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Windows 8 Desktop 'Just Another App'?
CWmike writes "Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live division, said this week that Windows 8 will let users treat the traditional desktop as 'just another app' that loads only on command. When it unveiled Windows 8's UI in June, Microsoft said it would feature a 'touch-first' interface to compete in the fast-growing tablet market. Underneath that, however, would be a traditional Windows-style desktop. 'Having both of [the] user interfaces [work] together harmoniously is an important part of Windows 8,' Sinofsky said in a blog post on Wednesday. The Metro-style UI — the one inspired by Windows Phone 7's tile-based design — will be the first to show up when a user boots a device. At that point, users reach a crossroads. 'If you want to stay permanently immersed in that Metro world, you will never see the desktop — we won't even load it (literally the code will not be loaded) unless you explicitly choose to go there,' Sinofsky said. 'If you don't want to do ... 'PC' things, then you don't have to and you're not paying for them in memory, battery life or hardware requirements.' If using a conventional PC with keyboard and mouse, Windows 8 users will run an 'app' to load the desktop, he said. 'Essentially, you can think of the Windows desktop as just another app.'"
This is the version of Windows that you skip, right? Every other version is the good version?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Before anyone jumps on the band wagon and says that we all have perfectly usable user space desktop apps for 28 years in the UNIX world, let me say that it is actually very important that now even Microsoft starts to understand that modularity is the way to go while designing complex systems. Moving various operating system components to the user space is just a logical conclusion of the research done during the last four decades. Look at the direction of modern OSii development, from MINIX to GNU. Started by GNOSIS, KeyKOS, EROS and Coyotos this trend seems to suggest that it is much more natural and reliable to design a secure capability-based system when all of the services are separated from each other. Now when even Microsoft is going in that direction - and it is not a trivial change for them, trust me - we can expect Apple and other OS vendors to follow which is a Good Thing. After all, even if people like you and me are using secure operating systems we still don't want to get spammed and dossed by all of the legacy machines out there. It turns out that the rumors that Microsoft is starting to take the latest research in operating systems seriously turned out to be true. This is good news for everyone.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
quitting the Finder on a Mac, since Finder runs as a (rather persistent) application.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I can't imagine they could do away with much more than explorer and maybe a hand full of DLL's. So, basically, we are given an extra step to load our desktops... probably while we are inundated with news feeds or advertisements. I wonder which HKey will turn this off.
Since the dawn of time, the Windows "Desktop" has always been an application. Before 95 it was progman. After, it was explorer. You've always been able to switch to a new shell with ini file or registry modifications.
Explorer has always been "just an app". You can edit system.ini and replace 'SHELL=explorer.exe' with any other application. e.g. LiteStep, a MAME front end, XBMC, etc.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The Metro-style UI — the one inspired by Windows Phone 7's tile-based design — will be the first to show up when a user boots a device.
I sure hope it'll be easy to turn that off. It makes sense on a consumer box with a touchscreen, but for my work station, I have no intention of using the Metro UI.
This is an interesting idea that should not be too difficult to implement in a Linux Distro. How often do I boot up my laptop just to check email or look up something on google? Having an option to login quickly in a kiosk-mode with only a limited number of apps or full desktop might come in handy. Anyone set something like this up already? Pros - Cons? Probably just have something like TWM as well as my trusty XFCE-4 as an option at login.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
1. Business will not deploy it
2. Only tablet or touch screen use in the consumer market
Why? Business will lockout the "Metro" interface, and just load the "desktop app" - at processor & memory cost - which in an Enterprise = lotsa $$
The consumer who still thinks of a PC a a traditional Windows desktop w/ traditional menus and apps will be turned off, because their new shiny toy will get crap performance w/o TONs of memory and horsepower. Because they'll want a desktop.
Dedicated OS's for dedicated devices guys - it just works better. less code = more harmony.
Enlightenment is a pipe dream. So where's the pipe?
this sounds like a good choice. Granted, people like me may be up in rage because of the unfamilar feeling, but the fewer calls I get because people totally screwed up their own rig is a good thing in my book. As the first major desktop/notebook/netbook/whatever OS to embrace this idea (as in it's not a phone or PDA), it could verywell lead how it's really supposed to be done. Just please tell me I don't have to jailbreak my own computer...
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
That's not the Droid I was looking for.
Perhaps you should use unix!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
The difference is making it easy for common users to switch desktops, or even understand such a thing is possible. Linux users are familiar with switching desktops and the numerous ways options available. Most of us have toyed with Gnome and KDE and XFCE, E17, Nextstep, ect....
If Windows users had an option drop down in their login screen I wonder how many would replace their desktop environment. How long will it be before the common windows user installs a OSX clone? (not just a theme, but a true work-alike desktop)
Ubuntu+wine?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Wow. I had to look up the word 'shkotzim' - is there any subject, no matter how mundane (OS loading, for example) that can't be turned to anti-jewish sentiment?
In answer to your question : yes, this UI customisation issue IS the inevitable result of millennia of Jewish culture! It's what they've been planning ALL ALONG!
Can I have an o/s that boots to a command line?
Well sure, it just ain't going to be windows.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Sounds like Windows 3.x. You booted into DOS and Windows installed and ran as an application on top of it. Of course, at the time my favorite DOS command was deltree, and my favorite folder to use it on was the root Windows 3.x folder.
The Windows desktop was already an app. It was called "Explorer.exe".
This really isn't news until it ships, and we can assess the product as a whole.
This is not a slashvertisement, it is information for people who are interested in what the next MS OS will be. This being a website that is frequented by people who develop software and people who administer software, they need to know what is coming down the pipe before it happens.
Besides this gives us more ammo to talk crap about MS when they drop features they have talked about.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
This is an interesting idea that has shown up elsewhere... In OS X, there is the "full screen" mode, and many windows also have an oblong button in the top right which is used to show/hide extra toolbars, and many apps also use this to switch between "Simple" and "complex" modes, including the Finder.
The merit would be to force developers to include different interfaces for the same underlying program, and to consider this type of workflow during development. This definitely sounds like a good thing, because many desktop programs are very robust but lack similar tools in the burgeoning touch interface market.
Tablets are already very powerful and capable of handling these applications, but quickly porting them over would be clunky. Many of these apps would be perfectly usable with a touch interface, but are not available for those platforms despite the practicality. Audacity could work great with a touch interface for example, but we don't want to create an entirely new application when the same one could be used with a slightly different interface.
I think that positioning the interface choice so predominantly on the desktop will spur the maturation of touch interface on already existing applications, and it will be good for users because they will already be familiar, and will be able to switch back if they can't find a certain option. They'll be able to learn at their own pace without having the rug pulled out from under them. It will also help developers design more modular programs, and slowly build up the touch interface portion instead of having to design two separate applications and make either/or trade-offs for both of them.
It would be great to re-use all of our code and be able to switch from a touch interface to a mouse/keyboard interface at will. Dock your tablet and it becomes a desktop... for real this time. Take the screen off your desktop and you can walk around with it. Maybe future monitors will have lower-powered hardware built in so we can do this, and snap the monitor back on when we need more horsepower or different input options.
Twinstiq, game news
Explorer.exe is almost exactly analogous to Finder on a Mac: just an app that provides the familiar UI environment.
What's ironic is that this is pretty much doing Win98/IE4 in reverse. That was when Microsoft decided that not only did you have to load the standard UI at boot time, you had to load their web browser too, so they combined the browser and the UI into a single program. Unbundling the UI from the OS... hell, that's almost like rolling back to before Win95! First boot the OS, then (if you want) load the GUI. :)
While I can see plenty of good reasons for doing this, it's going to be very confusing to the users, who have no conception of the distinction between the OS and the UI. If you load Windows, and there's no Start button, no (My) Computer, no task bar, etc.... to most people that's not Windows. They don't care if the drivers and kernel and whatnot are all the same; it will be (for their perspective) an entirely different operating system.
So maybe it's time Microsoft changed the name?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Just think where you might be if you had any intelligence.
In the days of MSDOS and the first 8086, there wasn't any hardware based security. About the only multitasking was the CLI/SLI (clear interrupt mask/set interrupt mask) and the 18.2Hz interrupt. There wasn't even any boundary between system files and users files except for a few bits in the directory structure for read-only, hidden and system files.
DosBox recreates the MSDOS environment perfectly. Every service device driver depended on interrupts. Int 10h for this, Int 31h for that.
Want mouse support? Install MSDOS v3.1 to get those.
Need IPX support? Install packet drivers for that.
Need Adlib/Sound-Blaster support? Install sound drivers for that. Want higher resolution SVGA modes. Update your BIOS/graphics card for those.
To run Windows, required rendering GUI widgets all the different framebuffer sizes and formats in software (CGA- 4 color, EGA - 16 color, VGA EGA+ 256 color, SVGA: VGA+16-bit/24-bit color). Hardware accelerated blitting was a luxury then, let alone texture mapping. Having clock speeds less that 33MHz didn't help with the GUI desktop rendering.
Writing an application back then involved making your own interrupt calls to the mouse, audio, keyboard and display drivers, to set up and shut down these services.
First edition of Windows just slapped on a set of GUI calls to set these up consistently between different hardware setups. It was a layer of bureaucracy but it simplified the process of writing applications so that users just had to worry about GUI design and events.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Hey! Port it to Linux!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I can load angry birds as soon as my pc starts up... as long as I dont lose it among all my other app icons.
Brah, I totally have to see my kick ass wallpaper every now and then. I didn't bitch about Chrome lacking the "set image as wallpaper" in the context menu until I was blue in the face for nothing. I see some tight ass image, set that shit then winkey+d for a good couple hours just to soak in how fucking sex that shit looks. Work? Motherfucker, being fly is my job!
No, it isn't which is why Apple's trademark for an app store is stupid and wrong. They may think of it more as of an application for a phone or tablet, but not specifically an Apple labelled product. And Windows 8 is going to be for Microsoft Tablets, so the description still wouldn't be far off for the mainstream user who thinks of apps in the more modern parlance.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Windows 3.x was just another MSDOS executable.
and 5 years before that, Amiga Workbench was a multitasking GUI that ran on AmigaDOS
Yes, and now read the GGP, knowing what shkotzim means.
The GGP is himself being anti-Jewish. He's not really hiding it and it's not subtle.
So instead of "dropping to shell" we now go to the Desktop to "do PC stuff"?
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Windows Server 2008 has a head-less version, but I haven't tried it yet. Apparently you need to do everything with Powershell, and I haven't bothered learning it yet.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
But since Windows 2000, nay, NT it's just been incremental improvements. I still run Win7 in "Windows classic" Let me tell you what's impacted me over the years... Nothing. The kernel has improved (less blue screens) and now I have fancy window docking options. That's about it. Explorer.exe is still king. All the pain and suffering of Vista and its predecessors were introduced by different driver models that were only incrementally better than the last.
Apps have seen the biggest change, with ribbons (which I hate). I still run XP at home. Get off my lawn! And get off my desktop!
And I still rock Office 97 on my Win7 machine. It's all incremental since win32.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
If you guessed that C++ doesn't have reflection and XAML is based entirely on reflection, you are correct.
C++ doesn't have reflection out of the box, but it's not hard to make tools that add it for you. Qt uses something like that, albeit with some extra verbiage. But it is possible to do better.
they still can't "design" an attractive interface for shit! I give you the Windows 8 Explorer Toolbar Ribbon.
I've yet to meet the office worker that likes the Office style ribbon, which is exactly what it looks like.
I8-D
Ahm, so? It's the default on Linux, you have several tiers, you can use no graphics or windows at all (shell), "just X" with twm or just a root window, a full blown desktop like kde. You can even use something sophisticated like clutter without X (direct FB backend).
Sooo...What's the news, Microsoft?
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
Sooooo..... is this Windows 8 touch interface what the Windows 7 Media Center became? In all fairness, if the Windows desktop really isn't loaded, and the touch interface will come up by itself, that's getting reasonably close to ... well, what everyone else has... But I have to wonder, based on past experiences with M$ reuse and rebranding, whether the Windows 8 touch interface is actually an updated Media Center rebranded, and to actually get anything done that requires more than just touching big squares would require that you load the desktop.
For instance, I can read and create Slashdot articles on my Android phone. (It's not pleasant, due to the screen size, but it can be done.) Can the same thing be done (easily) from the Windows 8 touch interface, or as a practical matter, would you need to load the desktop? (Note I said "need", not "want". What I'm looking for is some glimmer of hope that a Windows 8 tablet would be useful without having to drag around a keyboard and mouse for those times when you know, you wanted to write something.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I know I'm just wading in to the insanity here... but why do all occupations have to have representative populations that mirror cultural proportions?
Maybe a lot of Jews are just funny?
Is the NFL or the NBA representative of the US population at large?
It seems from what I know about Win 8, it is highly ambitious. Works the same in ARM and Intel. Works the same in table or desktop. The last I remember that they did this, they made Windows Mobile look like Windows but didn't really function the same. As such MS never optimized touch. I don't feel confident that they can pull this off.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And if everybody had been trying to kill off your people for several thousand years, wouldn't you tend to stick together too? And possibly have a small bit of distrust for "outsiders"? Who would you believe - thousands of years of history, or what some person is currently telling you?
"But this one goes to 11!"
Perhaps this indicates that I'm a fatalist, but can they just take me straight to the blue screen of death?
what good free alternatives? If there were any they would have dominated by now.
Is this really all that interesting? Isn't he probably just saying Explorer isn't the shell in W8? You've been able to set different shells for years haven't you?
With new Windows server OSes you can choose a "full" installation or a "core" installation. The core installation lacks a whole lot of shit, including the GUI. I mean you still have a mouse cursor and window manager, but the GUI as in explorer itself is missing. All command line interfacing (though as noted apps can run graphically if they wish). You can do it to save resources, though it can be a bit of a pain to administer.
Sounds like this is just the next step in making shit like that easier. It can apply to desktops, as well as servers, and is something that can be loaded or not on demand, rather than having to choose. Makes sense to me. Windows is actually fairly modular at a low level, they just don't make it that easy for users to disable things.
Of the sixty(60) senior executives of the major Hollywood studios, trade unions, and talent agencies, fifty(50) are Jews or have Jewish spouses. This is a numerical representation of 83%. Jews are approximately 2% of the U.S. population.* Therefore Jews are over-represented among the senior executives of the major Hollywood studios, trade unions, and talent agencies by a factor of 41.5 times(4,150 percent).
Of the sixty-four(64) senior executives of the major television broadcast networks, cable networks, and production companies, fifty-seven(57) are Jews or have Jewish spouses. This is a numerical representation of 89%. Jews are approximately 2% of the U.S. population.* Therefore Jews are over-represented among the senior executives of the major television broadcast networks, cable networks, and production companies by a factor of 44.5 times(4,450 percent).
Of the fifty(50) senior executives of the major music labels and trade organizations, thirty-nine(39) are Jews. This is a numerical representation of 78%. Jews are approximately 2% of the U.S. population.* Therefore Jews are over-represented among the senior executives of the major music labels and trade organizations by a factor of 39 times(3,900 percent).
Of the forty-six(46) senior executives of the major radio broadcast networks and station owners, twenty-eight(28) are Jews. This is a numerical representation of 61%. Jews are approximately 2% of the U.S. population.* Therefore Jews are over-represented among the senior executives of the major radio broadcast networks and station owners by a factor of 30.5 times(3,050 percent).
Of the forty-six(46) senior executives of the major advertising corporations and trade associations, thirty-one(31) are Jews. This is a numerical representation of 67%. Jews are approximately 2% of the U.S. population.* Therefore Jews are over-represented among the senior executives of the major advertising corporations and trade associations by a factor of 33.5 times(3,350 percent).
Of the sixty-seven(67) senior executives of the major television and radio news networks, forty-seven(47) are Jews or have Jewish spouses. This is a numerical representation of 70%. Jews are approximately 2% of the U.S. population.* Therefore Jews are over-represented among the senior executives of the major television and radio news networks by a factor of 35 times(3,500 percent).
So they are creating a GUI that will work on any device. Or rather each device running Win8 will look like the other Win8 devices. Unfortunately, I think they will be one step behind Apple. When you run a ppt/keynote file on an external display but off your Macbook, the main display is your slides, and the secondary display can be notes (notes you've written into your ppt/keynote file). To me this is where it's at! Using multiple displays for different functions, and having both screens in the full screen mode. My main issue with Windows is the full screen settings. Play a game, it maxes out on the primary display (D1), switch displays and the you loose the the full screen option on D1. You want to play full screen on D2, too bad, switch your displays around. You want to show a full screen pic on D2 while pausing your full screen game on D1, too bad you can't do that. Currently I only have 2 screens (22" & 40"), but in the near future I plat to add a third (27"). At some point I will add a fourth (55+"). Additionally, I would really like to plug my phone/netbook into my desktop and have the phone be able to access the power of the desktop. Personally, this is where MSFT should go.
I recall reading that the MetroUI itself was an html5 app. If that's the case I'm sure this version will be much better for customization than previous ones. Hacking the metroUI interface or replacing it with a different html5 app will be far easier than replacing the explorer.exe shell has been in the past. I'm sure it won't take too long before the mod community comes out with a replacement desktop UI that's actually slick and functional.
Jews stick together and when Jews are onto a good thing and easy money, they hire more Jews. Screw the goy. Equal opportunity employers so long as you are Jewish.
How is this different than any other race/group/clan/side of the tracks?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Um sure except I wasn't saying any ethnic group is not racist. I was commenting on the post stating that jews stick together and offering an opinion as to why I think they would tend to stick together.
But I do find you fanciful stories of "food supply problems" being the reason millions of jews were killed in WWII quite humorous. Sure "a lot" of blacks, homosexuals, POWs, etc. were also killed in the war, but if you can point to any other group that was killed in the proportions jews were, I would love to have a link to your sources.
"But this one goes to 11!"
any ways at this places Big site a lot of users have dual screens and it is a mix of windows XP with windows 7 rolling out. Now I don't see a phone / touchpad GUI fitting in the big screen / multi tasking office world.
Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) != Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe)
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Ok, sorry but I really can't have a serious discussion with an anonymous coward who is a Holocaust denier. Doesn't really matter to you I suppose - just keep rambling on your nonsense. I wasn't really paying attention anyway.
P.S. I happen to personally know two jews that were in concentration camps, and have told me of firsthand accounts of what happened there. I would dare you to look either of them in the eye and call them liars, or tell them that they are "over hyping" their time spent there.
P.P.S. I am not jewish, so your anti-semitic comments really have no effect
"But this one goes to 11!"
But actually it hase been already like this for a long time. You could prevent loading the explorer.
Sure "a lot" of blacks, homosexuals, POWs, etc. were also killed in the war, but if you can point to any other group that was killed in the proportions jews were, I would love to have a link to your sources.
As in millions of deaths? Look no further than Russians, between the Reich and Stalin. Japan was pretty ruthless to the Chinese: WW2 Casualties NeroMetrics. I've had someone argue that the simply because there are more of either of these groups that it's not as bad. Human deaths are human deaths. Beyond the WW2 how about how many people died during Mao's Cultural Revolution? Estimates are at ~60 million, no religious motives there either 20th Century Genocides.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
You may have missed the "in proportion" part. What percentage of the entire Russian population was killed? I was only referring to WWII deaths - obviously there have been plenty of other madmen bent on killing millions of people. But have any of them managed to wipe out 20-30% of a given ethnic group?
"But this one goes to 11!"
Hey Microsoft welcome back to 1992. You know that time when the OS ran the computer and a desktop environment ran on top of the OS, like DOS and Windows 1.0, and Unix and Motif or CDE or ...
There was a reason why Unix and Linux never stopped operating in that mode. Glad MS finally joined the club again.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I did touch-screen interface on an industrial PC running windows back in '96. We wanted to prevent guys on the line from playing games, so we told it to load our full-screen app instead of explorer.exe. I don't recall what we did ourselves to run other things ;-)
If the desktop only starts up on command, that means users will be presented with a black screen of death. How is this different from every other version of windows?
What percentage of the entire Russian population was killed? I was only referring to WWII deaths
Google it. So which country were all the Jews from? Keep in mind you're now comparing segments of multiple countries civilians against that of a single country. I hope you're not implying that one group's deaths count for more (care to define which race "Jewish" is?) than another.
But have any of them managed to wipe out 20-30% of a given ethnic group?
Are you ignorant of how Europeans and later the American government's encounters with the natives went? How about Native Taiwanese?
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
Many have noted that a touch-oriented GUI is not helpful for a lot of things. Looks like the option of keyboards mice command lines and hopefully 'traditional' application menus command line switches etc will remain as well.
"Could we please stop posting about a new Windows 8 "feature" every day?"
No. Need Page Hits.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Um, no. Outside of serious connoisseurs of Apple Kool-Aid, nobody thinks that Apple has a monopoly on the term "app".
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Why not *gasp* MULTIPLE operating systems? Why do they always go all or nothing.
Lets have Win7-2 simply an upgrade to what is a fine operating system.
PLUS a new beaut fancy app-based IOS competitor with new functionality with an easy dev environ so people can produce the content and anything that is worthwhile goes into the next Windows release
I've (and im sure many others) been thinking for years why doesn't Microsoft keep IE as its bloated beautiful self and fork Firefox or similar and have a super speedy hip cool l33t trendy web 2.7 compatible browser that people will want to use.
IE isn't going anywhere half of what we use at work requires it full stop but it doesn't mean they cant have other products out there, trying new things, developing ideas
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with conflicts in religious doctrine it is just a time honered way to segregate a small group of people who happen to be reletively successful in the business world. They made the perfect scapegoat for Hitler and the Arabs have taken the lead in making sure this strategy continues. Point out the successful Jews and tell the proles they are the reason they are poor and then let nature take it's course. The same pattern has been used throughout history. Of course the Arabs ran into a small problem when they repeatedly got their asses kicked but they have changed from using tanks and soldiers to using the "Palestinian" ordinance.
Ballmer and Sinofsky aren't vanilla-sounding to you? Are you kidding me? Where did you grow up that Gates and Allen sound normal but Ballmer does not?
Jesus Christ, Ballmer's an English name. Like, from England. It's more English than Gates (Scottish!) or Allen (Scottish again, or Irish!), in fact. Do you...do you think Jewish means "not Scottish"? That's got to be the most charitable interpretation.
Sinofsky sounds like it comes from Eastern Europe. Belarus or thereabouts. I'd guess that Myrhvold is Norwegian from the looks of it? Low confidence. But there's no fucking pattern at all.
The vast majority of people in every country outside of the british isles, the United States included, do not have surnames that come from the british isles, even after generations of people changing their surnames to "fit in".
Well, I'm pretty sure I got trolled here. Well done.
Apple can take their redefinition of common dictionary words and go jump in a lake.
What the heck does "or have Jewish spouses" have to do with ANYTHING?
This design is fine and good for Tablet PCs, but if the street doesn't go both ways, I will be skipping this and potentially subsequent releases of Windows. I may use Linux for everyday tasks, but I am a PC gamer and Windows is the only thing I can run any worthwhile game on. I don't want to see Metro after my initial bootup to configure a new gaming PC, and if there's a way to go immediately to the Windows desktop, I'm going to use it. If there isn't, Microsoft better be prepared to support Windows 7 for a very long time.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
The last I remember that they did this, they made Windows Mobile look like Windows but didn't really function the same.
This time it's the other way around, the backend is the same and it's just the presentation layer that can be different based on the device (whether it's a tablet or a desktop/laptop).
Apple should be banned from working in English, and sentenced to being limited to words in Esperanto!
Is this something where one can just use a keyboard w/o mouse - like use the TAB and arrow keys to move between options, hit ENTER to select and after going in, just use keyboard shortcuts? Handy if one's mouse is not working, or doing weird stuff
I recall once in the 90s, under Windows 3.1, I had to help somebody whose mouse was not working, and she needed keyboard instructions to enter a certain application. It was painful to describe it before it got working.
Somehow, I'm not liking the idea of a CLI where you type Win. That's the thing I want to avoid w/ any OS - Windows, OS-X, Linux, BSD, whatever. Someone who loves the CLI so much can use one of the Linux or BSDs, or a Powershell enabled Windows w/ no GUI, if one so wants. Incidentally, if one goes w/ a Powershell enabled GUI, Vista would be fine: it's only b'cos of the way it manages its memory when the desktop is loaded that it sucks in comparison to XP, otherwise, from a Powershell interface, it'd be fine!
I'm going to design a car where the steering wheel retracts into the dashboard whenever you're not actually steering... makes sense, right? Good on you, Microsoft!
Microsoft is loading themselves up with every conceivable patent before W8 is released. My guess there will be patents from every aspect, beginning with the bios
I also am thinking of the many copyrights for the look and feel of W8.
Well, be ready to pay if you need W8. At least you will get something better than Windows 3.0 or some other infamous Microsoft catastrophes.
Linux GUI interface designers better develop hundreds of different arrangements, in order to show prior deployment. Otherwise, the Linux desktop or tablet interface will be slaughtered by the number of patents that are already being filed that will act as a deterrent.
Time for patents to apply to machinery, not to algorithms or generic methods.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I don't like this tiles approach, I don't constantly need to see the weather, I don't constantly need to see stocks or news on my screen. These tiles have processes that are going run all the time (even if tiled mode uses fewer resources). Stupid approach, a shitty attempt to spray paint and decorate a bloated old rusty OS. When I installed OS X Snow Leopard on my system, I think it ended up freeing close to 2 GB on my system (upgrade from Leopard) and things started running faster. On the other hand, MS decides to keep Windows in the background and runs some crappy touch-screen tailored (wtf?) tile based frontend, rather than focusing more polishing and optimizing their OS. Being a .NET for a bunch of years now, I'm very happy with their developer products, I wish their Windows team(s) would finally release something to impress just as much.
So you are saying that if there are no more windows, it isn't really Windows any more? I think they've long since moved Windows from being a descriptor to being a meaningless trademark. Kind of like how KFC no longer stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken - the official legal name of the company is 3 letters.
How can the backend be the same when they are running either ARM or x86 instruction sets, desktop and tablet hardware. That's why it is highly ambitious. The backends will be different but the frontend will be the same according to MS.
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How can the backend be the same when they are running either ARM or x86 instruction sets, desktop and tablet hardware.
It depends on what you determine to be the backend, i'm referring to the CLR in that any .net applications are going to run the same whether it's x86 or ARM, unlike WinMo.
It depends on what you determine to be the backend,
What most people refer to the backend is the whole OS at the base level. At the base level, Windows, OS X, Unix, or whatever OS is compiled in a language. That compilation had nothing to do with CLR as CLR deals with runtime not compilation. Most of the time it is C and it will vary depending on the hardware used. ARM and x86 instruction sets are not the same. I don't know anyone who considers CLR to be the backend. At best it's the middle layer.
i'm referring to the CLR in that any .net applications are going to run the same whether it's x86 or ARM, unlike WinMo.
Why would you think that? Nothing runs exactly the same today even if it was written based on .NET platforms. That's why there's a .NET Compact which has different functionality for mobile devices than the full .NET. This why I don't have much faith that MS can pull it off.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What most people refer to the backend is the whole OS at the base level.
.Net applications don't care about that, they only go as far back as the CLR, which should be obvious given that x86 and ARM are different architectures so the whole OS at the base level simply cannot be the same and that as far as a .Net application is concerned anything beneath the CLR is irrelevant. I'm sorry if the use of 'backend' confused you but you can see if you use your definition it clearly doesn't make sense in this context, anyway that's neither here nor there in this discussion, you know what im talking about now?
Most of the time it is C and it will vary depending on the hardware used. ARM and x86 instruction sets are not the same. I don't know anyone who considers CLR to be the backend. At best it's the middle layer.
From an application perspective it is, if you write a .Net application the CLR is as far back as you need to be concerned with.
i'm referring to the CLR in that any .net applications are going to run the same whether it's x86 or ARM, unlike WinMo.
Why would you think that?
Because it's their goal, they've stated they want the same experience whether it's ARM or x86 and obviously from a .Net perspective that shouldn't matter. What makes you think that can't work?
That's why there's a .NET Compact which has different functionality for mobile devices than the full .NET.
But this isn't going to be the Compat framework, it's the full .Net framework with an x86 CLR and an ARM CLR.
.Net applications running on the CLR and the platform beneath that is irrelevant. So as far as the application is concerned, as far back as it goes (the CLR) the system is the same and it's the GUI layer that may be different on different devices as opposed to WinMo where they tried to make it look similar to the desktop but in fact the system that the application interacted with was very different.
In any case the semantics are irrelevant, i'm fairly sure you understand what i'm talking about now, the fact is their goal is to have a CLR for x86 and ARM so with
.Net applications don't care about that, they only go as far back as the CLR, which should be obvious given that x86 and ARM are different architectures so the whole OS at the base level simply cannot be the same and that as far as a .Net application is concerned anything beneath the CLR is irrelevant. I'm sorry if the use of 'backend' confused you but you can see if you use your definition it clearly doesn't make sense in this context, anyway that's neither here nor there in this discussion, you know what im talking about now?
It's clear you have no idea what backends or middle layers or what an OS is. Windows is an OS. .NET is a application development platform with CLR as the middle layer. It's the same as Java. Java has to run on an OS at some level whether that OS is Unix, Windows, OS X, Linux, whatever. MS has proposed Windows 8 as an OS will run equally same on ARM or x86 at the low level. That seems highly ambitious.
Because it's their goal, they've stated they want the same experience whether it's ARM or x86 and obviously from a .Net perspective that shouldn't matter. What makes you think that can't work?
Can you do everything you can with your mobile device as your desktop? Nothingwithstanding the software differences, there are major hardware differences.
From an application perspective it is, if you write a .Net application the CLR is as far back as you need to be concerned with.
We are not talking about applications. We are talking about Windows itself. Consider that currently no version of Windows OS runs on .NET but uses .NET as the application development not system development. Windows OS is written in C/C++ with some Assembly. C++ is different based on the hardware that is being used. Assembly is vastly different based on the hardware. If that's not clear to you, you need to do more research on OS development vs application development. The main reason Windows or any OS is not written on middle layer or application layer is that the overhead would be high. Linux and Unix are written in C for this reason. OS X is written in C for the kernel with Objective C for everything else.
But this isn't going to be the Compat framework, it's the full .Net framework with an x86 CLR and an ARM CLR.
Do you understand the reason behind the Compact framework (and all mobile device development platforms) is that mobile devices at the hardware level are not desktops. Therefore they have reduced (and different) instruction sets and are optimized for mobile devices (with less memory, OS space, processor power, etc). There are features missing from the .NET Compact framework that are found in full .NET because the hardware itself is not capable of supporting the hardware. In other instances, the mobile device performs differently than desktops.
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It's clear you have no idea what backends or middle layers or what an OS is.
Still having trouble with the semantics i see, don't worry, you'll get there. The back and front ends are relevant to a specific process, there is no definition of a backend without a context, as far as a .Net application process is concerned the backend is the CLR, why? Because it doesn't go any further back than that, as far as it is concerned there is nothing else.
Windows is an OS.
Wow, i never knew.
Can you do everything you can with your mobile device as your desktop? Nothingwithstanding the software differences, there are major hardware differences.
Mouse + Keyboard on a tablet and you're good to go.
We are not talking about applications.
Of course we are, because the applications are what matters.
We are talking about Windows itself.
But we're not because fundamentally the OS must be different to run on ARM and x86, but that doesn't matter to the application, it won't care whether it's ARM or x86.
Java has to run on an OS
Thanks captain obvious.
Windows OS is written in C/C++ with some Assembly.
Captain obvious strikes again.
If that's not clear to you, you need to do more research on OS development vs application development.
Why would that not be clear?
Do you understand the reason behind the Compact framework
Yes, and that it's not relevant here.
mobile devices at the hardware level are not desktops.
Wow, you really are just padding out your post with obvious facts here.
I have to state obvious facts because you either don't comprehend computers or you refuse to grasp basic concepts like OS and applications. As for semantics, if you can't understand why CLR isn't the OS, there's no hope for you. I suggest you take a computer science course at you local community college or put down the weed.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
if you can't understand why CLR isn't the OS
I never made any such assertion, i clearly stated that my comment was to be taken in the .Net application context, yet you have still taken that comment in the wrong context and proceeded to rant and rave about how it doesn't make sense in that context. A normal person would accept that we are talking about different things so obviously a discussion makes absolutely no sense but a retard like you would continue to argue for the sake of it.
Again you keep talking about applications while I keep trying to get you to understand I was talking about the OS. I said it is enormously difficult for MS to get Windows 8 OS to run equally the same on x86 CISC based CPUs as the same on RISC based ARM processors in tablets which is clear to any person by reading up above. And how there is hardware limitations like limited space in that Windows 7 requires a minimum of 16GB of space which will be enormously difficult to fit into a tablet with maybe 32GB total space. I don't say this often, but you're an idiot as you keep interjecting unrelated topics like the CLR.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Again you keep talking about applications while I keep trying to get you to understand I was talking about the OS.
Which is why, after we were obviously not on the same page given your first reply to my post, i clarified that i was talking about the application level, hence if you're interpreting it in the OS context it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the comment would make no sense. So taking that comment in the context in which it was not intended and continuing discussion is quite obviously pointless.