Over the years, it has been owned by WildFile, Adaptec, Roxio, and Symantec. System Restore was an obvious beginning to the embrace, extend, extinguish cycle, and Shadow Folders is intended to be the completion.
But System Restore and Shadow Folders are not the same technology, nor does this have ANYTHING to do with OSX as the post implied.
You have yet to explain how GPU Scheduling and WPF and GPU RAM virtualization are end user features!
Go back and read the post carefully, or better yet go look this crap up for yourself. GPU Scheduling means the end user can run WoW and not have to worry about it fighting with the 3D desktop, nor fighting with 3D application nor even other 3D Games.
This is like the difference between multi-tasking when it was application level yeilding and the move to pre-emptive multi-tasking. No longer could applications cease the CPU. The same is true, here, applications can no longer cease control of the GPU.
Are you going to argue that pre-emptive multi-tasking is not a feature that DIRECTLY BENEFITS end users? If you are, then you are really stupid and this conversation ends.
GPU RAM Virtualization in Vista is also an end user feature, as the OS manages VRAM, and shares it directly over the PCI/e or AGP bus. This means if your Video Card has 128mb of VRAM, and you want to run 5 applications or games that would each 'consume' the total VRAM, Vista will swap out low performance RAM texture elments to system RAM, and it is transparent to the Game, Application, etc.
GPU Scheduling and GPU Virtualization are NOT APIs, nor anything ANY DEVELOPER HAS TO EVER EVEN THING ABOUT, as they are END USER FEATURES THAT JUST WORK.
BTW GPU Scheduling also allows Vista to scale applications across multi-displays in a new way, and lets OLD games even support newer upcoming multi-core GPU technologies so that games won't have to use dated SLI concepts for Video cards with multi-core GPUs. Again, since this scales even ALREADY DEVELOPED games, it is an end user feature.
(Developers via DX10 also can write for GPU threading support, but this is not anyting I mentioned.)
Show me some proof that Windows 95 had scalable icons. I'm pretty sure Vista is the first MS operating system that can display icons at multiple sizes without horrible scaling artifacts. If previous versions had been capable of this, MS wouldn't have waited until now to tout that feature.
You seem to think you know a lot, go look this up yourself. It is very evident and very much 'common knowledge'. Vista adds HIGH RESOLUTION icons with PNG Transparency, this is what MS is touting, as they look good on high DPI pixel displays.
The point I have been trying to make is that all of Vista's selling points are essentially moot, because they are not new features.
And yet you were only comparing it to OSX and claiming MS ripped off Apple. Funny how your message is changing when faced with facts about crap you don't understand.
There are tons of features in Vista that would take far to many freaking pages to list. From end user features to developer and business and OEM features as well. I'm sorry you don't see anything but the 'transparent' windows you think they copied from Apple. BTW, in Vista, they are Blurred and Transparent, so don't be surprised if you see OSX copy the Blur fliter before long.
Re:The value of good user interface design...
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But if you look this up futher though the locked down Apple NDAs. You will find that Tony Fadell had an idea for 'his' MP3 player long before he contacted Apple about it.
The basic concepts of the iPod interface that people give Apple so much credit for are two fold, not Apple innovations.
First off, the way music is store and sorted on the device is nothing different than programs like RealPlayer Jukebox and WMP did before the iPod existed.
You can also find the court references that show that creative was using this type of organizational interface long before the iPod.
The second part is the user controls, and these were not Apple, but originating concepts that are a combination of what Tony Fadell had demonstrated prior to working with Apple and what PortalPlayer had demonstrated to IBM in hopes of getting IBM to pick up on an MP3 device.
This was one of the very first 'hands' off development projects for Apple, and even pulled in technology partners from Toshiba and varios other companies providing the separate components.
I will give Apple's marketing team an A+, but for innovation or ease of use interface design, what they didn't rip off, they bought. PERIOD. And they are cheered for this, where MS would be bitchslapped for doing the same thing.
It is sad today that devices like the Creative Zen M, which out feature the iPod 30gb Video, are left on the backs of shelves because people think Apple invented the MP3 player or Apple has the market locked on ease of use and features. I know a lot of people with various MP3 players, and the iPod owners are by far the most arrogant about their device, until they compare it to other devices people I know are carrying.
Even non-geeks can see the screen is washed out in comparison to most other Video MP3 devices, and even non-geeks can see the ease of just dragging Music and Video the device and not having to convert it each time. It is said that on SlashDot you find tons of iPod fans, and yet devices like the Creative Zen that support Divx MPG2, and other formats inherently are automatically overlooked.
The Creative Zen M is the easiest example to show that marketing over technology wins everytime.
I wish I could provide more information on this topic, but you will have to do the searches yourself for what information has leaked about the origins of the iPod. I just happen to know people that actually know what happened, and why PortalPlayer was not only financially hurt when Apple dropped them, but freaking POed that Apple claimed the design and development credit. You might also want to look up Tony Fadell when Apple screws him over.
Re:The value of good user interface design...
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Ok, my geek friend, go look up Tony Fadell and PortalPlayer.
Neither are part of Apple, but were responsible for both the hardware, controls, and yes the UI. Apple was NOT.
Let's see... All but the last thing you listed are relevant only to developers. I said user-visible additions, meaning additions to the GUI. I'm well aware that Vista has some pretty advanced APIs. But the features for casual users amount to eye candy, searching, and moving buttons around. The Windows Flip3d effect, Sidebar, scalable icons, InkCanvas, and search are obvious "mee too" features. The Shadow Folders are an embrace,extend,extinguish against GoBack. Those things were added to make Vista seem newer and more advanced to the average user, particularly in comparison to OS X. All the acceleration and virtualization in the world can't make a GUI more usable, though.
Do you only read Apple Marketing, or can I encourage you to look this stuff up in the real world yourself?
Relevant only to Developers? Um.. No. These are END USER features, because it allows games and applications to run faster, use more memory in games, and run smoother as all 3D applications and the UI itself are 'scheduled' by the OS. These are NOT developer features. DX10 stuff is developer features, and I didn't even mention it...
Flip3D: Ok, this one I could almost give you because Vista does add an additional preview feature to Windows. The problem here is, all of the 'features' Expose' brings to OSX are Windows rip offs. Since Windows 95 (yes 1995) Windows has had Show Desktop, Tile Windows, and Cascade, and also 'Undo Tile' that moves the Windows back to their original position, which does everything Expose does, and with Tile Windows, they are not just previews, but live Windows. Windows has also had Alt-Tab for application switching many years before you could do this on a Mac. The only thing Expose does that isn't a rip off is the cute scaling it does of the applcations all on the screen at once, and frankly Vista even does this better as they are live previews and you can roll through all the applications very easily. So MS Copied a 'pretty' at best, but Apple copied several features to make Expose'.
Sidebar: Well, Windows 95/ IE4 and Windows 98 had a feature called Active Desktop that allowed users to put any HTML or LIVE HTML content on their desktop. I have had a weather map on my desktop since 1997. I also have had a stock ticker and picture viewer on my desktop since 1997. This is old hat to Windows Users. Also, Konfabulator pioneered the technology on OSX and took an angle beyond MS's Active Desktop by allowing transparent edged 'widgets'. Vista just did away with Active Desktop and moved the technology into the sidebar. Apple copied both MS and Konfabulator.
Scalable Icons: Strange, Win95 even had scalable Icons. Also Win2k & XP also had high resolution, high color scalable Icons, Vista does add a new transparency feature and also scales the Icons to a size even larger than OSX. Vista also has masked preview icons, notice how the real pictures in a folder appear like they are in the folder. Maybe Apple can copy this for 10.6.
InkCanvas: Wow, MS had tabletPC technology going back to the early 90s, and yet OSX invented this? Are you mental? WindowsXP Tablet PC edition was released in 2002 even. Vista just rolls the features of TabletPC's Inherent Ink abilities into the main versions of Vista. This is OLD STUFF that Apple is still trying to copy and get right, where MS people have been using for YEARS.
The Shadow Folders are an embrace,extend,extinguish against GoBack. Go look up Windows 2003 Server. You know the OS that was released in 2003? This is where this feature came from, long before Apple even considered adding it to OSX. This is an OLD feature for Windows users, and something that not only 'just works' but has been working for YEARS now. Apple completely ripped off this feature.
Sadly there are a few things that OSX did first and have done better, but you are so freaking clueless, you mention all the stuff that has been on Windows first. Come back when you go look this stuff up and can actually name some of the OSX features that Vista actually has copied.
I am not familiar with the history of the clear type patents etc., but I do know that no version of Windows has ever had font-smoothing until Vista rolled around.
Win 3.1 had 256 Palette Anti-Aliased fonts in 1992, provided by drivers from ATI and MS. (Basically as long as TrueType has been in Windows, Anti-Aliasing has been available.)
Win95/Win98 - Via IE4/Plus Pack and on Win98, Windows9x also had anti-aliased font technology. The 'Font Smoothing' setting was not enabled by default, so a lot of idiots never thought it existed.
Win2k - Also had Font Smoothing (Anti-Aliasing), even though again it was not enabled by default.
WinCE was the first OS to ship with ClearType (The MS PDA OS)
WinXP - Shipped with 'Font Smoothing' Enabled with 'ClearType' available as an option that users could turn on. PS ClearType is more than Color based Font AA, as the patents on it are dealing with font hinting filters that keep the text from having bleeding colors or blurry edges. Hence why fonts on different multiple color background properly AA with no color halos or greyscaling.
Vista - Ships with ClearType Enabled by Default. The Vista Font Engine is now 3D GPU assisted, but produces basically the same ClearType results as XP. WPF applications in Vista do get slightly newer and higher quality ClearType rendering. (Vista drivers are inherently smarter so that non-typical LCD pixel order and CRTs automatically use the best setting for the Monitor, where in XP, the user had to 'Fine Tune' this setting themselves.)
Whereas Linux and Macintosh has used smoothed pixels for as long as I can remember.
Is this clear type, and if so -- What has changed?
Um, Macs didn't get native Font Anti-Aliasing until System 8.5, released in 1998. (Several years after it was available in Windows) There were a few third party utilities that enabled Anti-Aliasing on Macs prior to this, but they were not universally used or supported throughout the OS and applications, where on Windows, all TrueType fonts were anti-aliased no matter what application or part of the OS used them. (An example of one these Mac utilities was "SmoothType")
As for Linux, Font Anti-Aliasing has not always been available either, especially before it was available on Windows, since Linux did not yet 'fully' exist.
So I have no idea why you think Windows never had AA Fonts, but since I have been using it since 1992, I can pretty much assure you that you are very mistaken.
The Windows world isn't, so people are less inclined to think about case. It only takes about a minute to explain the case sensitive issue.
The irony is that the programmer was using a freaking case sensitive language, and still didn't get it the first time it was explained to him.
This is part of the basic understanding I was talking about. If someone can't think outside a box enough to go, "Hmm mayber the OS FS is case sensitive," then they can't be fixed.
There's no contesting that most of Vista's user-visible additions (Aero, etc.) are Microsoft's direct response to competition from OS X.
Ya, sure if you are MacFanBoi that doesn't know any better, than this is a solid fact.
Let's see...
Vista - Vector Composer OSX - No Vector Composer
Vista - GPU Scheduler OSX - No GPU Scheduler
Vista - GPU RAM Virtualization OSX - No GPU RAM Virtualization
Vista - 3D accelerated interface that processes all 2D OSX - 3D drawing surface only - no 2D acceleration - no 3D UI features or acceleration
Vista - WPF - 3D API accelerated OSX - Quartz - non-accelerated limited 3D features
Vista - Pretty Graphics and transparent stuff OSX - Pretty Graphics and transparent stuff
Yep, they are exactly the same.
(Do you realize how much this ignorant crap that keeps getting repeated bugs people? And I freaking use OSX and like OSX for what it is, but I'm also a freaking OS engineer and know the difference in technology. Technically, MS could have added a double buffer to Win2k and had all the features of OSX with GDI+, transparency and all because that is the level of technology in the OSX Display engine. )
Re:The value of good user interface design...
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In my opinion the reason the iPod succeeded in the marketplace is the tight integration of hardware and software... the whole system just works.
Yep, PortalPlayer that designed the OS/Software/Chipset of the iPod did a good job. Too bad Apple's iTunes has always sucked ass, but the iPod itself makes up for it, but again, not an Apple design.:)
If you hire someone who is supposed to be working with Windows/*NIX interoperability and hadn't a clue how UNIX works, then you have a problem and, yes, the new guy is illiterate for the task he is given. If you hire a developer to make a.NET application for a specific Windows architecture, then I wouldn't consider the user illiterate for not knowing the processes and binary code Unix launches on startup. At least, not in the incompetent sense that the word is being used here.
I am more demanding than this on developers and techs. I don't care if the project is 100% MS and.NET, if they have little knowledge outside of the specific job they are completing then their creativity is severly limited and fundamental insights they should just have are not there.
I have worked with many projects like ASP and.NET web development and when the develoeprs have no understanding of OSes and even *nix concepts they are nothing more than monkeys cranking out code that is dictated to them.
Another problem with such closed knowledge is even in little things, like in the example of Web development. I 'inherited' a tech that was supposed to be a great Web developer(MS tools), and when parts of the project were moved to Linux servers, the person literally did not understand why upper & lower case mixed reference tags were failing. And as scary as that sounds it very common.
But this is just like my personal stand on people in the OSS *nix world that have fallen so far away from MS that they fail to understand the newer MS OSes and what things are done right in the NT architecture that *nix has never done very well at. Techs will mislead clients because they don't understand 'easier' concepts that other people are using that came from the MS world even though they could be implemented on *nix.
This is also especially true for OSS *nix developers, if they don't know what else is out there, they could be recreating wheels that companies like MS, Sun, etc have already solved. And sadly I find this a lot even in some very well known and good OSS projects. There is something to be said for learning from your competition or people that have gone before you.
Maybe it is more like the difference between knowledge and understanding.
- you need an Xbox Live! Gold account, which adds a monthly fee (hey, you gotta be a paying member to be able to purchase/rent stuff, another Microsoft innovation)
No, XBox 360 users get FREE Silver Plan access, and can access the live content. (The Gold is the membership one that you pay so you can play against other players and other little freebies).
- the Xbox 360 is HUGE, even more so with its huge power supply brick
Huge? Really? Considering it does what 4 of your other devices beside your TV do, I would say it is quite small. (DVD, Gaming, Media Extender, etc.)
- the Xbox 360 is extremely more noisy than an AppleTV, DVD player, set-top digital decoder box and HDTV, together.
Wrong. When gaming and the DVD is running at 12x, yes it is noisy, but when the DVD is only playing movies or the unit is only used as a media extender it is virtually silent.
- network aware only for Windows computers. Movies have to be in WMV.
This is not even true. You can get the XBox 360 to hook into other UPnP network media store devices. Additionally, where do you get that it plays only WMV? Even the recorded TV shows from Media Center are Mpeg2 if they are standard definition. It also supports both HD formats inherently (MPEG4 & VC1). I have watched everything from Divx to old plain AVIs to MPEG1 crap on an XBox 360.
- clumsy interface
Actually, MS usually gets good reviews on the interface, especially in comparison to the PS3. However it seems you like the 'Apple innovative' interfaces like on the iPod, uh?
You do know that the iPod interface that AppleTV is 'emulating' was actually designed by PortalPlayer, the company to provide the OS/Software/Chipset for the original iPods? Apple didn't even create the freaking iPod interface that people love so much. Geesh.
Ok, now on to the things you failed to notice.
XBox 360 will do:
Record TV Shows via a Windows Media Center(Media Server) computer (even in real High Definition)
Watch live TV for free via a cheap Windows Media Center Server (even in real High Definition)
Download for Buy or Rent REAL HD quality Movies.
It also does real 1080 HD resolutions, and is not limited to the crappy output limits of AppleTV.
And then it also is one of the best gaming platforms, so you get all the extras that come with being a real Media 'Hub' in addition to using Halo2 to take out some frustration of the day.
And all in one tiny box you hook up to your TV.
Wow, Apple is so innovative. Gag.
Also if you want to take this outside of the XBox 360 argument, go to CompUSA and buy a freaking Media Extender, or a Network Media Server Hub that connects to all your computers and also does all the Media features the 360 will do, and these cost $100-200 - and again, are far more advanced than the freaking AppleTV and have been around for YEARS.
The article may or may not belong on the front page, but claiming someone's illiterate for not knowing stuff like this, especially if they were in an Apple or MS shop? Heaven forbid
Um, I don't care if they are in a DOS/Novell shop. This is basic stuff and are also concepts that have relevance in all OSes.
As for Apple or MS shop? Ok, Apple uses a BSD interface to a Mach kernel and is very much a *nix architecture. In the MS Shop, NT also includes a full BSD subsystem that is used for running *nix applicaitons on servers and also for extending the interoperability between Windows and non Windows environments.
If anyone hires someone that doesn't understand basic 'computing principles', they are hiring computer 'illiterate' techs. PERIOD.
This has everything to do about DRM. "Protected process" I see as nothing else than preventing you, the computer owner, from doing what ever please you with your computer.
Um, no...
By definition you an call it that, but it doesn't have the 'intent' of protecting software from the user or the owner, like DRM does. The 'owner' of the computer can ALWAYS circumvent anything in Windows.
What protected processes are for is to specifically prevent 'important' processes from being touched by any other process, no matter what the permissions are.
Malware has this pesky little thing it does. If it can socially engineer the user to approve it, or if it can slide through a new exploit, then it could modify the core of the OS by having 'root' type authenication it could mess with anything.
Protected Processes are just 'another' wall to prevent this from happening. As there is no need for an application to ever modify the core OS system processes while they are running. (Remember this is just about when the user is booted into Window's Win32/Win64)
Applications that do this are a form of 'malware' to the OS, as the 'owner' of the computer is not modifying or controlling these processes, but ANOTHER process is trying to modify them.
There are fixed and standard APIs to work with other processes through a standard interfaces, actually modifying a process through OTHER means because you have security over it is not a great idea.
Unix/Linux does not have this problem because it doesn't try to stop the owner doing as (s)he wishes, including the case when root want to kill a process belonging to a rootkit.
Well, technically, all processes can be killed in Vista from an administrator account, although it may not be through the common interface of taskmgr or other tools.
And if the owner wants to modify Explorer.exe even, they can boot into the new Vista command prompt or 'recovery console prompt in previous versions', and then modify files, the registry, anything the owner wants to.
Hence, the owner does OWN the computer.
Protected processes are about adding security to applications/processes running, not what the user can modify.
For as much 'security' bashing MS has taken with Windows over the years, adding in a new layer of security to prevent exploits from harming the computer should be seen as a good thing to security experts.
Imagine this: Two viruses are released that target exploits in a *nix distribution and Windows Vista. Both can obtain root remotely or via social engineering. The *nix Virus can FUBAR anything it wants. In Vista, the OS is going to be left unharmed because of the protected process security wall.
(This is a bit extreme example, as Vista would not be totally unharmed, but it would hold up to anonymous changes to system core files and changes to the main operation of the OS.)
I'm not going to argue that this is the all time best or end game solution, but for what MS has been facing with security, it is a road they have to think outside the box.
Giving root level security uncontrolled access to every process is really stupid when there would be no reason for any process to EVER need to modify a system service or even monkey with ntdll.dll.
This would be different if MS didn't give the users the ability to circumvent or change anything about Windows they want to by booting into a limited environment to make the changes.
for this idea that microsoft is allowed to deny a company the ability to use process protection.
Um, no... Other companies are NOT denied the ability to use process protection. You can get software signed to be trusted and ran as protected processes.
The trick here is that the software example is able to access a 'protected process'.
Also this has been brought before the EU already by Symantec and McAfee. Symantec and McAfee want the right to be able to read 'any process' on the system, whether it is protected or not, so they can screw with every part of the OS that they have NO BUSINESS touching.
So this proof of example code is something that MS knew was possible, but did not openly disclose to Symantec, but I do believe they were forced to already.
Also of note, because this uses a driver trick, the ability to read protected processes on Vista as demonstrated in this proof of concept fails on Vista x64 because of the strict kernel driver signing requirements.
This whole thing is also not a break or a flaw in Vista whatsoever, as this is not a hardline security wall. So the *nix people thinking that Vista's security has been compromised are either really stupid or misleading people.
People here seem to think example code is some 'exploit' of Vista, or some 'security breach' of Vista, but it is nothing like that what so ever.
Vista introduces the concept of protected processes that 'try' to enhance security a bit more by creating a level of security that is 'process exclusive', so that no other security account can ever access it.
This type of 'security' DOES NOT EVEN exist in OSes like BSD or Linux, as 'root' or the highest security level always has 'power' to read and control all other processes on the OS.
So if *nix people think this is a security exploit in Vista, then the whole design model of security in *nix OSes would be a security exploit as well, since root has the ability to read/modify/end any process on the OS.
This security wall in Vista is also not a DRM issue. Why on earth people keep confusing this is borderline retarded. DRM could use a protected process flag, as the HDCP does use this, but it inherently has NOTHING to do with DRM whatsoever.
This is nothing but a new 'security wall' introduced in Vista to help further enhance basic system security so that the upper level system processes can not be touched by other processes, even if the other processes somehow obtain the equivalent to 'root' level security access.
So this is 'additional' security on top of the basic NT token based security mechanism, and is nothing more. This is a 'wall' or 'level' of security that DOES NOT EVEN EXIST in the *nix model, as a process cannot protect itself from 'root' level security.
I have a hard time believing that. By the way, what is an RLI?
Not to be mean, but if have not even heard of the US/Airbus RLI or took time to look it up after you see it was mentioned, why even comment that you find this hard to believe?
Even from you own link... Please read... "WDDM enables multiple applications to utilize the GPU simultaneously by implementing the following:
GPU memory manager--arbitrates video memory allocation GPU scheduler--schedules various GPU applications according to their priority With these technologies, applications no longer have to cede the GPU when another application requiring its services starts-up. Instead, the GPU is scheduled in a more efficient fashion."
This is something that NO OTHER OS other than Vista can do. This is like pre-emptive multiasking and memory sharing but for GPUs that also scales across multiple GPUs/GPU Cores as well.
OSX's video is like XP and the video subsystem in almost every other consumer level OS you can name. 3D application support is provided with application based yielding concepts that means that if a 3D application wants, it gets 100% control of the 3D GPU and VRAM of the video card.
This does not happen in Vista, Applications do not have to yield, there is no need to rely on OpenGL yielding mechanism in the applications, or any application using the GPU to yield or play nice, as the OS controls the GPU and the applications, just like OSes do with applications on CPUs. The OS and the WDDM handles all the GPU scheduling, giving applications pre-emptive GPU multi-tasking, memory sharing, and system memory sharing. It also scales applications across multiple GPUs/GPU Cores.
This is why Vista can do the pretty Flip3D, while having a Windowed DirectX9 application running at almost 100% fps, a second OpenGL Windowed Game running at almost 100% fps, a Video, and a 3D WPF Spinning cube all on the screen at the same time, running in real-time, and each using more RAM than is physically on the GPU, let alone being displayed in the AERO 3D interface that is also utilizing the 3D GPU and each application thinks it has 100% of the GPU and 100% of the GPU RAM, and each application is 'scheduled' in a pre-emptive nature between on the GPU that is controlled by Vista and not application yielding.
Every Mac since approximately 2002 has been capable of using Quartz Extreme. How many Windows PCs can currently use WDDM ?
Virtually every computer that has shipped with a Video card made in 2003.
And since WDDM and Quartz Extreme are TWO ENTIRELY different things, this isn't even a good comparison, as Quartz Extreme would be better compared to WPF.
WPF runs in software like Quartz, but is 3D hardware accelerated on any Computer with 8MB of Video RAM that supports DirectX7, so this means any computer with a 3D video card made since 1999.
(See WPF was ported to XP technology for 3D acceleration of the new GDI replacement API foundation, as to also why WPF applications can run on XP, although Vista gives them an additional boost if it has a WDDM driver.)
Also, what the hell? - Windows Graphics drivers are only NOW partitioned into separate user and kernel parts and only with WDDM compatible cards ?
Ok, you are really new to this information. Wow, where to begin.
NT originally kept the Display Manager and Drivers in User Mode. In order to get high speed gaming and 3D performance with 1996 technology, MS moved the Display Manager and the Video drivers to the Kernel mode (NT Executive) for performance reasons. This is one reason why Windows 2K, XP, etc all have been the best performing platforms for games, as they are breaking their own NT kernel rules for Video to get the best performance.(BTW NT is not the only OS or kernel design to put video drivers in a low level ring, many *nixes also do this.)
Vista however goes back to the original NT concepts. With modern hardware and with new technologies from MS that split the driver, MS is able to stub into the NT kernel and move the display manager and Video drivers BACK to user mode. With the way Vista works, it gives the same performance as having the video drivers in the kernel, but leaves them in user space once again.
And frankly, if Next's and Mac OS X's approach was such a bad idea, why has Micosoft now copied it in Vista ?
Ok, I enjoyed your post, but did you even freaking read what I said?
MS HAS NOT implemented the SAME type of double buffering that OSX uses. That was the whole point...
You are wrong that this has any impact on games for the most part. Games that are full screen bypass the window compositing system entirely and communicate directly with the graphics card via OpenGL on Mac or OpenGL/DirectX on Windows.
Running any application, 3D application, or game inside a Windows DOES create performance latency on OSX. It does not on Vista. (Hence why MS doesn't use the old double buffering concepts that OSX use.)
So for 3D developers, people that don't play games full screen, or people that use 3D graphics on the 'desktop' as Vista is designed to do with the new WPF, this latency difference is a major concern and why MS specifically DID NOT use the older, slower technique that OSX uses.
As the desktop metaphor continues to evolve to 3D and 3D application sharing (again something OSX has trouble with since there is no GPU scheduler), this will become a major architectural difference. The only way for OSX to compete at that point will be to implement a screen composition technology like Vista uses. Hence, they would have to copy MS.
Vista makes the distinction between VRAM and System RAM non-relevant, as it can draw to the screen directly from System RAM. See, this is important, as OSX runs out of VRAM, it has to use System RAM, and then swap the VRAM and System RAM to paint images. Again further adding to application drawing latency.
Vista doesn't ever have to do this, and in fact can virtualize System RAM to make it available for low performance textures in games, increasing a games ability to hold more textures in memory than VRAM has available.
There are MANY differences between how Vista's composer and OSX's composer works, from GPU scheduler, GPU RAM Virtualization, Direct Write (no double buffer in the OSX sense). Vista's composer is also fully capable of Vector composition instead of just handling bitmaps of the Application Windows as OSX does. (This is how you can do 3D glass and WPF over an ISDN connection with Vista, because the composer handles low cost vector drawing.)
MS copied OSX only in that they made Vista 'prettier'. How the Vista screen draws and video works is unlike anything in any OS to date, and is certainly not a copy of the outdated OSX methods.
You seem quite knowledgeable and if this type of topic interests you, go look up how Vista's WDDM works and how the Vista composer works in contrast to how the composer in OSX works. MS did some really smart things with the Video Subsystem in Vista that OSes will be copying for years to come to deliver the same quality of performance and features. (Especially when multi-core GPUs become standard and Vista automatically scales applications across the GPUS because of the GPU scheduler, that no other OS can currently do without using older SLI type of technologies.)
PS Apple has yet to enable even hardware assisted Quartz in 10.5 betas, and it also works like crap on 10.4 since it is not a supported setting. Vista is doing both WPF and GDI/GDI+ 3D acceleration even on older non-WDDM video cards. Apple, truly has a lot of work and catching up to do even on giving developers the performance of QuickDraw with Quartz, and they have been promising this for over 5 years.
about bids from Airbus on some large airplane order. This information was quickly forwarded to Boeing, enabling them to undercut the Airbus bid.
Ok, I don't want to argue US policies, as I currently have vast differences of opinion with the current executive branch leadership in the US.
However, I don't know about the specific Airbus intelligence you are referring to, but you DO REALIZE that the US Govt has been the 'largest' provider of money and subsides to Airbus via that RLI?
It would be a hard argument to make that the US govt has harmed Airbus more than it has helped it, especially since it would not have financially survived without support the US Govt.
it is also true that *any* government at any place should be worried that a single company, american or otherwise, holds so much power on its IT infrastructure.
Control uh? Have you ever heard of OPEC?
But seriously, I actually agree with your ideals, but unfortunately it isn't this black and white. It doesn't matter what level of 'control' MS has, it is about the $$ that leaves the EU as much as it is about any technical 'control' issues.
After all these years Windows is still a big mysterious black box, wherein things happen of which we know little and therefore have little say in behaviour of or control over.
People say this, and it is so wrong in the context it is used.
#1) MS provides a lot of inside information of what Windows does internally, from the DDK to the SDK to the tech articles to even the blogs from the developers themselves now.
#2) This statement is said like people get a 'choice' in the Linux kernel or the BSD kernel interface when talking about their OSS OS of choice. Unless your name is Linus, or you have spent a couple of years cranking out your own version of BSD, you have NO say or control in these OSes. You get the same dog food they give you and the same dog food you get from X11 and the same dog food you get from GNOME or KDE. (And you can even run GNOME or KDE on Windows if you really don't want the MS interface, truly.)
With regard to the article and people not upgrading to Vista, MS cares less than people on SlashDot apparently does. Even XP didn't have massive upgrade sales, and it was designed to finally get people off the Win9x architecture.
"Strong Demand for Windows Vista Reported - Best Buy and Circuit City both say there is strong interest in the Windows Vista operating system in their retail stores."
Circuit City has even been running out of computers not anticpating Vista sales would be as strong as they have been.
Also note that this is referencing BestBuy and Circuit City which both heavily invested in training their employees and technical staff about Vista before it launched. If your tech and sales team can give real answers to the benefits of Vista, it sells easily in comparison to XP. Again, as long as the machines have 1GB and a Video card that does Glass (cira 2003 or newer).
Actually, ya. And this is just in reference to Win32/Win16/DOS applications that are the MS bread and butter. You have any idea how many of these freaking applications are out there?
PS Windows also has a full BSD Interface UNIX subsystem (even ships on the Vista DVD), and most all *nix applications compile and run just fine in the UNIX subsystem sitting on the NT kernel running alongside Win32/Win64 applications.
So, ya, Windows does support more applications than any other OS and this is just in the WinXX API world, but becomes especially true if you count all the OSS and *nix apps that run on it as well.:)
People so easily forget Win32 is just one API Subsystem that sits on NT and MS could replace it or add on any kernal API interface subsystem.
And wouldnt even be necessary if they had complied with standards in the first place. The EU should force microsoft to comply with published standards, or if necessary extend and publish the extensions to those standards (and propose the standard be updated accordingly).
Ok, this sounds like MS has been really bad, but it comes down to some simple slight of hand on the part of both the EU and MS.
I have a couple of friends that work in Brussels within the EU and the main reason MS is pushed around is that they are an American company that has a lot of control in Europe. This is a no no in the world of the EU if they are going to circumvent the US's power in the market, especially the technical markets.
So the EU is going to claim MS hasn't done what they wanted no matter what MS does if they can use it as leverage to keep American company interests from having control in any area of technology inside the emerging EU market.
If MS was 'from' Belgium, there would never have been a issue with anything they did in the first place.
So as much as everyone likes to jump on MS, this is more of a political movement than having anything to do with MS not jumping fast enough or high enough when the EU wants.
Video card acceleration like the ATI Vantage and 8514 of the same time period made the Window repaint issues pretty much a moot concept.
Also there was a considerable performance hit for double buffering, especially back in 1989, as it did speed up Window repainting, but added in overhead of RAM usage and a considerable amount of latency.
This latency is WHY Win95 and MS rejected using a double buffered display concept, as it would have impacted gaming performance considerably.
Ya, believe that or not MS was smart enough to have considered a simple double buffer even back in 1995, but it was not worth the performance cost if Win9x was to become the gaming platform they planned.
BTW Even in OSX today, the way Apple achieves the tear free windows is using the same 1989 concept of Double Buffering, and since it is using a composer, this is more like a double-double buffer. This is why OSX will ALWAYS have latency in applications and use considerably more RAM. It may be tear free, but it is not fluid as what you see on the screen is just a bit behind what you are always doing.
Windows Vista gives users the tear free concept without using a simple double buffer, (The Composer writes directly to the Frame Buffer and shares system RAM). This means that there is no delay or latency in Vista as you find in OSX. Which gives MS the pretty effects and tear free composer, but doesn't impact application response or game FPS.
It also means as long as Apple keeps their 1989 double buffering concept in OSX, Vista will always be faster in applications and especially gaming.
Another anonymous rant from a 'well informed SlashDot user'.
Buzz, thanks for playing, but you obviously have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
Considering I just burnt a DivX Movie Torrent download to a DVD using the built in Vista DVD Maker(With rather cute DVD Menus), I can pretty much confirm most of what you think and are saying is full of crap.
And DRM? Oh, ya, the HD thing that kicks in 6 years from now, maybe.
But it sure didn't stop me from ripping my CDs this afternoon nor downloading my Divx movie from my favorite torrent site.
As for lean mean? Na, it does a lot of caching. So it appears to be a memory hog, but if you actually 'understand' what Vista is doing you will then realize why Adobe Photoshop loads in a couple of seconds, or Autodesk 3Ds loads 20x faster than on XP.
But heck, why would anyone bother learning about SuperFetch, what it actually does, and why it works as well as it does, it is far more fun just to laugh at Vista for using more RAM for the caching even though it is actually scaling the cache beyond OS and application requirements.
You know things other OSes don't yet do, so that as you continue to add RAM, the caching system scales up and load times for all applications continue to increase.
So yes it is Microsoft's fault that they screwed up
Technically, yes, but my statement still stands. The software this is affecting is loading key DLLs in the wrong order.
There is no OS in the world that even comes close to supporting as many applications and devices as WindowsXP, and yet a few apps bite it on an emergency hotfix, and people act like this is a big deal.
If I made this type of stink everytime even a 'non-emergency' patch on my Linux distro or OSX barfed several prominent applications I could publish a quarterly magazine.
Just the last OSX patch was enough of a nightmare that it not only cripple applications, but crippled some of Apple's own applications, and even went as far to keep OSX from booting and forcing users to reinstall. Can you just imagine if MS did something like this and XP and Vista didn't have System Restore where glitches could be rolled back in a couple of minutes? Geesh...
Slashdot Mirror
Over the years, it has been owned by WildFile, Adaptec, Roxio, and Symantec. System Restore was an obvious beginning to the embrace, extend, extinguish cycle, and Shadow Folders is intended to be the completion.
But System Restore and Shadow Folders are not the same technology, nor does this have ANYTHING to do with OSX as the post implied.
You have yet to explain how GPU Scheduling and WPF and GPU RAM virtualization are end user features!
Go back and read the post carefully, or better yet go look this crap up for yourself. GPU Scheduling means the end user can run WoW and not have to worry about it fighting with the 3D desktop, nor fighting with 3D application nor even other 3D Games.
This is like the difference between multi-tasking when it was application level yeilding and the move to pre-emptive multi-tasking. No longer could applications cease the CPU. The same is true, here, applications can no longer cease control of the GPU.
Are you going to argue that pre-emptive multi-tasking is not a feature that DIRECTLY BENEFITS end users? If you are, then you are really stupid and this conversation ends.
GPU RAM Virtualization in Vista is also an end user feature, as the OS manages VRAM, and shares it directly over the PCI/e or AGP bus. This means if your Video Card has 128mb of VRAM, and you want to run 5 applications or games that would each 'consume' the total VRAM, Vista will swap out low performance RAM texture elments to system RAM, and it is transparent to the Game, Application, etc.
GPU Scheduling and GPU Virtualization are NOT APIs, nor anything ANY DEVELOPER HAS TO EVER EVEN THING ABOUT, as they are END USER FEATURES THAT JUST WORK.
BTW GPU Scheduling also allows Vista to scale applications across multi-displays in a new way, and lets OLD games even support newer upcoming multi-core GPU technologies so that games won't have to use dated SLI concepts for Video cards with multi-core GPUs. Again, since this scales even ALREADY DEVELOPED games, it is an end user feature.
(Developers via DX10 also can write for GPU threading support, but this is not anyting I mentioned.)
Show me some proof that Windows 95 had scalable icons. I'm pretty sure Vista is the first MS operating system that can display icons at multiple sizes without horrible scaling artifacts. If previous versions had been capable of this, MS wouldn't have waited until now to tout that feature.
You seem to think you know a lot, go look this up yourself. It is very evident and very much 'common knowledge'. Vista adds HIGH RESOLUTION icons with PNG Transparency, this is what MS is touting, as they look good on high DPI pixel displays.
The point I have been trying to make is that all of Vista's selling points are essentially moot, because they are not new features.
And yet you were only comparing it to OSX and claiming MS ripped off Apple. Funny how your message is changing when faced with facts about crap you don't understand.
There are tons of features in Vista that would take far to many freaking pages to list. From end user features to developer and business and OEM features as well. I'm sorry you don't see anything but the 'transparent' windows you think they copied from Apple. BTW, in Vista, they are Blurred and Transparent, so don't be surprised if you see OSX copy the Blur fliter before long.
But if you look this up futher though the locked down Apple NDAs. You will find that Tony Fadell had an idea for 'his' MP3 player long before he contacted Apple about it.
The basic concepts of the iPod interface that people give Apple so much credit for are two fold, not Apple innovations.
First off, the way music is store and sorted on the device is nothing different than programs like RealPlayer Jukebox and WMP did before the iPod existed.
You can also find the court references that show that creative was using this type of organizational interface long before the iPod.
The second part is the user controls, and these were not Apple, but originating concepts that are a combination of what Tony Fadell had demonstrated prior to working with Apple and what PortalPlayer had demonstrated to IBM in hopes of getting IBM to pick up on an MP3 device.
This was one of the very first 'hands' off development projects for Apple, and even pulled in technology partners from Toshiba and varios other companies providing the separate components.
I will give Apple's marketing team an A+, but for innovation or ease of use interface design, what they didn't rip off, they bought. PERIOD. And they are cheered for this, where MS would be bitchslapped for doing the same thing.
It is sad today that devices like the Creative Zen M, which out feature the iPod 30gb Video, are left on the backs of shelves because people think Apple invented the MP3 player or Apple has the market locked on ease of use and features. I know a lot of people with various MP3 players, and the iPod owners are by far the most arrogant about their device, until they compare it to other devices people I know are carrying.
Even non-geeks can see the screen is washed out in comparison to most other Video MP3 devices, and even non-geeks can see the ease of just dragging Music and Video the device and not having to convert it each time. It is said that on SlashDot you find tons of iPod fans, and yet devices like the Creative Zen that support Divx MPG2, and other formats inherently are automatically overlooked.
The Creative Zen M is the easiest example to show that marketing over technology wins everytime.
I wish I could provide more information on this topic, but you will have to do the searches yourself for what information has leaked about the origins of the iPod. I just happen to know people that actually know what happened, and why PortalPlayer was not only financially hurt when Apple dropped them, but freaking POed that Apple claimed the design and development credit. You might also want to look up Tony Fadell when Apple screws him over.
Ok, my geek friend, go look up Tony Fadell and PortalPlayer.
Neither are part of Apple, but were responsible for both the hardware, controls, and yes the UI. Apple was NOT.
Let's see... All but the last thing you listed are relevant only to developers. I said user-visible additions, meaning additions to the GUI. I'm well aware that Vista has some pretty advanced APIs. But the features for casual users amount to eye candy, searching, and moving buttons around. The Windows Flip3d effect, Sidebar, scalable icons, InkCanvas, and search are obvious "mee too" features. The Shadow Folders are an embrace,extend,extinguish against GoBack. Those things were added to make Vista seem newer and more advanced to the average user, particularly in comparison to OS X. All the acceleration and virtualization in the world can't make a GUI more usable, though.
Do you only read Apple Marketing, or can I encourage you to look this stuff up in the real world yourself?
Relevant only to Developers? Um.. No. These are END USER features, because it allows games and applications to run faster, use more memory in games, and run smoother as all 3D applications and the UI itself are 'scheduled' by the OS. These are NOT developer features. DX10 stuff is developer features, and I didn't even mention it...
Flip3D: Ok, this one I could almost give you because Vista does add an additional preview feature to Windows. The problem here is, all of the 'features' Expose' brings to OSX are Windows rip offs. Since Windows 95 (yes 1995) Windows has had Show Desktop, Tile Windows, and Cascade, and also 'Undo Tile' that moves the Windows back to their original position, which does everything Expose does, and with Tile Windows, they are not just previews, but live Windows. Windows has also had Alt-Tab for application switching many years before you could do this on a Mac. The only thing Expose does that isn't a rip off is the cute scaling it does of the applcations all on the screen at once, and frankly Vista even does this better as they are live previews and you can roll through all the applications very easily. So MS Copied a 'pretty' at best, but Apple copied several features to make Expose'.
Sidebar: Well, Windows 95/ IE4 and Windows 98 had a feature called Active Desktop that allowed users to put any HTML or LIVE HTML content on their desktop. I have had a weather map on my desktop since 1997. I also have had a stock ticker and picture viewer on my desktop since 1997. This is old hat to Windows Users. Also, Konfabulator pioneered the technology on OSX and took an angle beyond MS's Active Desktop by allowing transparent edged 'widgets'. Vista just did away with Active Desktop and moved the technology into the sidebar. Apple copied both MS and Konfabulator.
Scalable Icons: Strange, Win95 even had scalable Icons. Also Win2k & XP also had high resolution, high color scalable Icons, Vista does add a new transparency feature and also scales the Icons to a size even larger than OSX. Vista also has masked preview icons, notice how the real pictures in a folder appear like they are in the folder. Maybe Apple can copy this for 10.6.
InkCanvas: Wow, MS had tabletPC technology going back to the early 90s, and yet OSX invented this? Are you mental? WindowsXP Tablet PC edition was released in 2002 even. Vista just rolls the features of TabletPC's Inherent Ink abilities into the main versions of Vista. This is OLD STUFF that Apple is still trying to copy and get right, where MS people have been using for YEARS.
The Shadow Folders are an embrace,extend,extinguish against GoBack.
Go look up Windows 2003 Server. You know the OS that was released in 2003? This is where this feature came from, long before Apple even considered adding it to OSX. This is an OLD feature for Windows users, and something that not only 'just works' but has been working for YEARS now. Apple completely ripped off this feature.
Sadly there are a few things that OSX did first and have done better, but you are so freaking clueless, you mention all the stuff that has been on Windows first. Come back when you go look this stuff up and can actually name some of the OSX features that Vista actually has copied.
I am not familiar with the history of the clear type patents etc., but I do know that no version of Windows has ever had font-smoothing until Vista rolled around.
Win 3.1 had 256 Palette Anti-Aliased fonts in 1992, provided by drivers from ATI and MS. (Basically as long as TrueType has been in Windows, Anti-Aliasing has been available.)
Win95/Win98 - Via IE4/Plus Pack and on Win98, Windows9x also had anti-aliased font technology. The 'Font Smoothing' setting was not enabled by default, so a lot of idiots never thought it existed.
Win2k - Also had Font Smoothing (Anti-Aliasing), even though again it was not enabled by default.
WinCE was the first OS to ship with ClearType (The MS PDA OS)
WinXP - Shipped with 'Font Smoothing' Enabled with 'ClearType' available as an option that users could turn on. PS ClearType is more than Color based Font AA, as the patents on it are dealing with font hinting filters that keep the text from having bleeding colors or blurry edges. Hence why fonts on different multiple color background properly AA with no color halos or greyscaling.
Vista - Ships with ClearType Enabled by Default. The Vista Font Engine is now 3D GPU assisted, but produces basically the same ClearType results as XP. WPF applications in Vista do get slightly newer and higher quality ClearType rendering.
(Vista drivers are inherently smarter so that non-typical LCD pixel order and CRTs automatically use the best setting for the Monitor, where in XP, the user had to 'Fine Tune' this setting themselves.)
Whereas Linux and Macintosh has used smoothed pixels for as long as I can remember.
Is this clear type, and if so -- What has changed?
Um, Macs didn't get native Font Anti-Aliasing until System 8.5, released in 1998. (Several years after it was available in Windows) There were a few third party utilities that enabled Anti-Aliasing on Macs prior to this, but they were not universally used or supported throughout the OS and applications, where on Windows, all TrueType fonts were anti-aliased no matter what application or part of the OS used them. (An example of one these Mac utilities was "SmoothType")
As for Linux, Font Anti-Aliasing has not always been available either, especially before it was available on Windows, since Linux did not yet 'fully' exist.
So I have no idea why you think Windows never had AA Fonts, but since I have been using it since 1992, I can pretty much assure you that you are very mistaken.
The Windows world isn't, so people are less inclined to think about case. It only takes about a minute to explain the case sensitive issue.
The irony is that the programmer was using a freaking case sensitive language, and still didn't get it the first time it was explained to him.
This is part of the basic understanding I was talking about. If someone can't think outside a box enough to go, "Hmm mayber the OS FS is case sensitive," then they can't be fixed.
There's no contesting that most of Vista's user-visible additions (Aero, etc.) are Microsoft's direct response to competition from OS X.
Ya, sure if you are MacFanBoi that doesn't know any better, than this is a solid fact.
Let's see...
Vista - Vector Composer
OSX - No Vector Composer
Vista - GPU Scheduler
OSX - No GPU Scheduler
Vista - GPU RAM Virtualization
OSX - No GPU RAM Virtualization
Vista - 3D accelerated interface that processes all 2D
OSX - 3D drawing surface only - no 2D acceleration - no 3D UI features or acceleration
Vista - WPF - 3D API accelerated
OSX - Quartz - non-accelerated limited 3D features
Vista - Pretty Graphics and transparent stuff
OSX - Pretty Graphics and transparent stuff
Yep, they are exactly the same.
(Do you realize how much this ignorant crap that keeps getting repeated bugs people? And I freaking use OSX and like OSX for what it is, but I'm also a freaking OS engineer and know the difference in technology. Technically, MS could have added a double buffer to Win2k and had all the features of OSX with GDI+, transparency and all because that is the level of technology in the OSX Display engine. )
In my opinion the reason the iPod succeeded in the marketplace is the tight integration of hardware and software... the whole system just works.
:)
Yep, PortalPlayer that designed the OS/Software/Chipset of the iPod did a good job. Too bad Apple's iTunes has always sucked ass, but the iPod itself makes up for it, but again, not an Apple design.
Ok, agree with one exception.
.NET application for a specific Windows architecture, then I wouldn't consider the user illiterate for not knowing the processes and binary code Unix launches on startup. At least, not in the incompetent sense that the word is being used here.
.NET, if they have little knowledge outside of the specific job they are completing then their creativity is severly limited and fundamental insights they should just have are not there.
.NET web development and when the develoeprs have no understanding of OSes and even *nix concepts they are nothing more than monkeys cranking out code that is dictated to them.
If you hire someone who is supposed to be working with Windows/*NIX interoperability and hadn't a clue how UNIX works, then you have a problem and, yes, the new guy is illiterate for the task he is given. If you hire a developer to make a
I am more demanding than this on developers and techs. I don't care if the project is 100% MS and
I have worked with many projects like ASP and
Another problem with such closed knowledge is even in little things, like in the example of Web development. I 'inherited' a tech that was supposed to be a great Web developer(MS tools), and when parts of the project were moved to Linux servers, the person literally did not understand why upper & lower case mixed reference tags were failing. And as scary as that sounds it very common.
But this is just like my personal stand on people in the OSS *nix world that have fallen so far away from MS that they fail to understand the newer MS OSes and what things are done right in the NT architecture that *nix has never done very well at. Techs will mislead clients because they don't understand 'easier' concepts that other people are using that came from the MS world even though they could be implemented on *nix.
This is also especially true for OSS *nix developers, if they don't know what else is out there, they could be recreating wheels that companies like MS, Sun, etc have already solved. And sadly I find this a lot even in some very well known and good OSS projects. There is something to be said for learning from your competition or people that have gone before you.
Maybe it is more like the difference between knowledge and understanding.
- you need an Xbox Live! Gold account, which adds a monthly fee (hey, you gotta be a paying member to be able to purchase/rent stuff, another Microsoft innovation)
No, XBox 360 users get FREE Silver Plan access, and can access the live content. (The Gold is the membership one that you pay so you can play against other players and other little freebies).
- the Xbox 360 is HUGE, even more so with its huge power supply brick
Huge? Really? Considering it does what 4 of your other devices beside your TV do, I would say it is quite small. (DVD, Gaming, Media Extender, etc.)
- the Xbox 360 is extremely more noisy than an AppleTV, DVD player, set-top digital decoder box and HDTV, together.
Wrong. When gaming and the DVD is running at 12x, yes it is noisy, but when the DVD is only playing movies or the unit is only used as a media extender it is virtually silent.
- network aware only for Windows computers. Movies have to be in WMV.
This is not even true. You can get the XBox 360 to hook into other UPnP network media store devices. Additionally, where do you get that it plays only WMV? Even the recorded TV shows from Media Center are Mpeg2 if they are standard definition. It also supports both HD formats inherently (MPEG4 & VC1). I have watched everything from Divx to old plain AVIs to MPEG1 crap on an XBox 360.
- clumsy interface
Actually, MS usually gets good reviews on the interface, especially in comparison to the PS3. However it seems you like the 'Apple innovative' interfaces like on the iPod, uh?
You do know that the iPod interface that AppleTV is 'emulating' was actually designed by PortalPlayer, the company to provide the OS/Software/Chipset for the original iPods? Apple didn't even create the freaking iPod interface that people love so much. Geesh.
Ok, now on to the things you failed to notice.
XBox 360 will do:
Record TV Shows via a Windows Media Center(Media Server) computer (even in real High Definition)
Watch live TV for free via a cheap Windows Media Center Server
(even in real High Definition)
Download for Buy or Rent REAL HD quality Movies.
It also does real 1080 HD resolutions, and is not limited to the crappy output limits of AppleTV.
And then it also is one of the best gaming platforms, so you get all the extras that come with being a real Media 'Hub' in addition to using Halo2 to take out some frustration of the day.
And all in one tiny box you hook up to your TV.
Wow, Apple is so innovative. Gag.
Also if you want to take this outside of the XBox 360 argument, go to CompUSA and buy a freaking Media Extender, or a Network Media Server Hub that connects to all your computers and also does all the Media features the 360 will do, and these cost $100-200 - and again, are far more advanced than the freaking AppleTV and have been around for YEARS.
The article may or may not belong on the front page, but claiming someone's illiterate for not knowing stuff like this, especially if they were in an Apple or MS shop? Heaven forbid
Um, I don't care if they are in a DOS/Novell shop. This is basic stuff and are also concepts that have relevance in all OSes.
As for Apple or MS shop? Ok, Apple uses a BSD interface to a Mach kernel and is very much a *nix architecture. In the MS Shop, NT also includes a full BSD subsystem that is used for running *nix applicaitons on servers and also for extending the interoperability between Windows and non Windows environments.
If anyone hires someone that doesn't understand basic 'computing principles', they are hiring computer 'illiterate' techs. PERIOD.
This has everything to do about DRM. "Protected process" I see as nothing else than preventing you, the computer owner, from doing what ever please you with your computer.
Um, no...
By definition you an call it that, but it doesn't have the 'intent' of protecting software from the user or the owner, like DRM does. The 'owner' of the computer can ALWAYS circumvent anything in Windows.
What protected processes are for is to specifically prevent 'important' processes from being touched by any other process, no matter what the permissions are.
Malware has this pesky little thing it does. If it can socially engineer the user to approve it, or if it can slide through a new exploit, then it could modify the core of the OS by having 'root' type authenication it could mess with anything.
Protected Processes are just 'another' wall to prevent this from happening. As there is no need for an application to ever modify the core OS system processes while they are running. (Remember this is just about when the user is booted into Window's Win32/Win64)
Applications that do this are a form of 'malware' to the OS, as the 'owner' of the computer is not modifying or controlling these processes, but ANOTHER process is trying to modify them.
There are fixed and standard APIs to work with other processes through a standard interfaces, actually modifying a process through OTHER means because you have security over it is not a great idea.
Unix/Linux does not have this problem because it doesn't try to stop the owner doing as (s)he wishes, including the case when root want to kill a process belonging to a rootkit.
Well, technically, all processes can be killed in Vista from an administrator account, although it may not be through the common interface of taskmgr or other tools.
And if the owner wants to modify Explorer.exe even, they can boot into the new Vista command prompt or 'recovery console prompt in previous versions', and then modify files, the registry, anything the owner wants to.
Hence, the owner does OWN the computer.
Protected processes are about adding security to applications/processes running, not what the user can modify.
For as much 'security' bashing MS has taken with Windows over the years, adding in a new layer of security to prevent exploits from harming the computer should be seen as a good thing to security experts.
Imagine this: Two viruses are released that target exploits in a *nix distribution and Windows Vista. Both can obtain root remotely or via social engineering. The *nix Virus can FUBAR anything it wants. In Vista, the OS is going to be left unharmed because of the protected process security wall.
(This is a bit extreme example, as Vista would not be totally unharmed, but it would hold up to anonymous changes to system core files and changes to the main operation of the OS.)
I'm not going to argue that this is the all time best or end game solution, but for what MS has been facing with security, it is a road they have to think outside the box.
Giving root level security uncontrolled access to every process is really stupid when there would be no reason for any process to EVER need to modify a system service or even monkey with ntdll.dll.
This would be different if MS didn't give the users the ability to circumvent or change anything about Windows they want to by booting into a limited environment to make the changes.
for this idea that microsoft is allowed to deny a company the ability to use process protection.
Um, no... Other companies are NOT denied the ability to use process protection. You can get software signed to be trusted and ran as protected processes.
The trick here is that the software example is able to access a 'protected process'.
Also this has been brought before the EU already by Symantec and McAfee. Symantec and McAfee want the right to be able to read 'any process' on the system, whether it is protected or not, so they can screw with every part of the OS that they have NO BUSINESS touching.
So this proof of example code is something that MS knew was possible, but did not openly disclose to Symantec, but I do believe they were forced to already.
Also of note, because this uses a driver trick, the ability to read protected processes on Vista as demonstrated in this proof of concept fails on Vista x64 because of the strict kernel driver signing requirements.
This whole thing is also not a break or a flaw in Vista whatsoever, as this is not a hardline security wall. So the *nix people thinking that Vista's security has been compromised are either really stupid or misleading people.
People here seem to think example code is some 'exploit' of Vista, or some 'security breach' of Vista, but it is nothing like that what so ever.
Vista introduces the concept of protected processes that 'try' to enhance security a bit more by creating a level of security that is 'process exclusive', so that no other security account can ever access it.
This type of 'security' DOES NOT EVEN exist in OSes like BSD or Linux, as 'root' or the highest security level always has 'power' to read and control all other processes on the OS.
So if *nix people think this is a security exploit in Vista, then the whole design model of security in *nix OSes would be a security exploit as well, since root has the ability to read/modify/end any process on the OS.
This security wall in Vista is also not a DRM issue. Why on earth people keep confusing this is borderline retarded. DRM could use a protected process flag, as the HDCP does use this, but it inherently has NOTHING to do with DRM whatsoever.
This is nothing but a new 'security wall' introduced in Vista to help further enhance basic system security so that the upper level system processes can not be touched by other processes, even if the other processes somehow obtain the equivalent to 'root' level security access.
So this is 'additional' security on top of the basic NT token based security mechanism, and is nothing more. This is a 'wall' or 'level' of security that DOES NOT EVEN EXIST in the *nix model, as a process cannot protect itself from 'root' level security.
Does everyone Understand?
First, what does a networking potocol have to do with a business model;
Go look up Communication clients and services, from simple IM and Voice to remote clients and client tracking.
And second, how can any company survive with a business model dependant on something not supported by most ISPs?
Go look up, "tunneling."
I have a hard time believing that. By the way, what is an RLI?
Not to be mean, but if have not even heard of the US/Airbus RLI or took time to look it up after you see it was mentioned, why even comment that you find this hard to believe?
Seriously, go look it up.
Even from you own link... Please read...
"WDDM enables multiple applications to utilize the GPU simultaneously by implementing the following:
GPU memory manager--arbitrates video memory allocation
GPU scheduler--schedules various GPU applications according to their priority
With these technologies, applications no longer have to cede the GPU when another application requiring its services starts-up. Instead, the GPU is scheduled in a more efficient fashion."
This is something that NO OTHER OS other than Vista can do. This is like pre-emptive multiasking and memory sharing but for GPUs that also scales across multiple GPUs/GPU Cores as well.
OSX's video is like XP and the video subsystem in almost every other consumer level OS you can name. 3D application support is provided with application based yielding concepts that means that if a 3D application wants, it gets 100% control of the 3D GPU and VRAM of the video card.
This does not happen in Vista, Applications do not have to yield, there is no need to rely on OpenGL yielding mechanism in the applications, or any application using the GPU to yield or play nice, as the OS controls the GPU and the applications, just like OSes do with applications on CPUs. The OS and the WDDM handles all the GPU scheduling, giving applications pre-emptive GPU multi-tasking, memory sharing, and system memory sharing. It also scales applications across multiple GPUs/GPU Cores.
This is why Vista can do the pretty Flip3D, while having a Windowed DirectX9 application running at almost 100% fps, a second OpenGL Windowed Game running at almost 100% fps, a Video, and a 3D WPF Spinning cube all on the screen at the same time, running in real-time, and each using more RAM than is physically on the GPU, let alone being displayed in the AERO 3D interface that is also utilizing the 3D GPU and each application thinks it has 100% of the GPU and 100% of the GPU RAM, and each application is 'scheduled' in a pre-emptive nature between on the GPU that is controlled by Vista and not application yielding.
Every Mac since approximately 2002 has been capable of using Quartz Extreme. How many Windows PCs can currently use WDDM ?
Virtually every computer that has shipped with a Video card made in 2003.
And since WDDM and Quartz Extreme are TWO ENTIRELY different things, this isn't even a good comparison, as Quartz Extreme would be better compared to WPF.
WPF runs in software like Quartz, but is 3D hardware accelerated on any Computer with 8MB of Video RAM that supports DirectX7, so this means any computer with a 3D video card made since 1999.
(See WPF was ported to XP technology for 3D acceleration of the new GDI replacement API foundation, as to also why WPF applications can run on XP, although Vista gives them an additional boost if it has a WDDM driver.)
Also, what the hell? - Windows Graphics drivers are only NOW partitioned into separate user and kernel parts and only with WDDM compatible cards ?
Ok, you are really new to this information. Wow, where to begin.
NT originally kept the Display Manager and Drivers in User Mode. In order to get high speed gaming and 3D performance with 1996 technology, MS moved the Display Manager and the Video drivers to the Kernel mode (NT Executive) for performance reasons. This is one reason why Windows 2K, XP, etc all have been the best performing platforms for games, as they are breaking their own NT kernel rules for Video to get the best performance.(BTW NT is not the only OS or kernel design to put video drivers in a low level ring, many *nixes also do this.)
Vista however goes back to the original NT concepts. With modern hardware and with new technologies from MS that split the driver, MS is able to stub into the NT kernel and move the display manager and Video drivers BACK to user mode. With the way Vista works, it gives the same performance as having the video drivers in the kernel, but leaves them in user space once again.
MS has
And frankly, if Next's and Mac OS X's approach was such a bad idea, why has Micosoft now copied it in Vista ?
Ok, I enjoyed your post, but did you even freaking read what I said?
MS HAS NOT implemented the SAME type of double buffering that OSX uses. That was the whole point...
You are wrong that this has any impact on games for the most part. Games that are full screen bypass the window compositing system entirely and communicate directly with the graphics card via OpenGL on Mac or OpenGL/DirectX on Windows.
Running any application, 3D application, or game inside a Windows DOES create performance latency on OSX. It does not on Vista. (Hence why MS doesn't use the old double buffering concepts that OSX use.)
So for 3D developers, people that don't play games full screen, or people that use 3D graphics on the 'desktop' as Vista is designed to do with the new WPF, this latency difference is a major concern and why MS specifically DID NOT use the older, slower technique that OSX uses.
As the desktop metaphor continues to evolve to 3D and 3D application sharing (again something OSX has trouble with since there is no GPU scheduler), this will become a major architectural difference. The only way for OSX to compete at that point will be to implement a screen composition technology like Vista uses. Hence, they would have to copy MS.
Vista makes the distinction between VRAM and System RAM non-relevant, as it can draw to the screen directly from System RAM. See, this is important, as OSX runs out of VRAM, it has to use System RAM, and then swap the VRAM and System RAM to paint images. Again further adding to application drawing latency.
Vista doesn't ever have to do this, and in fact can virtualize System RAM to make it available for low performance textures in games, increasing a games ability to hold more textures in memory than VRAM has available.
There are MANY differences between how Vista's composer and OSX's composer works, from GPU scheduler, GPU RAM Virtualization, Direct Write (no double buffer in the OSX sense). Vista's composer is also fully capable of Vector composition instead of just handling bitmaps of the Application Windows as OSX does. (This is how you can do 3D glass and WPF over an ISDN connection with Vista, because the composer handles low cost vector drawing.)
MS copied OSX only in that they made Vista 'prettier'. How the Vista screen draws and video works is unlike anything in any OS to date, and is certainly not a copy of the outdated OSX methods.
You seem quite knowledgeable and if this type of topic interests you, go look up how Vista's WDDM works and how the Vista composer works in contrast to how the composer in OSX works. MS did some really smart things with the Video Subsystem in Vista that OSes will be copying for years to come to deliver the same quality of performance and features. (Especially when multi-core GPUs become standard and Vista automatically scales applications across the GPUS because of the GPU scheduler, that no other OS can currently do without using older SLI type of technologies.)
PS Apple has yet to enable even hardware assisted Quartz in 10.5 betas, and it also works like crap on 10.4 since it is not a supported setting. Vista is doing both WPF and GDI/GDI+ 3D acceleration even on older non-WDDM video cards. Apple, truly has a lot of work and catching up to do even on giving developers the performance of QuickDraw with Quartz, and they have been promising this for over 5 years.
about bids from Airbus on some large airplane order. This information was quickly forwarded to Boeing, enabling them to undercut the Airbus bid.
Ok, I don't want to argue US policies, as I currently have vast differences of opinion with the current executive branch leadership in the US.
However, I don't know about the specific Airbus intelligence you are referring to, but you DO REALIZE that the US Govt has been the 'largest' provider of money and subsides to Airbus via that RLI?
It would be a hard argument to make that the US govt has harmed Airbus more than it has helped it, especially since it would not have financially survived without support the US Govt.
it is also true that *any* government at any place should be worried that a single company, american or otherwise, holds so much power on its IT infrastructure.
Control uh? Have you ever heard of OPEC?
But seriously, I actually agree with your ideals, but unfortunately it isn't this black and white. It doesn't matter what level of 'control' MS has, it is about the $$ that leaves the EU as much as it is about any technical 'control' issues.
After all these years Windows is still a big mysterious black box, wherein things happen of which we know little and therefore
i cle.html
have little say in behaviour of or control over.
People say this, and it is so wrong in the context it is used.
#1) MS provides a lot of inside information of what Windows does internally, from the DDK to the SDK to the tech articles to even the blogs from the developers themselves now.
#2) This statement is said like people get a 'choice' in the Linux kernel or the BSD kernel interface when talking about their OSS OS of choice. Unless your name is Linus, or you have spent a couple of years cranking out your own version of BSD, you have NO say or control in these OSes. You get the same dog food they give you and the same dog food you get from X11 and the same dog food you get from GNOME or KDE. (And you can even run GNOME or KDE on Windows if you really don't want the MS interface, truly.)
With regard to the article and people not upgrading to Vista, MS cares less than people on SlashDot apparently does. Even XP didn't have massive upgrade sales, and it was designed to finally get people off the Win9x architecture.
Here is where the real stories are:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130395-pg,1/art
"Strong Demand for Windows Vista Reported -
Best Buy and Circuit City both say there is strong interest in the Windows Vista operating system in their retail stores."
Circuit City has even been running out of computers not anticpating Vista sales would be as strong as they have been.
Also note that this is referencing BestBuy and Circuit City which both heavily invested in training their employees and technical staff about Vista before it launched. If your tech and sales team can give real answers to the benefits of Vista, it sells easily in comparison to XP. Again, as long as the machines have 1GB and a Video card that does Glass (cira 2003 or newer).
Oh shit, wait... You're serious aren't you?
:)
Actually, ya. And this is just in reference to Win32/Win16/DOS applications that are the MS bread and butter. You have any idea how many of these freaking applications are out there?
PS Windows also has a full BSD Interface UNIX subsystem (even ships on the Vista DVD), and most all *nix applications compile and run just fine in the UNIX subsystem sitting on the NT kernel running alongside Win32/Win64 applications.
So, ya, Windows does support more applications than any other OS and this is just in the WinXX API world, but becomes especially true if you count all the OSS and *nix apps that run on it as well.
People so easily forget Win32 is just one API Subsystem that sits on NT and MS could replace it or add on any kernal API interface subsystem.
And wouldnt even be necessary if they had complied with standards in the first place.
The EU should force microsoft to comply with published standards, or if necessary extend and publish the extensions to those standards (and propose the standard be updated accordingly).
Ok, this sounds like MS has been really bad, but it comes down to some simple slight of hand on the part of both the EU and MS.
I have a couple of friends that work in Brussels within the EU and the main reason MS is pushed around is that they are an American company that has a lot of control in Europe. This is a no no in the world of the EU if they are going to circumvent the US's power in the market, especially the technical markets.
So the EU is going to claim MS hasn't done what they wanted no matter what MS does if they can use it as leverage to keep American company interests from having control in any area of technology inside the emerging EU market.
If MS was 'from' Belgium, there would never have been a issue with anything they did in the first place.
So as much as everyone likes to jump on MS, this is more of a political movement than having anything to do with MS not jumping fast enough or high enough when the EU wants.
It only took Microsoft 15 years to catch up
Yes and no...
Video card acceleration like the ATI Vantage and 8514 of the same time period made the Window repaint issues pretty much a moot concept.
Also there was a considerable performance hit for double buffering, especially back in 1989, as it did speed up Window repainting, but added in overhead of RAM usage and a considerable amount of latency.
This latency is WHY Win95 and MS rejected using a double buffered display concept, as it would have impacted gaming performance considerably.
Ya, believe that or not MS was smart enough to have considered a simple double buffer even back in 1995, but it was not worth the performance cost if Win9x was to become the gaming platform they planned.
BTW Even in OSX today, the way Apple achieves the tear free windows is using the same 1989 concept of Double Buffering, and since it is using a composer, this is more like a double-double buffer. This is why OSX will ALWAYS have latency in applications and use considerably more RAM. It may be tear free, but it is not fluid as what you see on the screen is just a bit behind what you are always doing.
Windows Vista gives users the tear free concept without using a simple double buffer, (The Composer writes directly to the Frame Buffer and shares system RAM). This means that there is no delay or latency in Vista as you find in OSX. Which gives MS the pretty effects and tear free composer, but doesn't impact application response or game FPS.
It also means as long as Apple keeps their 1989 double buffering concept in OSX, Vista will always be faster in applications and especially gaming.
that still can't make DVD movies
Another anonymous rant from a 'well informed SlashDot user'.
Buzz, thanks for playing, but you obviously have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
Considering I just burnt a DivX Movie Torrent download to a DVD using the built in Vista DVD Maker(With rather cute DVD Menus), I can pretty much confirm most of what you think and are saying is full of crap.
And DRM? Oh, ya, the HD thing that kicks in 6 years from now, maybe.
But it sure didn't stop me from ripping my CDs this afternoon nor downloading my Divx movie from my favorite torrent site.
As for lean mean? Na, it does a lot of caching. So it appears to be a memory hog, but if you actually 'understand' what Vista is doing you will then realize why Adobe Photoshop loads in a couple of seconds, or Autodesk 3Ds loads 20x faster than on XP.
But heck, why would anyone bother learning about SuperFetch, what it actually does, and why it works as well as it does, it is far more fun just to laugh at Vista for using more RAM for the caching even though it is actually scaling the cache beyond OS and application requirements.
You know things other OSes don't yet do, so that as you continue to add RAM, the caching system scales up and load times for all applications continue to increase.
So yes it is Microsoft's fault that they screwed up
Technically, yes, but my statement still stands. The software this is affecting is loading key DLLs in the wrong order.
There is no OS in the world that even comes close to supporting as many applications and devices as WindowsXP, and yet a few apps bite it on an emergency hotfix, and people act like this is a big deal.
If I made this type of stink everytime even a 'non-emergency' patch on my Linux distro or OSX barfed several prominent applications I could publish a quarterly magazine.
Just the last OSX patch was enough of a nightmare that it not only cripple applications, but crippled some of Apple's own applications, and even went as far to keep OSX from booting and forcing users to reinstall. Can you just imagine if MS did something like this and XP and Vista didn't have System Restore where glitches could be rolled back in a couple of minutes? Geesh...