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Windows 8 Early Build Hints At Apple, WebOS Competitor - EWeek
Microsoft's next Windows could be a cross-platform OS in the style of Apple's iOS or Hewlett-Packard's webOS, if supposed early builds are to be believed... "Bloggers Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott, in a series of April postings on Rivera’s Within Windows blog, have described the various features of what they claim is an early build of Windows 8: an Office-style ribbon integrated into Windows Explorer, complete with tools for viewing libraries, manipulating images and managing drive assets; an unlock screen that harkens to the 'Metro' design style already present in Windows Phone 7; an 'immersive' user interface and a built-in PDF reader they call 'Modern Reader.'"
Remember that early builds from MS mean nothing. In the end it will just be Windows 7 with no 32-bit backwards compatibility and a new skin.
"I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
-Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon
... basically, according to Thurrott and Rivera, Microsoft's "vision of the future of Windows" is - OS X?
#DeleteChrome
It is the most terrible difficult and unintuitive development in ui I have ever seen. Give me my damn menu's back, he'll I would prefer vi over ribbons.
It works for me.. it works for the other guy.. it must be something specific to your situation, and I think I know what it is...
Clearly you are experiencing the notorious PEBKAC bug.
Win7/64 Home Premium:
6 items selected Size: 369KB
Date created: 1/7/2011 7:25 PM - 2/26/2011 2:04 PM
"His name was James Damore."
But this is the company that has made Wordpad an unusably over-complex piece of garbage - and I say that even though Windows 7 is a vast improvement over XP; installed on my laptop because XP was giving up with too many programs open, and now all those programs run nicely together.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Remember that early builds from MS mean nothing.
Right; this is crucial to remember. The reason for any information release at this point is to block MS partners who are thinking of becoming HP partners. MS will now be feeding this into their friends in your company and whenever someone points out what WebOS can do that person will say "if we just wait six months MS will do the same thing and we won't need to migrate".
Oh; and there will be 32 bit backwards compatibility; even if it's just through an integrated transparent hypervisor. Trust me.
If you want to adopt WebOS, get your project going now. Make serious progress as a "demo", "test environment" etc. If asked about the new MS product just say that this will give your organization a chance to prepare. Get real customers doing real things. At the point where Microsoft backs out or fails to deliver what your customers need, that is the point to make it really official.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Microsoft is usually damned if they do, damned if they don't. Let's say they added multiple desktop support, a la every other worthwhile OS. Everyone would laugh at MS for being late to the party. If they don't add it, then people will mock them for its omission.
I use a Mac and Win 7. There are some damn nice features that 7 has I wish my Mac would copy. Namely: snap to sides. Unfortunately, I doubt that Apple will ever add this, because they seem to refuse to admit to anyone else ever having a good idea. (We did get Spaces eventually, though, so perhaps there is hope.) I also really enjoy how the new start menu works. It's sort of an enhanced dock with the ability to preview and close windows without having to open them. Apple already does have similar functionality (sans the closing windows bit, and it's a little more cumbersome), but there are aspects of the Windows implementation that I prefer.
You could look at how Apple handled Snow Leopard. For the most part, it was an "under the hood" update, which is basically what you're asking for. And yet, even though it technically did bring a lot of new features, there were a lot of people who were mad at Apple for producing a "weak" update, even though it only cost $30.
You just can't please everyone.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
So I'm a linux person through and through, but it's about the flexibility the platform offers, and I no longer feel justified in criticizing MS over the 'basics' with their improvements.
scalability
If you refer to the OS running on enough cores, I haven't heard of a technical limitation. I think they do have various arbitrary limits on their licensing, but the software developers have done the required work. Maybe someone can point out scheduling deficiencies or poor placement decisions in a NUMA architecture, but I've not heard that. Keep in mind this discussion is on the desktop, which probably will be non-numa and no more than 6 or 8 cores.
Modularity
They used to be more modular in their install, but the sad reality is 99% of people couldn't be arsed to think about it, so the default experience is less customizable. Even linux installers have trended toward skipping package selection. Other than that guess, it would need some specifics to understand exactly what you want.
Platform support
If you mean supporting other architectures (e.g. ARM), that was precisely one goal they already announced. I personally think this is a pointless endeavor for them unless they give some magical ability to run x86 binaries everywhere without horrible performance degredation. MS has tried repeatedly to support other architectures, but the reality is x86 is where the applications are and MS doesn't have a particularly special offering that people intrinsically want if not for the x86 applications.
Window management features
Ok, I'll give you that one of the big reasons I stay away from Windows is the relatively incapable window management stuff, but at the same time, I have to presume they think the features 'we' would want would confuse their main target market.
Speed
In my experience, I haven't seen anything particularly slow about Windows. This is probably one area I've never been able to complain except for disk IO due to Vista defaults that got toned down.
Decoupling of the GUI from the os
The only thing they would gain here is the ability to run an systems without any video chip, which they have no hope in hell of winning. If you refer to the ability to manage them via serial console *in addition* to video, they do have serial console support to do some basic things including starting CMD/PowerShell. Sure, we love our VTs on occasion, but a very small minority of people use them except when they *have* to. Perhaps inherent capability to ssh in and get cmd/powershell would be nice, but getting rid of the GUI on VGA console won't really win them anything in the market.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Stability
I can't honestly complain any more. They have even go so far as a video driver crash being less fatal for them than Linux. Linux may be able to survive a video driver crash, but anything on the UI dies, and that's not the case for MS. They have made a lot of improvements here.
Security
They have managed to make most people stop running as administrator, with a 'sudo-like' implementation. Now I've heard mumblings about that being trivial to bypass (though I haven't seen it), which would be a critical flaw. They don't open a lot of services by default anymore. Largely any insecure behavior is non-default and the fault of users (either enabling features or misusing them). Their NTLM hashes they store on disk are pitifully weak, which could be improved, but only relevant if that is attacked. NTLM was/is a horribly insecure network authentication, but AD is a valid Kerberos approach and NTLM *shouldn't* be used if MS is used as intended. Overall, their security isn't bad.
command shell
I will say PowerShell is an improvement. I do think it borders on counterproductive pride as to why they don't have anything quite as simple as plain-ol-bash. Also, why they don't implement SSH for a nice common protocol instead of their WMI crap for remote command execution.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
remember how they said that we'll all be using Netbooks??
Yep. This post it being written from one, and it's really rather nice. That said, I'm running Xubuntu, as Windows 7 crawled when I had it on here. MS really does need to remember how to make a lean, fast, and usable OS. Right now they've got market share, but the only way to keep that is to stay ahead of the game. As they say, complacency kills.
The wise follow a damned path, for to know is to be forsaken.
I've found XP to be pretty rock solid - having used it since 2003-odd, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times it's bluescreened on me, and it's about the same amount that Windows 7 has bluescreened for my missus on her new HP home PC that she bought just before Christmas.
Sure, it takes a couple of service packs for an MS OS to become rock solid, I'm not criticising Windows 7 for that. However, I'm mostly a Gnome user on Linux but I use XP in Windows Classic mode (I have done since 2003) and I really don't mind using it for gaming and for a few killer apps I cannot get on Linux. But I have always hated the default XP theme with a passion, it's truly awful and unusable.
My experience of Windows 7 so far is fairly minimal, I've set up a handful of new PCs for friends and family and that's my extent of using it. I won't deny it's stable or that it will be as stable as XP when it gets to SP3 like XP did - but I think the Aero interface is awful, quite frankly. As far as I'm concerned, it's nothing more than "change for change's sake", stuff has been renamed just to make it look different without thinking of the consequences to users who have migrated to XP, and the default desktop looks cluttered and unprofessional. There is TOO MUCH going on all of the time and I don't see the point of wasting CPU cycles for eye candy that adds absolutely nothing to speed or productivity. (That's something you expect of OS X.)
XP is now 10 years old and whilst it has some issues with supporting the very latest hardware properly, the fact that it's 32-bit and old is countered by the speed of modern PCs which means it runs pretty fast, as long as you spend time administering it and keeping it clean. For most home user tasks. 64 bit means very little anyway and there is little visible speed difference between running in 32-bit and 64-bit mode.
I didn't use Vista at all but I can understand why a lot of Vista users welcomed Windows 7 when it came along - but I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to move my last couple of Windows XP machines too it, and when Microsoft stop supporting XP to the point where it's no longer updated and full of security holes, then I see myself moving fully to Linux as Windows 7 does nothing for me.
I'm not a "Linux v Windows" zealot by any means, I really don't care whether it's Windows or Linux that runs on most desktops, I'd rather people sat down carefully and thought about what OS they want to use before finally choosing it. But if Windows 7 is a success then it's mainly because Microsoft has foist it on people by making it the default OS on many new machines and ensuring XP's retirement by not porting DirectX 10 or Internet Explorer 9 to it. People are not migrating from XP to Windows 7 in their droves, over 50% of the world's desktop PCs still run XP - that's because for most people it's good enough.
So, yes, I accept Windows 7 is better and liked more than Vista and that it will be as stable as XP ever has been. It may also be a better OS for newbies because they don't care to carry out proper administration on XP PCs like I do to ensure that it stays malware free (and it does, if you spend time with it and take a little care). But to say it's "more so" makes no sense.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You like the other poster are "cherry picking" and mixing and matching corporate and consumer which NOBODY did before XP. if you are gonna mix both then you need to count WinME which came after 2K and sucked hairy donkey balls, and both 2K and 2K3 server frankly sucked until Sp2, which was SOP for MSFT at the time. I remember how many wouldn't touch NT 4 until SP3 either, and when you look at the HUGE number of patches we are talking it has gone from mere bandaids to pretty much gutting whole subsystems. Also check out XP pre SP2, it was a buggy badly behaving insecure POS.
And Vista should be looked at as a giant DON'T DO THAT which they are gonna fail to heed with Windows 8. What we saw with Vista is that PCs have reached good enough that if people don't like it they'll simply stick with what they have, it isn't like the Win9x days where you really had to upgrade to support the latest tech or software. XP is going on 12 years old now and any corp would frankly be nuts not to have support for XP in their products, and Windows 7 has FINALLY, finally after all these damned years, given then a product that works on BOTH the business and consumer desktop that folks like and are willing to use.
Look I've been selling the things since Win 3.x, so I know of which I speak. there was about a year where my #1 money earner was killing Vista dead, people hated it THAT much. The things that keep folks on Windows are software and games, which makes them 180 degrees in opposite of Apple which has been able to go through no less than 3 CPU changes and still keep people buying. If MSFT tries to stick a WinPhone style OS in front of people and call it Windows folks will just ignore it and stick with XP and 7. Windows 7 gets extended support until 2020 (which they can't drop thanks to contracts) so it isn't like folks HAVE TO jump on board.
With Win 7 they finally have a UI where those like my dad can find new things and figure things out intuitively without bugging the living shit out of old hands like myself. Why fuck up a good thing? I'll tell you why, and this is from someone who makes their living selling MSFT products: it is because they have gotten too much of a hard on for Apple, that's why. you look at what has happened since Ballmer took over and it has been nothing but "Lets copy Apple and then we'll be hip too!" while ignoring they have completely different demographics.
Kin, Zune, WinPhone, everything Apple does will have a MSFT version less than a year later. They have a hit in the X360, they have a chance at making Win 7 as big a hit as XP, why cock it all up chasing a demographic that will NEVER ever buy your stuff? Apple is a hipster boutique label, it would be like expecting Ferrari owners to suddenly start buying Mustangs.
It is stupid, it is pointless, it will piss off the customers, and I bet if MSFT goes for this "Web 2.0 Cloud Extreme WinPhone OS" idea for Win 8 I'll be wiping it to put on Win 7 just as I wiped countless Vista installs to put on XP. The folks that buy Windows just aren't gonna jump on a cloud based PhoneOS for their desktop, it just won't work. To make it lean enough they'll have to destroy completely backwards compatibility, and if I'm gonna have to start from scratch anyway why not just go Mac or Linux?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The idea of "object-oriented shell" is idiotic to begin with. Text can be parsed by anything, "objects" can only be handled by "objects" derived from them, turning software development into incest.
The whole idea of shell (and IPC, and network protocols, and even things like dbus) is to allow communications between completely unrelated pieces of software. Powershell design completely misses this (and underlying OS does not help, either).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
What would be the point? The kernel for Windows is perfectly stable, barring shitty drivers.
That would be the point, IIRC over 95% of linux is device drivers. There was one computer that windows xp was crashing on every hour or so, Out of curiosity I installed linux on the machine. I had never seen linux spew so many warnings about out of spec hardware and features being disabled. Linux was stable, but really, windows could have been just as stable, if they would have been willing to say, these features disabled because the hardware is lying about having them. But, if Microsoft had done that, it would have been Microsoft vs Foxcom (or who ever made the crapware) and it would have turned into a pr war. With Linux the hardware was tested, and people reported that it did R when it said it would do A, ergo, mark it bad, until someone comes up with a workaround.
Microsoft has a lot of baggage that makes people willing to take the crapware manufacturer seriously, the Linux developers are viewed as impartial reporters about the state of hardware.
Rants like the one here http://fxr.watson.org/fxr/source/pci/if_rl.c are unlike to make it into the windows kernel, no matter how true.
Work bio at MMWD