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Report: Windows Blue Reaches Its First Milestone Build
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley has been collecting tips on Microsoft's accelerated Windows development schedule, codenamed 'Blue.' She reports that the program, which is attempting to replace the multiyear product drops for the Windows-branded desktop, server, phone, and network services products with a more agile release cycle, with better continuity across the suite, has just hit the first of two scheduled milestone builds. What's in the build? As with North Korea's nuclear program, details are scarce, but so far we have a Chinese Windows start screen; indications that the kernel number has been bumped from 'NT 6.2' (Windows 8) to 'NT 6.3'; and a job posting for a Windows Blue SDET (test engineer). Slashdot reported on Windows Blue in November."
... screen?
...It?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Let me guess... they've gone further on their way to declare desktop applications as deprecated? With Windows 8, Microsoft has made it clear that it thinks that desktop applications are on their way out, and the only way to go is to make programs for Metro.
Oh, and I'll put this out there: won't run unsigned programs by default, though I suspect that this will be like OS X 10.8 and allow being turned off.
All part of boiling the frog.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Why is it that sometimes code names are better than the name of the final product? "Windows Blue" is a better name than simply "Windows 9". Similarly, "Xenon" was a better name than "Xbox 360".
Nintendo's fond of that, too. "Nitro" versus "DS", "Dolphin" versus "GameCube", "Revolution" versus "Wii".
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
If they don't then IMHO, this is a dead duck. They have a wonderful opportunity to stop the patch/reboot/patch/reboot cycle here
or the Patches on top of patches shell game.
If they don't grasp this then they are merely fiddling while the City of Redmond burns to the ground.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
As with North Korea's nuclear program, details are scarce,
Has anyone detected Xenon-133 that can be traced to Seattle yet, or did MS manage to contain it pretty well underground?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Steve Ballmer is flying the plane now. Tower is on the horn telling him he needs to gain altitude, but Ballmer thinks they said Attitude; whilst headed for the ground in a sweaty dance.
All the boys and girls from Neowin are on on that plane, living it up and having a damn good time. Unaware Ballmer is piloting the plane "This is your Captain speaking, we need more Attitude!" as cheers erupt. Bill Gates was unavailable for comments, as he thinks 'Blue' airlines is headed in the wrong direction.
According to the article, Blue is a Windows 8 refresh. I assume that to mean that it's going to add all the stuff that Windows 8 was lacking when it came out, particularly in relation to its mouse / keyboard and "classic" behaviour. But even metro is a bit shit on the desktop, lacking stuff like folders to group icons, zoom in / out, certain multi-select actions and so on.
Please enlighten me as to why you think I don't know what I'm talking about.
I just patched a clean Win 7 build and it took four patch/reboot cycles before I got everything uptodate.
Whereas my Linux Systems patch the lot in one go and only need to reboot when there is a kernel update. IIRC and I was running SLES I wouldn't even need to do that.
Or did I dream that I had to reboot my system so often in the patching process?
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
They will never, ever be able to remove support for the legacy desktop apps that is what keep customers from moving away from windows. What they WILL do however, is realize that home users don't really provide as much income as they should for microsoft. Apple is a shining example of a company that makes money from consumers, not business. Microsofts cash-cow is income from people using workstations and servers in offices around the world. So the question: How can microsoft make good business from consumers, without risking their revenue stream from business? Answer: by separating the tiers further. Make desktop/legacy a "premium" product, and sell the consumer OS cheaper by forcing users to adopt apps that give MS a piece of the revenue. I predict that the desktop will live forever, but only in the higher SKU:s of windows. Meanwhile, microsofts "Home"/OEM offerings of windows will steadily become cheaper and slowly move into an apps-only ecosystem.
This sounds about right, it'll be interesting to see how quickly consumers take this up. I haven't met anyone yet who actually wants to use the 'Metro' interface, much less buy thier software throuh the Microsoft store. Of course I've read plenty of 'I use Win 8 and I don't see what the fuss is about' posts in various tech forums, but even from those people I've never heard anyone extolling the virtues of a 'killer' Metro app. Until such things exist, where is the compelling reason to make the switch? I fear the only answer is that we will be steadily 'forced' to use the new interface with subsequent versions of Windows.
I currently use Windows for productivity and gaming, this Metro crap I can see being the reason I move to Linux for my productivity stuff, and if Steam for Linux takes off with enough publishers, possibly my gaming as well.
I've never loved Windows, but I've never really hated it either (well maybe sometimes), it's always been 'good enough' to do what I want it to do, as soon as it starts to tell me how I should interact with my desktop, and where I should buy my software, well thats the point at which it ceases to be useful for me, and probably a great many others.
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...