing egg'ed Steve Ballmer who is throwing a chair? :)

Re:Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon

[Renderer of Evil]

Now that Bill Gates is retired from Microsoft, the editors should get with the times and lose that dated, painfully unfunny logo they use for Microsoft.

That icon is there for legacy purposes.

Re:Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon

[techno-vampire]

Considering that Microsoft is often considered ot be the 800 lb gorilla in the software world, there's a better idea: King Kong on the Empire State Building fighting off biplanes.

The "7" refers to nothing in particular

[Drinking Bleach]

Actually it stands for Windows NT 7.0. Here's a quick run-down:
NT 3.1
NT 3.5
NT 3.51
NT 4.0
NT 5.0 (aka Windows 2000)
NT 5.1 (aka Windows XP)
NT 5.2 (aka Windows 2003)
NT 6.0 (aka Windows Vista/2008)

Re:The "7" refers to nothing in particular

[BlueCollarCamel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

Re:The "7" refers to nothing in particular

[dryeo]

The original plan was for MS to write OS/2 ver 1.x, IBM to write 2.x (basically making it 32 bit) and MS to write 3 ( a complete rewrite). Shortly after starting to write what would become NT they divorced IBM and changed plans from OS/2 NT ver 3 to WIN NT ver 3.x

No

[mangu]

Can Windows move forward with a completely new, fast, and secure OS and still keep legacy application support?

As someone who started developing applications for Windows in 1991 and stopped around 1999, I doubt it. Better let legacy applications (and the whole x86 mess too, BTW) fade away, they have gone far beyond their useful life.

Re:Wine?

[Brian Gordon]

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

Not gonna work / we already have it

[orkysoft]

Apple could do that because they were much smaller than Microsoft, and had a small but relatively loyal customer base, and their rewrite did pay off, as people are generally very happy with OS X and don't care about the incompatibility with OS 9 and older anymore.

Microsoft has a huge userbase with much less loyalty, and generally a huge existing investment in software.

We don't need a MS Windows rewrite, we've already got Ubuntu, because that's essentially what the article author wants: an operating system that Just Works[tm], even at the expense of compatibility. That's a pretty good description of any popular Linux distribution.

Re:Not gonna work / we already have it

[rbanffy]

I would add that Apple did not do a full rewrite but, instead, adopted a stable, mature and very sophisticated OS from NeXT. Apart from that, OSX is very different from the classic MacOS and deeply incompatible. Any compatibility had to be bolted on its top.

Microsoft has nothing like it and will not buy an OS outside.

Or they could just grab any flavor of BSD, close it, build a Win32 susbsystem on top of it and sell it as Windows 8. They already did that with a TCP/IP stack.

Windows done right from the ground up

[BadAnalogyGuy]

WinCE. Pity about the name, though.

Re:Windows done right from the ground up

[fwarren]

WinCE done right?

I have written some software on the WinCE platform. It is NOT windows done right. Lets start with the evolution of the platform. It was designed for displays like 600x300. Full menus and dialogs. The OS has no concept of a "current directory". Every file has to be specified from the root of the drive every time. They figured the devices would have a touch display so no need for a mouse. So the standard Windows mouse API was ripped out. Essentially the only thing left was is a click or double click either left or right and where on screen it happened at.

They then "re-imaged" it to compete with Palm. So now it is redesigned to work on a device that is 240x320. The menu is at the top of the device. The pop up keyboard soft-input-device (sip) pops up from the bottom. There are issues with a window getting in the background not being able to be brought to the foreground.

Now we "re-image" again for the smart phone. With an even smaller display. Microsoft decides that a mouse is needed again. So they create a brand new API for dealing with a mouse, instead of using the win32 api

If you think the win95-98 api vs the Win NT code base api wars were a problem. Now kick it up a notch. Take your pick, drawing graphics, initializing windows, dealing with the SIP. What ever fun I had dealing with the Win32 API was ground out of me when I started working on WinCE

You want proof? Why did Microsoft extend the life of Windows XP for 3 more years for UMPC style devices to compete with Linux? Because WinCE in any incarnation is not up to the job. Microsoft is not even trying to pretend anyone will want it on a UMPC style device.

Legacy application support

[mashuren]

"Can Windows move forward with a completely new, fast, and secure OS and still keep legacy application support?"

Well, considering the fact that Vista's all but killed the chance of running any software made before the year 2000, I'd have to say "no".

It's pretty bad when old Windows software is much more likely to run under Wine than with the latest version of Windows.

They should make a concerted effort to drop legacy

[catwh0re]

Keeping 'legacy' support has always been a nice excuse for not significantly upgrading the OS (or spring cleaning). Having tried to run many older programs under the promised legacy support (including the options to emulate previous versions of windows.) I can say that I've had small successes in keeping old software running on Windows.

To me it's always been an excuse to keep windows bloated, and not actually any effort to keep old software functional.

Yes, it's been done before

[LoTonah]

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.

Re:frist pawst

[Drinking Bleach]

I would argue that the New York Times is better qualified to write an OS than Microsoft is...

Fluff piece

[ejdmoo]

He really doesn't know anything about the internals of the Windows kernel or the Mach kernel, he's just assuming that since the NT kernel is "monolithic" and the Mach kernel is a "microkernel" then the latter must be better, and the reason it's better is it is "smaller."

If you want to know where the real problems with Windows lie, they're in the API and the shell, not the kernel. The NT kernel is perfectly fine. See this Ars write-up by someone knowlegeable:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/what-microsoft-could-learn-from-apple.ars

I'd like to point out that Microsoft employs one of the original authors of the Mach kernel, Rick Rashid. He runs Microsoft Research. Look it up.

Re:Fluff piece

[Tumbleweed]

I'd like to point out that Microsoft employs one of the original authors of the Mach kernel, Rick Rashid. He runs Microsoft Research. Look it up.

Being put in MS 'Research' is the kiss of death if you want to make something that MS will ship. They seem to hire those brilliant people and give them massive funding only to keep them happy and prevent them from working for a competitor who might want to actually SHIP something brilliant they would come up with. Rather like IBM, only substitute incompetence in place of amorality as motivation.

Re:Fluff piece

[bcrowell]

The Ars Technica piece is interesting, but I'm pretty skeptical about this whole idea of making radical changes in Windows and breaking backward-compatibility.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that there's a huge downside for the user when you break backward-compatibility. Apple actually did an amazing job of maintaining backward-compatibility when they made the switch from 68000 to powerpc, but when they brought out MacOS X, the backward compatibility was lousy. You could still run classic apps on X, but they typically worked very poorly -- some features wouldn't work, apps would crash, and it took a really long time to start up the classic environment. Essentially Apple expected you to buy all new applications. Then Apple kept on bringing out frequent point-upgrades to MacOS X, and every single one cost a significant amount of money. My wife bought one of the early lamp-shaped iMacs, and we stayed on the upgrade treadmill for a while, but it really got old spending money every six months or so for a new version of the OS, so at this point we're still running an old version of MacOS on that (expensive) machine. Now we basically can't run any new software, because it only works on newer versions of MacOS X.

It's also worth looking at it from MS's point of view. They're a monopoly, and their interest is in keeping users sucking at the tit. Maintaining backward compatibility has worked very well for them. One of the main things keeping Windows users from jumping ship for another OS is that they know their apps will continue to work. It's actually kind of amazing. I tech at a community college, and some of my colleagues are still using an old DOS shareware planetarium app. It still runs on Windows XP.

Re:Fluff piece

[lseltzer]

The Microsoft Research site has a page on product contributions that have come from MS Research.

Sure they can!

[ThorGod]

Just switch to Mac and get parallels :P

Yeah, I know, not very funny. But does every comment have to be great?

Die Monkey Boy

[MCSEBear]

There was a time when a much leaner Microsoft highly respected and rewarded employees who could write good code. These were the people who rose to positions of responsibility. Today, Microsoft is run by Sales and Marketing and coders are viewed as an expense. Until this situation reverses itself, don't expect any improvement in the product they create. They are too stupid to realize their product is the code. Ballmer being from sales only reinforces this problem. Perhaps he should be moved to a chair throwing division that does the monkey boy dance, and someone who can both create great code themselves and manage coders should be brought in as CEO.

Re:Die Monkey Boy

[Dracos]

Precisely. Other OSes are designed to be used, while Windows is designed to be sold.

Re:Existing legacy support. Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Wine?

[larry bagina]

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.

Meh.

[zx-15]

I think the author of the article doesn't realize the difference between the legacy code and kernel architecture. Kernel architecture of windows is fine - its a hybrid kernel, which in general similar to Linux, you're not able to run in HPC on it, but hey, it is better than DOS! It's the legacy code that creates so much bloat, and swapping out the kernel won't change anything if the same mountain of code still runs.

Of course Microsoft could create virtualization layer, but then Linux has Qemu, Xen and Wine, and OS X has Parallels and Wine, and of course there is VMware, so if Microsoft would ever support legacy code through virtualization, alternative implementation of it would be release pretty quickly, and everybody here knows how Microsoft likes competition.

My guess there will be dying for the next 10-15 agonizing years, dragging any progress in the industry with them.

Re:Existing legacy support. Wait, what?

[dreamchaser]

Bashing Vista has become like pouring hot grits on Natalie Portman around here. It's just a meme anymore. It was funny for awhile but now it's just old.

Vista really isn't all that bad. I still have XP machines (and Linux, and OS X, and Solaris, and OS/2 even) but I don't mind my Vista machine at all. I also run a lot of old apps on it just fine.

Re:They should make a concerted effort to drop leg

[MasterC]

Keeping 'legacy' support has always been a nice excuse for not significantly upgrading the OS (or spring cleaning).

Are we not in the time where everyone and their brother is using virtual machines? It would seem that MS should relegate legacy support to virtual machines instead. They have the source code so they could "easily" create a VM (or some very transparent layer that makes it look like its running natively) for each version they've ever sold.

Then they can do whatever they want and just keep the VM layers up-to-date.

I surely can't be the first to think of this...

Re:oh come on

[Brian Gordon]

A kernel with:
-A file manager
-A web browser
-Multiple filesystem support
-Most extensive driver library in existence
-Office tools like Mail, WordPad, Calendar, Calculator, Contacts, Paint?
-Full command line environment (DOS)
-Complete media architecture in DirectX.. that's DirectSound DirectInput DirectDraw.. a LOT of big packages if it was Linux. Also Windows Media Player/Photo Gallery
-Graphics APIs and rendering engines
-Remote desktop
-Labyrinthe configuration utilities and applets
-Monster domain features.. detailed ACLs on every resource, complex user permissions, domain controls enforced on clients (integrated securely right into the interface)..
Especially on the last one you have to admit that Windows has done some things right, and anyway it's certainly not just a kernel image and a window server. People expect a complete environment for Getting Work Done.

Challenge accepted

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a challenge?
Static
Animated GIF

Re:Wine?

[Brian Gordon]

http://www.osnews.com/story/227

Alexandre Julliard: We try to implement the bugs, or at least the ones that applications depend on. The only reason for implementing the Win32 API is to run all the applications written to it, there is no point in trying to improve on it if it breaks compatibility. If you want to design a good API, Win32 is the last thing you want to start from (actually Win32 is probably a good example of how *not* to design an API ;-)

Re:oh come on

[Darkness404]

But... I can run the same thing on Linux in RAM with 512 MB (or less) of RAM and a 700 MB CD. When I install it it takes perhaps 2 GB of HD space for the exact same functionality.

-A file manager - There is Thunar in Xubuntu, Nautilus in Ubuntu and Konqueror in Kubuntu
-A web browser - Firefox
-Multiple filesystem support - Ubuntu can read/write more filesystems then Windows can
-Most extensive driver library in existence - Except for the fact that on 90% of hardware I can get Ubuntu to get everything to work out-of-the box except for proprietary drivers for ATI/nVidia cards and Ubuntu makes that easy, Windows is a pain to install without like 10 driver CDs or an OEM restore disk
-Office tools like Mail, WordPad, Calendar, Calculator, Contacts, Paint? - Thunderbird, OOo, a calendar program, a calculator program, various contacts programs and The GIMP
-Full command line environment (DOS) - Full UNIX shell (BASH) -Complete media architecture in DirectX.. that's DirectSound DirectInput -has Linux equivalents though I can't think of them off the top of my head -DirectDraw.. a LOT of big packages if it was Linux. Also Windows Media Player/Photo Gallery - Totem/Amarok for WMP
-Graphics APIs and rendering engines -Again, found on Linux
-Remote desktop - VNC/SSH
-Labyrinthe configuration utilities and applets -Don't really know what that is, a Wiki search returned nothing -Monster domain features.. detailed ACLs on every resource, complex user permissions, domain controls enforced on clients (integrated securely right into the interface). - UNIX-style permissions, secure by default


Just about everything you said is included on Linux on a *Buntu default install, or can be added without going over what Vista has installed. Sorry to say, but really Vista is just pure bloat. Lets see what is in a default * Buntu install that Windows doesn't have...

Full Office Suite - OOo
Photoshop Replacement - The GIMP
Various network services - Telnet, SSH, etc
(*real*)3-D Desktop - Compiz-Fusion
Multiple Desktops
PDF Reader
Various support for files that Windows doesn't have by default (Ogg, FLAC, etc)

As you can see, Windows just can't compete with Linux when it comes to programs per storage space. In 5 gigs of a Vista install you get just about only the default install, in 5 gigs of a Ubuntu install, you get the default install, plus some of your files, some development tools, some more games, a few more applications, etc.

Re:oh come on

[Godji]

Everything on your list sans the last one, and much more could fit on a fucking LiveCD, and expand to a couple of gigabytes. Even Windows XP had all that and it fit onto a 3 gig partition easily. Microsoft has no excuse for Vista's size, other than sheer incompetence.

But the entry that totally shows how clueless your post is happens to be this one:

Multiple filesystem support
Oh please. NTFS, FAT, ISO+Joilet, UDF, a couple of network "filesystems" perhaps? The Linux kernel contains many times as many filesystems, and even if you enable all of them, your kernel image will hardly ever be more than 20-30 megabytes when you compile it. You just needed to put something on what is a short list, didn't you?

As for Most extensive driver library in existence, it's not true. Most drivers come either through Windows Update (network) or via the vendor (install CD or website). Out of the box, Windows support the bare minimum it needs to run with terrible performance.

Last but not least, all the stuff falling under monster domain features is functionality. Lots of source code which gets compiled into tiny binaries. Since when does implementing "ACLs on every resource" or "domain controls enforced" on clients require gigabytes of data?

Re:Existing legacy support. Wait, what?

[Toll_Free]

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

Sorry, but

[postbigbang]

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.

Re:Sorry, but

[postbigbang]

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.

Re:Sorry, but

[Lonewolf666]

Technically, "Windows 2000 Professional" was something you could call a merge, as it brought up-to-date DirectX and USB support to the NT line. It did, however, NOT support all existing DOS programs, unlike Win98.

But for whatever reason Microsoft was not ready to sell a "home" version of Windows 2000. So they released Windows Millennium instead. Yes, that was another DOS based system "after the merge".

Millennium was a major disaster and Microsoft soon followed up with XP Home. XP Home was the first NT-based Windows marketed to the home user, so it looks like the successor to Windows Millennium. But technology-wise, it is Windows 2000 with more eyecandy and crippled user accounts (the non-crippled version is called XP Professional and the direct successor to Windows 2000 Professional).

Re:Existing legacy support. Wait, what?

[19061969]

If only I had mod points today... ;-)

Seriously, I'm not a fan of MS by any standards but I have Vista installed on my desktop box and it annoys me less than XP on my laptop does. It's not a bad OS really and good enough for me not to scrub it and install Linux instead. Years ago, I couldn't stand Windows and always hosed the HD so I could put Mandrake or Debian on, but now I find Vista to easily be good enough.

Re:oh come on

[Nefarious Wheel]

The extra 30GB is to hold the fine print on the new EULA.

Obligatory Pratchett Quote

[cp.tar]

Today's Apple isn't the same Apple. When you replace all of your computers internal components and reinstall a completely different OS, isn't it a completely different computer, even though it has the same case?

"Fakes?" said Vimes. "They were all fakes?"

Suddenly the King was holding his mining axe again. "This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation... but is this not the nine-hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good. Will you tell me this is a fake too?"