I see on the Apple site that I can buy a single OS X license for $129 or a 5-pack family license for $199. The fine print says it is to be used on "Apple-labeled computers". Has anyone tested their willingness to sell to generic x86 owners? Also, dosen't it make M$ seem even greedier to not have something like this for XP and Office? Imagine how many pirated copies would disappear if they had a $199 family 5-pack of XP Home.
1) Apple sells the hardware too, so they get money there instead and lock people into a Mac world.
2) Microsoft provides free service packs and new features throughout the life cycle of any OS, where Apple straps a new 'Cat' name on them and charges you about $129 per year for the privledge of owning a Mac...
Ok, you do realize the XBox 360 hardware wasn't even ready at the 2005 CES, right? Even at E3 the demonstrations were not on XBox 360 hardware. The Hardware being used were dual G5 Macs, with an emulation layer for the non-existent GPU features and the tri-core.
WindowsXP hasn't crashed in years for a lot of people, it is nothing like Windows98 or Apple System 7-9 where both OSes had stability issues.
Also, I doubt your ATM is running 'embedded' Windows, or even an NT core version of Windows if it Blue Screens and doesn't recover with a restart at the very least.
There is NO OS that has not crashed and burned on someones hardware at sometime.
Truly to say that the Graphic Engine in OSX and Vista are the same shows a complete lack of understanding. OSX graphics = WindowsXP with GDI+. The only exception is the Offscreen Bitmap Compose that OSX uses.
Vista has a full round trip Vector based Composer than does things OSX couldn't dream of like real, from Vector acceleration techniques (round trip) to GPU sharing and GPU RAM virtualization, stuff that has pushed NVidia and ATI to rethink the multi-tasking and Memory aspects of the GPU market. Yet MS is pulling this off with the current generation of Video cards.
That is why I can run Halo, WoW, SWG, and Half-Life ALL on screen at once and not lose framerates in any of the games. I can even Flip 3D them, and they run in that view without any FPS loss. (See normally, each of these applicaitons would want 'full' access to the GPU and the GPU's RAM.)
I know it is cool to compare OSX to Vista, but really, we need to get everyone educated, if not, then people with see the technology in OSX as 'good enough' and we won't get Apple to move into the next generation of Video Composers and Rendering.
When I say that OSX is WindowsXP/GDI+ with only the addition of a Bitmap Composer, I am being serious. OSX has no further graphic abilities than WindowsXP, where Vista has new engine and also a new paradigm for Video Cards and GPUs as well.
You might well want 1920x1200 in a laptop. I have no idea why, however. What I want in a laptop is a screen that I can see clearly in most lighting conditions and read clearly.
Ok, first off you are proving my point, another person to tell me why I wouldn't want a feature that is superior... (Not only do I have a higher DPI, but even the contrast ratio, response rate, and brightness is better than the latest Mac Notebooks.)
And BTW, I typoed my post, my Laptop Display is actually 1920x1600 not 1920x1200.
So Why do I want 1920x1600, well, when doing 'graphic design' or Video Production, the extra screen space is welcome, additionally, the higher resolution display when working with Vector based Illustration packages and even high end Typesetting applications it is VERY important. But hey, who said Macs were any good at Graphics or Video production anyway, right? (gasp)
Also, since I primarly run Vista, My OS fully scales 'ALL' windows so they are as legible as I would like, and yet I still get the enhanced DPI of the higher resolution display. (Yes a foreign concept to OSX users.) I admit my eyesight is rather good, but with Vista it don't matter, since I can scale everything up to insane sizes.
Also, it is quite nice to run the latest games like Doom or Half Life at High Definition Resolutions, but again that requires a better video card than I can even get in a Mac at this point.
Also don't get me wrong, I would love to buy a new Mac, I just want features they do not offer or the graphics performance I want when buying a new system. Even if I buy the best Mac Laptop and dual boot to WindowsXP for games for example, the performance is going to be at least 1/2 of a comperable Dell, and I will also have to give up display DPI as well.
Why should I downgrade to buy Apple?
(This is really a plea to Apple fans to yell at Apple for not providing the 'BEST', and instead taking a middle road and giving non-OSX only geeks no incentive to buy a Mac. - Truly you should be more outraged that Apple doesn't provide the best than I am.)
HD content providers don't have to support it at all
Actually they 'don't' in concept, but all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players MUST support this format, just as they MUST support MPEG4. Whether people like it or not WMV/VC-1 is MORE mature than MPEG4 when doing HD and 7.1 and up audio.
As for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies that have been released, most have 'chosen' VC-1 because it offers quality and compression over MPEG4. (Go look it up if you don't get it.)
But hey all the companies releaseing HD Movies could be wrong, and just haven't seen the 'light' yet, maybe you should contact them so you can explain how you understand video quality and production better than them. (gag)
This is just not true at all. VC-1 is not on the level of MPEG-4 in the upcoming HD market, and most content providers are using H.264 (since it beats VC-1's quality and space). And H.264 has been on the rise over the web, catching up to WMV and Real.
In your context, I assume you believe you are correct.
However you should check out both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Codec requirements for High Definition. VC-1 is a REQUIREMENT, and VC-1 is WMV...
Also WMV/VC-1 has been doing full 1080p HD for SEVERAL years now, even before other formats were supporting it. Especially when you add in the 5.1/7.1 Audio that WMV/VC-1 can do.
Here are a couple of links to help your quest for information. Also remember T2-extreme edition released 'several' years ago, was HD content on a DVD, and it was only in WMV format, because that is the only 'standard' codec of the time that fully supported HD resolution and 7.1 Audio.
I don't care what 'movie studios' release their 'low quality - as in they are no HD' trailers in. This is as much 'marketing hype' and deals with Apple and Sony than any 'superior' format quality being offered.
WMV is designed to do 1080p and has been doing it before the MPEG4 standard was finalized. You can even watch 1080p content from the MS site that is 'several' years old if your computer is 'capable'.
Get it?
So now we can get back to the original topic, that WMV is VERY relevant in the upcoming HD markets, even if Mac zealots don't realize their new HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player is using WMV(VC-1) to play their HD Discs....
someone griping about how they can get a Dell for much cheaper
Actually, I see more people like myself that complain that we can't get the features we want on the Macs. Things like 1920x1200 on a laptop, or a 'decent' Video card on a laptop or desktop.
Macs usually throw last years Video cards in their products, a good example is the new laptops, the Intel CPU was good but then they put in a middle grade video card, when I can get a Dell or Alienware with the same CPU but a video card several times faster.
Apple was supposed to be the 'technology' leader, instead they keep playing catch up, and when people realize Apple is failing behind (which not everyone notices) then excuses are made of why I wouldn't want the latest and fastest video card or why I wouldn't want a 1920x1200 display in a notebook, etc etc...
The silly part of this, is I still have laymen tell me that they believe Apples are the best for fast graphics, and yet they haven't shipped a Mac in the last 10 years with the fastest Video card technology available.
And this trickles down, because game producers know that Macs don't have the Video card horsepower, and they skip the Mac market because they want their game to look great and run smooth.
I also don't see the 'dual-booting' as a good thing for Mac. People will notice that their games run faster under Windows, and even their precious applications like Photoshop and basic UI speed is faster under Windows. This is not a good thing that on current Intel Macs 'native' applications for both OSX and Windows run 20% faster when booted into Windows, and even slower when comparing the emulated PPC versions under OSX.
Dual-booting is also another market with game developers will go, why even do a Mac version, most the Mac base is also running Windows and we can deliver a game that will Run on Windows, XBox, XBox 360 without additional development. This will be even more important if it continues to be true that all games run faster when booted into Windows than OSX on the same hardware.
WMV's look identical on the Mac as they do on Windows. Its the exact same file. They can be played through QuickTime using Flip4Mac, VLC, or mplayer without problems.
WMV and Real are just as good on the Mac as they are in Windows.
For proof that this post is rubbish, look at the fact that the poster refers to "Jaguar" That was the code name for 10.2. That was many years ago.
Debunked.
In theory I agree with you, but the problem is that you don't always get a great experience playing VC-1(WMV) on Macs. This is something Apple needs to bring 'into' the box and support directly. For a computer company that advertises that they are all out of the box ready, it is not a good thing that one of the most popular media format standards (VC-1/WMV) is not supported 'out of the box'.
Also, the performance of the Quicktime plug-in is less than a 'great' experience, as users with an older Mac would agree. Windows can pump out WMV at incredible resolutions and quality without the strain you find when using the Quicktime plug-in on a Mac.
In Media and Streaming Media, Quicktime has tried hard, but it has been somewhat of a bastard stepchild when it comes to quality and performance. Now that Apple is using Mpeg4, things are much better, but they can't just force their formats down everyone's throat, especially when VC-1/WMV is now a standard on par with Mpeg4 and a part of the High Definition market.
I believe that is Microsoft's fault. After all they use a close format and even partially dropped support for WMV on a Mac. Personally, Quicktime and VLC work just fine for Divx and various other torrent media.
WMV = VC1
People please go look this up. VC-1 is as MUCH of a standard as Mpeg4, hence why HD content providers have to support it.
How does flip4mac handle WMV10 files? DRM'ed WMV files?
Ok, there really is no such thing as a WMV10 file. The codecs used in even the latest Media Player 11 are still based on the Version 9 Codecs, or VC-1.
As for DRM with WMV, it probably doesn't handle it too well, considering most WMV DRM methods used by companies include Windows Based executables.
Apple will eventually 'have' to support WMV natively, or they will not be able to do the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content, which both require any HD players to support both Mpeg 4 and VC-1.
Hurray about those Open Standards huh? Good thing Apple's been a champion of them for years, with Quicktime supporting the book of Open Standards and VLC to support the rest of the nutso formats and encodings.
Oh, and for the record, not a lot of people are using WMV these days.
Do people 'purposely' try to spread myth, or are more Mac Zealot just getting dumber?
VC-1, You know the 'other' standard format of both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD that EVERY High Definition Player also supports is pretty popular, with some studios using Mpeg4 and some encoding in VC-1.
Here is the part I guess doesn't make it over to crazy Mac World...
VC-1 = WMV
So if Apple still provides a crap WMV experience, then they can kiss the consumer High Definition market away.
Oh, and the other big High Definition out there besides HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is doing WMV on a regular DVD, giving you WMV-HD. And yes studios are 'also' using this for High Definition distribution of Movies.
read it allows 32-bit modules (i.e. drivers) to load on a 64-bit kernel. Is this true? If so, this is breaking news, as no other 64-bit OS out there allows that.
If Leopard truly runs as a 64bit OS and allows 32bit drivers, then this is good for Apple, but hardly earns them the innovation of the century.
The fact is, many OSes have done this over the years, and it is not revolutionary. Even Windows95 could load 16bit drivers in addition to 32bit drivers.
My real question here is, how much of Leopard 'really' is a 64bit OS? Are ANY of the drivers really 64bit, or is the kernel mode they are running in, still a 32bit environment?
The reason that this seems really suspect, is the Intel based MacBooks are running on a 32bit CPU, no 64bit whatsoever. So is there separate versions for the MacBooks, or is Leopard once again trying to pretend to be a 64bit OS, like Apple touted OSX as 3 years ago, when it wasn't?
I honestly don't know the answers to these and the specs I could find don't seem to be very clear on this. But this will give my techs something to research.
Microsoft debated on whether to let the x64 version of Windows do a mixed mode 32bit driver support, and the team chose to abandon 32bit drivers for several reasons. One of them hoping to force hardware vendors to write 'better' drivers. I wonder if Apple truly has adopted the duality model if MS will rethink adding back in a 32bit compatibility driver layer in x64. Could mean good things for both sides of the industry if it is something seen as a 'good thing'.
Spend 5 minutes and see the technology work Gore did in the Senate during the 80s and early 90s. I don't care if you hate him for some personal reason, but the dude does deserve more props than the negative smears.
As for your 'politics' as usual, if you are a Libertarian, go pick up "Conservatives Without Concious - John Dean." It has quite a bit of insight into modern politics, and why the dirty smearing is both unethical and will eventually implode. If Gore would have ran the negative campaign that 'idiots' buy into because they see it as 'politics as usual', then he would have won in 2000 by even more.
BTW, with regard to his technology work in the Senate, we studied his work in my University back in 1990, yes he WAS that important to technology and cutting the political red tape, and chances are without him, you would not have a freaking SlashDot to post this on, and would be talking about this in a Prodigy or AOL forum instead.
The MS OEM restrictions TheNetAvenger describes are no longer part of the license.
You could be correct; however, I was under the impression that for the OEM to uphold their license with MS that they had to tie the OEM copy to a piece of hardware that would be used in the computer.
So even if the OEM License itself does not still say the Hardware requirement, the OEM may have to agree to uphold the hardware requirement License in order to purchase the OEM copies from a Vendor.
However, everyone check on this. If the hardware restriction is lifted it would be a good deal for people that don't have a previous Windows version. However if you already have a copy of Windows (as most people that purchased a computer do), then the Upgrade version would be the best, as the installation allows the OS to be Upgraded and you don't have to do a clean install as you do with the OEM version.
Well thats just plain and simple, not true. My school (along with many other schools) offer the OEM version of Windows XP SP2 for $5(USD) by itself. That's right, $5. They have a deal with Microsoft to do so, and every student is allowed 1 copy of the software for $5. The software says "OEM" right on it and its understood that you aren't a manufacturer at the time of purchase. They also did this with Office and some other software.
Ok, it is VERY possible what you say is true, as MS does work with educational systems to provide offers like this. In an instance like this MS could drop a bunch of any 'packaging' of Windows, and modify the license for your special circumstance.
However, having worked in the OEM world for a long time. If you are a business and 'selling' an OEM copy of Windows without hardware, you are breaking the License and the Law. PERIOD.
The Upgrade version of Windows is about the same price, so there is often little need for businesses to do this, unless the people are building new computer themselves, then it used to be that you could sell the customer a Hard Drive and the OEM copy of Windows to meet the hardware qualifications.
Having spent a bit of time in Amsterdam and also a lot of time in Belgium - I truly understand what you have experienced.
Most of the shops I encountered were not always 'well' informed themselves, let alone able to convey information to their customers. Of course there were several shops that 'did' get it, but it was not the 'common' knowledge with the average computer tech let alone the buyer.
For the majority of my friends, I ended up just finding them a good contact that was an IT professional (like at EDS, etc), and let that person help them.
To this day, your best bet for information is going sadly going to be to cross reference what any shop tells you with what you can lookup online. But this is true of everywhere.
The large 'mass consumer' american stores over here can help consumers because in the large store settings, you usually can find at least on nerd that knows what they are doing, even if they are another customer.
(You could always head over to Wal-Mart in Germany):)
The security risks could be eliminated by encrypted the user's home directory, a la Mac OS X.
It's a fantastic feature. I remember Novell Netware had this and we used it a lot to roll back changes to code. It was better than version control when only one person was working on the project.
I wonder if OS X 10.5 was going to have such a feature and it leaked out. This is actually a quasi-innovative idea from Microsoft. Maybe they stole it from Apple via corporate spying.
Ok, you do realize Windows has had encryption for like 10 years now, right? Or are Mac Zealots just naturally unaware of anything without an Apple logo on it?
You also realize this has been in WinXP and Windows 2003 Server for quite some time, so I doubt they stole the idea from OSX 10.5. (geesh)
As for the Versioning in Vista, the new thing is that it is turned on by default and works on local volumes, where WinXP required the data to be on a Windows 2003 Server.
Also, there aren't security risks, and this article is nothing but FUD. Windows Server has had this ability for 'versioning' files since 2003, and BUSINESSES have already been using it.
It also is a great tool, especially when you accidentally nuke a file, or change and save a file you didn't mean to, etc. Versioning archives are more handy than a 'problem'. (Truly)
If you are an employee, don't be doing crap at work, they own the computers, download your goat porn at home and don't be writing your resume while at work.
Also, as an employee if you are half way bright, you can purge the 'versioned' copies, unless the company doesn't allow you to with group policies. And again, it is their computer, so they can do what they freaking want if you work there.
As much as OSX on a server is a contradiction of terms at the best of times, this wasn't an OS level exploit.
This would be in the details... If the Injection only changed data in the database then no it isn't an OSX exploit, but falls at the hands of the Web Server and SQL Server.
However, if they elevated privledges from the injection in some odd way, then it is both the SQL Server and OSX.
Sadly, even as bad as IIS on Windows Server is, we can't blindly believe Apache or non-MS SQL Server solutions are safe, even if running on OpenBSD itself.
Of course this could be some really bad site scripting, but the press will usually point the finger at the wrong party responsible anyway.
If the dealers are selling the OEM version without any hardware, this would still be an illegal copy. The OEM pricing is set to be lower for computer makers, and is not to be sold without hardware.
However the 290euros is also a bit high. You should be able to buy a 'upgrade' version instead of a 'full' version. They are the same, but one requires the machine to have had a version of Windows installed on it before or the CD to prove you own it. (There are two types of 'retail' versions in other words, and most people only need the upgrade version which is about the same price as the OEM version give or take 10-15 Euro.)
Stay way from people selling OEM copies of any company's software unless they are also keeping to the licensing rules and selling it with a new computer or qualifying hardware. The Windows OEM license used to allow it to be purchased if the end user was buying a new hard drive etc.
If they are just selling the OEM software, with most companies this is illegal and would not help in getting your copy to be legitimate. This is also why OEM software often requires a clean install and will not 'upgrade' as it is not ever to be sold in a circumstance to upgrade anything.
If Windows doesn't automatically share libraries between applications then it's a worse operating system than I originally thought.
No, it shares libraries. My post was a bit too brief to explain it properly.
In Win2K and further expanind in WinXP Microsoft introduced a set of technologies to isolate DLLs.
In my reference IE, specifically loads the HTML engine COM DLLs into its own 'isolated' process. This is done for a couple of reasons, but the main one being security.
There are always shared DLLs in Windows with the core Win32 API, but the HTML rendering engine that IE is a wrapper for is not a core Windows API DLL, it is a set of COM DLLs that are included with Windows, but not something that loads into a shared area like something as the font rendering engine does. So each application that uses the IE rendering technology usually runs them in an isolated state, not sharing them with other applications that may also be using them.
Your list on how Linux handles libs is well done. Windows works like this 'in a way', but with the increased amount of 3rd party applications that use 'add-on' shared DLLs, problems occured in Pre Win2k, WinXP - as the versioning of these 3rd Party DLLs (even some from MS, but still considered 3rd party to the OS) caused problems because if Version 2.0 of DLL was loaded, and another application needed Version 3.0 the mapping of the DLL would cause problems.
Win2k and WinXP have mechanisms to isolate out shared DLLs that are external to the OS. (Even OS level DLLs can be isolated as well.) This is what brought a lot of stability to Windows because there was no longer what they call DLL hell, especially on WinXP as its changes were far more reaching than Win2k.
As for the process of how a Win32 application lauches and maps into the shared 'lib', there are some differences from Linux. The main one is that Win32 apps do this through the Win32 Kernel, and not normally through the NT kernel. (NT uses subsystem concepts, so Win32 is like an OS running on the NT OS, and Win32 has its own kernel, etc.)
I hope I didn't confuse this further and provided enough accurate information that if anyone is interested in this could go further with it by reading wiki or documentation at microsoft.com.
Since the executable code is read-only, there is no security problem with allowing both processes to access the data. (mmap() basically tells the kernel to treat the file a bit like swap space).
This is a bit more in depth than the topic, but you can find information on how Windows handles this as well, what is does right and what it does wrong. In theory this is also protected under Windows.
I actually found some good information in your post.
Your information is above average accurate for a SlashDot post, and I truly appreciate your time in responding.
I still stand by my statements about XHTML and CSS in their relation to MS people being originating authors on a lot of the basic specifications. It is just too bad that MS hasn't allowed the IE team to nail the specifications better than they have.
I also think the forced IE7 update is a good thing in the long run, that way it will help get people closer to having a better equipped browser, even if it doesn't provide all that we would want.
My developers restated that IE7 brings *enough* to the table to start large scale implementation of newer CSS and move development over fairly reliably for the first time.
Again, thanks for the post and correcting some of the information I provided, as I did overstate several things with regard to the extent of IE7 hitting standards.
A couple of my developers wanted to smack me upside the head for what I wrote because their reaction was very much like your post. *whoops*:)
*If you can learn from humility, it isn't quite so bad*
Internet Explorer 7 hasn't got any support for XHTML whatsoever. You are still stuck having to pretend that your XHTML is actually HTML for Internet Explorer to do anything with it.
The CSS improvements are marginal. They've fixed a lot of bugs, but the new functionality is very sparse, it's just selectors I think. The rest of CSS 2 remains unimplemented.
Wow, you must be using a different version that our developers.
'Pretend XHTML'? You are kidding right? MS is one of the companies that wrote XHTML and sure IE6 support sucked, but IE7? Um.... I don't think so. I won't argue it has the best standards implementations, as it tends to support older tags, but that does not mean they ahve left off adding in the new standards 'tags'.
Watch the Video on Expression Web Designer. It is the new FrontPage so to speak, and is designed to work with IE7 in the long run, and it pushes VERY HARD - XHTML and CSS standards, to the point it will break IE6 if you tell it to comply 100% with standards. They also wouldn't be making such a 'standards' based site development tool if it was going to break IE7. MS isn't stupid.
That isn't why it won't pass the Acid2 test. It won't pass the Acid2 test because that is far too much work for a single major revision. It would require implementing a lot of the CSS that is currently unsupported
This has 'little' to do with WHAT CSS is implemented, but more over what 'foreign and non-standard' CSS and IE specific goofs are allowed. IE7 does a good job of support CSS features, the DRAWBACK is that is STILL supports NON-STANDARD CSS and MS IE standards that when put to the ACID2 test fail.
Microsoft would have to RIP all old tag and old IE6 type CSS support to pass the ACID2 test completely, but that does NOT MEAN that if you write the site with new CSS tags and don't interject things you 'purposely' know will make IE7 behave like IE6 CSS (Bad tag that IE6 would use for example) then the site will not have to have separate CSS coding for IE7 and other browsers.
In the next year!? I wish!
Most sites can only start using them once there aren't many Internet Explorer 7 users left. Bear in mind that work I'm doing today needs Internet Explorer 5.5 compatibility because lots of people still use it, and that a lot of people aren't going to even have the opportunity to upgrade to version 7 because it doesn't run on Windows 2000 or earlier.
I fully expect there to be enough Internet Explorer 6 users hanging around to make life difficult in the year 2010.
Well people shouldn't be running a 'build' so to speak of Windows that is 7 - 10 years old. PERIOD. If you found customers running 1995 Linux or 1998 BSD you would freak and get them up to the newest build for their distribution. PERIOD.
WindowsXP is 5 years old, it is about time people moved to it. It is FASTER than Win2k and FASTER than Win98, plus it is a LOT MORE secure than Win2k or Win98. Leaving your customers on anything prior to WinXP is doinga great disservice to them or leading them to belive that Win2k is Faster or 'good enough' is also hurting them.
If people are 'stuck' on a version of Windows that is pre WinXP, then we need to encourage them to move to FireFox or Opera. PERIOD. This will help the NON-IE market as well for people that refuse to move to XP.
So YES we can start moving to real XHTML and CSS based sites in the next year, and if they come to our site with IE6 or older, we can provide them with older basic functionality or a page FORCING them to get FireFox or make sure they have upgraded to IE7. It really is that simple.
As bigger sites require this, it will move the consumer side market. And if you don't believe that can happen, look at what happened with IE adoption in the 90s or even Flash adoption now, almost every consumer has been through this, and it won't be a hard to get them through it ag
Try this & I'm assuming your not daft enough to be using IE as your browser otherwise you get completely different results...go figure.
Open up a Windows Explorer window, run FileMon from Sysinternals. Begin capturing file access & type a URL into the address bar & press return, actually maybe you need to sit down first...
Notice how the window "magically" changes to an IE window. Check the contents of the FileMon capture, shock horror there's nearly nothing there!! Just a few precious dlls are opened, or is FileMon just lying??
Try the same thing but open up a "true" IE window, lots more activity I grant you, but what process is it all running under?? Hmm??
Ok, you can do this in KDE as well.
Here is the part you are missing...
Two thing can occur here. Use the KDE example, the HTML Rendering is loaded into the Shell, this can happen, and IE becomes a child process of Explorer.
However what should occur, is doing what you suggest spins off a new IE process. Which is the modern behavior.
The difference lies in the version of IE and Windows you are using. IE can spawn as a process of Explorer, therefore there is no Application memory allocation or launch process, just the spawning of the IE process. (The child process bit here would make it faster.)
However this example would be like me writing an application that is a text viewer (or whatever) and when the user types in a URL, I use the Mozilla code to drop an HTML Rendering component in my application. It is going to load faster than loading FireFox or Mozilla because it is a child process.
However the Shell flipping to IE and staying in the shell process is an outdated example. Current IE and Windows, it spins off a new process. (This is especially true of IE7 and Vista.) (It also depends on the version of IE and the version of Windows. Also note that you can force IE to be a child process or not just as you can force a folder view in Explorer to be a separate process or not.
But normally on WinXP in the current normal configuration, IE loads to a separate process, and does a full isolated load, just like Firefox being launched would do as well.
PS. Thanks for not just assuming I'm as daft as some of the other posts would like to believe.
Also the really, really strange thing here is that I am trying to demonstrate that IE doesn't have an advantage for memory footprint or load times. The part I haven't been able to voice, is that on average, FireFox does use less RAM than IE, and the load time for FireFox can sometimes be faster or slower than IE.
I don't see FireFox as some bloated piece of software, that is why I find it really strange that people are trying to 'excuse' the memory it uses by stating that IE has an advantage. Most of the time in Taskmgr, (or pick your favorite tool) IE is using as much Memory as FireFox if not more.
FireFox really isn't bloated, so there is no reason to push the myth that IE has an advantage.
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I see on the Apple site that I can buy a single OS X license for $129 or a 5-pack family license for $199. The fine print says it is to be used on "Apple-labeled computers". Has anyone tested their willingness to sell to generic x86 owners? Also, dosen't it make M$ seem even greedier to not have something like this for XP and Office? Imagine how many pirated copies would disappear if they had a $199 family 5-pack of XP Home.
1) Apple sells the hardware too, so they get money there instead and lock people into a Mac world.
2) Microsoft provides free service packs and new features throughout the life cycle of any OS, where Apple straps a new 'Cat' name on them and charges you about $129 per year for the privledge of owning a Mac...
Even Microsoft's X-Box crashed at the 2005 CES.
Ok, you do realize the XBox 360 hardware wasn't even ready at the 2005 CES, right? Even at E3 the demonstrations were not on XBox 360 hardware. The Hardware being used were dual G5 Macs, with an emulation layer for the non-existent GPU features and the tri-core.
WindowsXP hasn't crashed in years for a lot of people, it is nothing like Windows98 or Apple System 7-9 where both OSes had stability issues.
Also, I doubt your ATM is running 'embedded' Windows, or even an NT core version of Windows if it Blue Screens and doesn't recover with a restart at the very least.
There is NO OS that has not crashed and burned on someones hardware at sometime.
OSX 10.1 looks better than Vista!
I so wish I didn't have an NDA...
Truly to say that the Graphic Engine in OSX and Vista are the same shows a complete lack of understanding. OSX graphics = WindowsXP with GDI+. The only exception is the Offscreen Bitmap Compose that OSX uses.
Vista has a full round trip Vector based Composer than does things OSX couldn't dream of like real, from Vector acceleration techniques (round trip) to GPU sharing and GPU RAM virtualization, stuff that has pushed NVidia and ATI to rethink the multi-tasking and Memory aspects of the GPU market. Yet MS is pulling this off with the current generation of Video cards.
That is why I can run Halo, WoW, SWG, and Half-Life ALL on screen at once and not lose framerates in any of the games. I can even Flip 3D them, and they run in that view without any FPS loss. (See normally, each of these applicaitons would want 'full' access to the GPU and the GPU's RAM.)
I know it is cool to compare OSX to Vista, but really, we need to get everyone educated, if not, then people with see the technology in OSX as 'good enough' and we won't get Apple to move into the next generation of Video Composers and Rendering.
When I say that OSX is WindowsXP/GDI+ with only the addition of a Bitmap Composer, I am being serious. OSX has no further graphic abilities than WindowsXP, where Vista has new engine and also a new paradigm for Video Cards and GPUs as well.
And just where is the blue screen of death
They are all in the same gallery as the Kernel Panic screens, the Apple System Bomb Messages, and the OSX Spontaneous Restart Screenshots.
You might well want 1920x1200 in a laptop. I have no idea why, however. What I want in a laptop is a screen that I can see clearly in most lighting conditions and read clearly.
Ok, first off you are proving my point, another person to tell me why I wouldn't want a feature that is superior... (Not only do I have a higher DPI, but even the contrast ratio, response rate, and brightness is better than the latest Mac Notebooks.)
And BTW, I typoed my post, my Laptop Display is actually 1920x1600 not 1920x1200.
So Why do I want 1920x1600, well, when doing 'graphic design' or Video Production, the extra screen space is welcome, additionally, the higher resolution display when working with Vector based Illustration packages and even high end Typesetting applications it is VERY important. But hey, who said Macs were any good at Graphics or Video production anyway, right? (gasp)
Also, since I primarly run Vista, My OS fully scales 'ALL' windows so they are as legible as I would like, and yet I still get the enhanced DPI of the higher resolution display. (Yes a foreign concept to OSX users.) I admit my eyesight is rather good, but with Vista it don't matter, since I can scale everything up to insane sizes.
Also, it is quite nice to run the latest games like Doom or Half Life at High Definition Resolutions, but again that requires a better video card than I can even get in a Mac at this point.
Also don't get me wrong, I would love to buy a new Mac, I just want features they do not offer or the graphics performance I want when buying a new system. Even if I buy the best Mac Laptop and dual boot to WindowsXP for games for example, the performance is going to be at least 1/2 of a comperable Dell, and I will also have to give up display DPI as well.
Why should I downgrade to buy Apple?
(This is really a plea to Apple fans to yell at Apple for not providing the 'BEST', and instead taking a middle road and giving non-OSX only geeks no incentive to buy a Mac. - Truly you should be more outraged that Apple doesn't provide the best than I am.)
HD content providers don't have to support it at all
Actually they 'don't' in concept, but all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players MUST support this format, just as they MUST support MPEG4. Whether people like it or not WMV/VC-1 is MORE mature than MPEG4 when doing HD and 7.1 and up audio.
As for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies that have been released, most have 'chosen' VC-1 because it offers quality and compression over MPEG4. (Go look it up if you don't get it.)
But hey all the companies releaseing HD Movies could be wrong, and just haven't seen the 'light' yet, maybe you should contact them so you can explain how you understand video quality and production better than them. (gag)
This is just not true at all. VC-1 is not on the level of MPEG-4 in the upcoming HD market, and most content providers are using H.264 (since it beats VC-1's quality and space). And H.264 has been on the rise over the web, catching up to WMV and Real.
i candvideo/hddvd/default.aspx
i candvideo/hdvideo/hdvideo.aspx
In your context, I assume you believe you are correct.
However you should check out both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Codec requirements for High Definition. VC-1 is a REQUIREMENT, and VC-1 is WMV...
Also WMV/VC-1 has been doing full 1080p HD for SEVERAL years now, even before other formats were supporting it. Especially when you add in the 5.1/7.1 Audio that WMV/VC-1 can do.
Here are a couple of links to help your quest for information. Also remember T2-extreme edition released 'several' years ago, was HD content on a DVD, and it was only in WMV format, because that is the only 'standard' codec of the time that fully supported HD resolution and 7.1 Audio.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mus
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mus
I don't care what 'movie studios' release their 'low quality - as in they are no HD' trailers in. This is as much 'marketing hype' and deals with Apple and Sony than any 'superior' format quality being offered.
WMV is designed to do 1080p and has been doing it before the MPEG4 standard was finalized. You can even watch 1080p content from the MS site that is 'several' years old if your computer is 'capable'.
Get it?
So now we can get back to the original topic, that WMV is VERY relevant in the upcoming HD markets, even if Mac zealots don't realize their new HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player is using WMV(VC-1) to play their HD Discs....
someone griping about how they can get a Dell for much cheaper
Actually, I see more people like myself that complain that we can't get the features we want on the Macs. Things like 1920x1200 on a laptop, or a 'decent' Video card on a laptop or desktop.
Macs usually throw last years Video cards in their products, a good example is the new laptops, the Intel CPU was good but then they put in a middle grade video card, when I can get a Dell or Alienware with the same CPU but a video card several times faster.
Apple was supposed to be the 'technology' leader, instead they keep playing catch up, and when people realize Apple is failing behind (which not everyone notices) then excuses are made of why I wouldn't want the latest and fastest video card or why I wouldn't want a 1920x1200 display in a notebook, etc etc...
The silly part of this, is I still have laymen tell me that they believe Apples are the best for fast graphics, and yet they haven't shipped a Mac in the last 10 years with the fastest Video card technology available.
And this trickles down, because game producers know that Macs don't have the Video card horsepower, and they skip the Mac market because they want their game to look great and run smooth.
I also don't see the 'dual-booting' as a good thing for Mac. People will notice that their games run faster under Windows, and even their precious applications like Photoshop and basic UI speed is faster under Windows. This is not a good thing that on current Intel Macs 'native' applications for both OSX and Windows run 20% faster when booted into Windows, and even slower when comparing the emulated PPC versions under OSX.
Dual-booting is also another market with game developers will go, why even do a Mac version, most the Mac base is also running Windows and we can deliver a game that will Run on Windows, XBox, XBox 360 without additional development. This will be even more important if it continues to be true that all games run faster when booted into Windows than OSX on the same hardware.
WMV's look identical on the Mac as they do on Windows. Its the exact same file. They can be played through QuickTime using Flip4Mac, VLC, or mplayer without problems.
WMV and Real are just as good on the Mac as they are in Windows.
For proof that this post is rubbish, look at the fact that the poster refers to "Jaguar" That was the code name for 10.2. That was many years ago.
Debunked.
In theory I agree with you, but the problem is that you don't always get a great experience playing VC-1(WMV) on Macs. This is something Apple needs to bring 'into' the box and support directly. For a computer company that advertises that they are all out of the box ready, it is not a good thing that one of the most popular media format standards (VC-1/WMV) is not supported 'out of the box'.
Also, the performance of the Quicktime plug-in is less than a 'great' experience, as users with an older Mac would agree. Windows can pump out WMV at incredible resolutions and quality without the strain you find when using the Quicktime plug-in on a Mac.
In Media and Streaming Media, Quicktime has tried hard, but it has been somewhat of a bastard stepchild when it comes to quality and performance. Now that Apple is using Mpeg4, things are much better, but they can't just force their formats down everyone's throat, especially when VC-1/WMV is now a standard on par with Mpeg4 and a part of the High Definition market.
I believe that is Microsoft's fault. After all they use a close format and even partially dropped support for WMV on a Mac. Personally, Quicktime and VLC work just fine for Divx and various other torrent media.
WMV = VC1
People please go look this up. VC-1 is as MUCH of a standard as Mpeg4, hence why HD content providers have to support it.
How does flip4mac handle WMV10 files? DRM'ed WMV files?
Ok, there really is no such thing as a WMV10 file. The codecs used in even the latest Media Player 11 are still based on the Version 9 Codecs, or VC-1.
As for DRM with WMV, it probably doesn't handle it too well, considering most WMV DRM methods used by companies include Windows Based executables.
Apple will eventually 'have' to support WMV natively, or they will not be able to do the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content, which both require any HD players to support both Mpeg 4 and VC-1.
(VC-1 = WMV)
Hurray about those Open Standards huh? Good thing Apple's been a champion of them for years, with Quicktime supporting the book of Open Standards and VLC to support the rest of the nutso formats and encodings.
Oh, and for the record, not a lot of people are using WMV these days.
Do people 'purposely' try to spread myth, or are more Mac Zealot just getting dumber?
VC-1, You know the 'other' standard format of both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD that EVERY High Definition Player also supports is pretty popular, with some studios using Mpeg4 and some encoding in VC-1.
Here is the part I guess doesn't make it over to crazy Mac World...
VC-1 = WMV
So if Apple still provides a crap WMV experience, then they can kiss the consumer High Definition market away.
Oh, and the other big High Definition out there besides HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is doing WMV on a regular DVD, giving you WMV-HD. And yes studios are 'also' using this for High Definition distribution of Movies.
read it allows 32-bit modules (i.e. drivers) to load on a 64-bit kernel. Is this true?
If so, this is breaking news, as no other 64-bit OS out there allows that.
If Leopard truly runs as a 64bit OS and allows 32bit drivers, then this is good for Apple, but hardly earns them the innovation of the century.
The fact is, many OSes have done this over the years, and it is not revolutionary. Even Windows95 could load 16bit drivers in addition to 32bit drivers.
My real question here is, how much of Leopard 'really' is a 64bit OS? Are ANY of the drivers really 64bit, or is the kernel mode they are running in, still a 32bit environment?
The reason that this seems really suspect, is the Intel based MacBooks are running on a 32bit CPU, no 64bit whatsoever. So is there separate versions for the MacBooks, or is Leopard once again trying to pretend to be a 64bit OS, like Apple touted OSX as 3 years ago, when it wasn't?
I honestly don't know the answers to these and the specs I could find don't seem to be very clear on this. But this will give my techs something to research.
Microsoft debated on whether to let the x64 version of Windows do a mixed mode 32bit driver support, and the team chose to abandon 32bit drivers for several reasons. One of them hoping to force hardware vendors to write 'better' drivers. I wonder if Apple truly has adopted the duality model if MS will rethink adding back in a 32bit compatibility driver layer in x64. Could mean good things for both sides of the industry if it is something seen as a 'good thing'.
I'm a libertarian, so I'm not crazy about Gore
And yet you enjoy the Internet...
Spend 5 minutes and see the technology work Gore did in the Senate during the 80s and early 90s. I don't care if you hate him for some personal reason, but the dude does deserve more props than the negative smears.
As for your 'politics' as usual, if you are a Libertarian, go pick up "Conservatives Without Concious - John Dean." It has quite a bit of insight into modern politics, and why the dirty smearing is both unethical and will eventually implode. If Gore would have ran the negative campaign that 'idiots' buy into because they see it as 'politics as usual', then he would have won in 2000 by even more.
BTW, with regard to his technology work in the Senate, we studied his work in my University back in 1990, yes he WAS that important to technology and cutting the political red tape, and chances are without him, you would not have a freaking SlashDot to post this on, and would be talking about this in a Prodigy or AOL forum instead.
The MS OEM restrictions TheNetAvenger describes are no longer part of the license.
You could be correct; however, I was under the impression that for the OEM to uphold their license with MS that they had to tie the OEM copy to a piece of hardware that would be used in the computer.
So even if the OEM License itself does not still say the Hardware requirement, the OEM may have to agree to uphold the hardware requirement License in order to purchase the OEM copies from a Vendor.
However, everyone check on this. If the hardware restriction is lifted it would be a good deal for people that don't have a previous Windows version. However if you already have a copy of Windows (as most people that purchased a computer do), then the Upgrade version would be the best, as the installation allows the OS to be Upgraded and you don't have to do a clean install as you do with the OEM version.
Well thats just plain and simple, not true. My school (along with many other schools) offer the OEM version of Windows XP SP2 for $5(USD) by itself. That's right, $5. They have a deal with Microsoft to do so, and every student is allowed 1 copy of the software for $5. The software says "OEM" right on it and its understood that you aren't a manufacturer at the time of purchase. They also did this with Office and some other software.
Ok, it is VERY possible what you say is true, as MS does work with educational systems to provide offers like this. In an instance like this MS could drop a bunch of any 'packaging' of Windows, and modify the license for your special circumstance.
However, having worked in the OEM world for a long time. If you are a business and 'selling' an OEM copy of Windows without hardware, you are breaking the License and the Law. PERIOD.
The Upgrade version of Windows is about the same price, so there is often little need for businesses to do this, unless the people are building new computer themselves, then it used to be that you could sell the customer a Hard Drive and the OEM copy of Windows to meet the hardware qualifications.
Having spent a bit of time in Amsterdam and also a lot of time in Belgium - I truly understand what you have experienced.
:)
Most of the shops I encountered were not always 'well' informed themselves, let alone able to convey information to their customers. Of course there were several shops that 'did' get it, but it was not the 'common' knowledge with the average computer tech let alone the buyer.
For the majority of my friends, I ended up just finding them a good contact that was an IT professional (like at EDS, etc), and let that person help them.
To this day, your best bet for information is going sadly going to be to cross reference what any shop tells you with what you can lookup online. But this is true of everywhere.
The large 'mass consumer' american stores over here can help consumers because in the large store settings, you usually can find at least on nerd that knows what they are doing, even if they are another customer.
(You could always head over to Wal-Mart in Germany)
The security risks could be eliminated by encrypted the user's home directory, a la Mac OS X.
It's a fantastic feature. I remember Novell Netware had this and we used it a lot to roll back changes to code. It was better than version control when only one person was working on the project.
I wonder if OS X 10.5 was going to have such a feature and it leaked out. This is actually a quasi-innovative idea from Microsoft. Maybe they stole it from Apple via corporate spying.
Ok, you do realize Windows has had encryption for like 10 years now, right? Or are Mac Zealots just naturally unaware of anything without an Apple logo on it?
You also realize this has been in WinXP and Windows 2003 Server for quite some time, so I doubt they stole the idea from OSX 10.5. (geesh)
As for the Versioning in Vista, the new thing is that it is turned on by default and works on local volumes, where WinXP required the data to be on a Windows 2003 Server.
Also, there aren't security risks, and this article is nothing but FUD. Windows Server has had this ability for 'versioning' files since 2003, and BUSINESSES have already been using it.
It also is a great tool, especially when you accidentally nuke a file, or change and save a file you didn't mean to, etc. Versioning archives are more handy than a 'problem'. (Truly)
If you are an employee, don't be doing crap at work, they own the computers, download your goat porn at home and don't be writing your resume while at work.
Also, as an employee if you are half way bright, you can purge the 'versioned' copies, unless the company doesn't allow you to with group policies. And again, it is their computer, so they can do what they freaking want if you work there.
As much as OSX on a server is a contradiction of terms at the best of times, this wasn't an OS level exploit.
This would be in the details... If the Injection only changed data in the database then no it isn't an OSX exploit, but falls at the hands of the Web Server and SQL Server.
However, if they elevated privledges from the injection in some odd way, then it is both the SQL Server and OSX.
Sadly, even as bad as IIS on Windows Server is, we can't blindly believe Apache or non-MS SQL Server solutions are safe, even if running on OpenBSD itself.
Of course this could be some really bad site scripting, but the press will usually point the finger at the wrong party responsible anyway.
provided you use the LATEST version
You mean paid the bug fix ransom money...
If the dealers are selling the OEM version without any hardware, this would still be an illegal copy. The OEM pricing is set to be lower for computer makers, and is not to be sold without hardware.
However the 290euros is also a bit high. You should be able to buy a 'upgrade' version instead of a 'full' version. They are the same, but one requires the machine to have had a version of Windows installed on it before or the CD to prove you own it. (There are two types of 'retail' versions in other words, and most people only need the upgrade version which is about the same price as the OEM version give or take 10-15 Euro.)
Stay way from people selling OEM copies of any company's software unless they are also keeping to the licensing rules and selling it with a new computer or qualifying hardware. The Windows OEM license used to allow it to be purchased if the end user was buying a new hard drive etc.
If they are just selling the OEM software, with most companies this is illegal and would not help in getting your copy to be legitimate. This is also why OEM software often requires a clean install and will not 'upgrade' as it is not ever to be sold in a circumstance to upgrade anything.
If Windows doesn't automatically share libraries between applications then it's a worse operating system than I originally thought.
No, it shares libraries. My post was a bit too brief to explain it properly.
In Win2K and further expanind in WinXP Microsoft introduced a set of technologies to isolate DLLs.
In my reference IE, specifically loads the HTML engine COM DLLs into its own 'isolated' process. This is done for a couple of reasons, but the main one being security.
There are always shared DLLs in Windows with the core Win32 API, but the HTML rendering engine that IE is a wrapper for is not a core Windows API DLL, it is a set of COM DLLs that are included with Windows, but not something that loads into a shared area like something as the font rendering engine does. So each application that uses the IE rendering technology usually runs them in an isolated state, not sharing them with other applications that may also be using them.
Your list on how Linux handles libs is well done. Windows works like this 'in a way', but with the increased amount of 3rd party applications that use 'add-on' shared DLLs, problems occured in Pre Win2k, WinXP - as the versioning of these 3rd Party DLLs (even some from MS, but still considered 3rd party to the OS) caused problems because if Version 2.0 of DLL was loaded, and another application needed Version 3.0 the mapping of the DLL would cause problems.
Win2k and WinXP have mechanisms to isolate out shared DLLs that are external to the OS. (Even OS level DLLs can be isolated as well.) This is what brought a lot of stability to Windows because there was no longer what they call DLL hell, especially on WinXP as its changes were far more reaching than Win2k.
As for the process of how a Win32 application lauches and maps into the shared 'lib', there are some differences from Linux. The main one is that Win32 apps do this through the Win32 Kernel, and not normally through the NT kernel. (NT uses subsystem concepts, so Win32 is like an OS running on the NT OS, and Win32 has its own kernel, etc.)
I hope I didn't confuse this further and provided enough accurate information that if anyone is interested in this could go further with it by reading wiki or documentation at microsoft.com.
Since the executable code is read-only, there is no security problem with allowing both processes to access the data. (mmap() basically tells the kernel to treat the file a bit like swap space).
This is a bit more in depth than the topic, but you can find information on how Windows handles this as well, what is does right and what it does wrong. In theory this is also protected under Windows.
Thanks for the post.
I actually found some good information in your post.
:)
Your information is above average accurate for a SlashDot post, and I truly appreciate your time in responding.
I still stand by my statements about XHTML and CSS in their relation to MS people being originating authors on a lot of the basic specifications. It is just too bad that MS hasn't allowed the IE team to nail the specifications better than they have.
I also think the forced IE7 update is a good thing in the long run, that way it will help get people closer to having a better equipped browser, even if it doesn't provide all that we would want.
My developers restated that IE7 brings *enough* to the table to start large scale implementation of newer CSS and move development over fairly reliably for the first time.
Again, thanks for the post and correcting some of the information I provided, as I did overstate several things with regard to the extent of IE7 hitting standards.
A couple of my developers wanted to smack me upside the head for what I wrote because their reaction was very much like your post. *whoops*
*If you can learn from humility, it isn't quite so bad*
Internet Explorer 7 hasn't got any support for XHTML whatsoever. You are still stuck having to pretend that your XHTML is actually HTML for Internet Explorer to do anything with it.
The CSS improvements are marginal. They've fixed a lot of bugs, but the new functionality is very sparse, it's just selectors I think. The rest of CSS 2 remains unimplemented.
Wow, you must be using a different version that our developers.
'Pretend XHTML'? You are kidding right? MS is one of the companies that wrote XHTML and sure IE6 support sucked, but IE7? Um.... I don't think so. I won't argue it has the best standards implementations, as it tends to support older tags, but that does not mean they ahve left off adding in the new standards 'tags'.
Here go to: http://www.microsoft.com/expression
Watch the Video on Expression Web Designer. It is the new FrontPage so to speak, and is designed to work with IE7 in the long run, and it pushes VERY HARD - XHTML and CSS standards, to the point it will break IE6 if you tell it to comply 100% with standards. They also wouldn't be making such a 'standards' based site development tool if it was going to break IE7. MS isn't stupid.
That isn't why it won't pass the Acid2 test. It won't pass the Acid2 test because that is far too much work for a single major revision. It would require implementing a lot of the CSS that is currently unsupported
This has 'little' to do with WHAT CSS is implemented, but more over what 'foreign and non-standard' CSS and IE specific goofs are allowed. IE7 does a good job of support CSS features, the DRAWBACK is that is STILL supports NON-STANDARD CSS and MS IE standards that when put to the ACID2 test fail.
Microsoft would have to RIP all old tag and old IE6 type CSS support to pass the ACID2 test completely, but that does NOT MEAN that if you write the site with new CSS tags and don't interject things you 'purposely' know will make IE7 behave like IE6 CSS (Bad tag that IE6 would use for example) then the site will not have to have separate CSS coding for IE7 and other browsers.
In the next year!? I wish!
Most sites can only start using them once there aren't many Internet Explorer 7 users left. Bear in mind that work I'm doing today needs Internet Explorer 5.5 compatibility because lots of people still use it, and that a lot of people aren't going to even have the opportunity to upgrade to version 7 because it doesn't run on Windows 2000 or earlier.
I fully expect there to be enough Internet Explorer 6 users hanging around to make life difficult in the year 2010.
Well people shouldn't be running a 'build' so to speak of Windows that is 7 - 10 years old. PERIOD. If you found customers running 1995 Linux or 1998 BSD you would freak and get them up to the newest build for their distribution. PERIOD.
WindowsXP is 5 years old, it is about time people moved to it. It is FASTER than Win2k and FASTER than Win98, plus it is a LOT MORE secure than Win2k or Win98. Leaving your customers on anything prior to WinXP is doinga great disservice to them or leading them to belive that Win2k is Faster or 'good enough' is also hurting them.
If people are 'stuck' on a version of Windows that is pre WinXP, then we need to encourage them to move to FireFox or Opera. PERIOD. This will help the NON-IE market as well for people that refuse to move to XP.
So YES we can start moving to real XHTML and CSS based sites in the next year, and if they come to our site with IE6 or older, we can provide them with older basic functionality or a page FORCING them to get FireFox or make sure they have upgraded to IE7. It really is that simple.
As bigger sites require this, it will move the consumer side market. And if you don't believe that can happen, look at what happened with IE adoption in the 90s or even Flash adoption now, almost every consumer has been through this, and it won't be a hard to get them through it ag
What?? IANAD but here's my take:
Try this & I'm assuming your not daft enough to be using IE as your browser otherwise you get completely different results...go figure.
Open up a Windows Explorer window, run FileMon from Sysinternals. Begin capturing file access & type a URL into the address bar & press return, actually maybe you need to sit down first...
Notice how the window "magically" changes to an IE window. Check the contents of the FileMon capture, shock horror there's nearly nothing there!! Just a few precious dlls are opened, or is FileMon just lying??
Try the same thing but open up a "true" IE window, lots more activity I grant you, but what process is it all running under?? Hmm??
Ok, you can do this in KDE as well.
Here is the part you are missing...
Two thing can occur here. Use the KDE example, the HTML Rendering is loaded into the Shell, this can happen, and IE becomes a child process of Explorer.
However what should occur, is doing what you suggest spins off a new IE process. Which is the modern behavior.
The difference lies in the version of IE and Windows you are using. IE can spawn as a process of Explorer, therefore there is no Application memory allocation or launch process, just the spawning of the IE process. (The child process bit here would make it faster.)
However this example would be like me writing an application that is a text viewer (or whatever) and when the user types in a URL, I use the Mozilla code to drop an HTML Rendering component in my application. It is going to load faster than loading FireFox or Mozilla because it is a child process.
However the Shell flipping to IE and staying in the shell process is an outdated example. Current IE and Windows, it spins off a new process. (This is especially true of IE7 and Vista.) (It also depends on the version of IE and the version of Windows. Also note that you can force IE to be a child process or not just as you can force a folder view in Explorer to be a separate process or not.
But normally on WinXP in the current normal configuration, IE loads to a separate process, and does a full isolated load, just like Firefox being launched would do as well.
PS. Thanks for not just assuming I'm as daft as some of the other posts would like to believe.
Also the really, really strange thing here is that I am trying to demonstrate that IE doesn't have an advantage for memory footprint or load times. The part I haven't been able to voice, is that on average, FireFox does use less RAM than IE, and the load time for FireFox can sometimes be faster or slower than IE.
I don't see FireFox as some bloated piece of software, that is why I find it really strange that people are trying to 'excuse' the memory it uses by stating that IE has an advantage. Most of the time in Taskmgr, (or pick your favorite tool) IE is using as much Memory as FireFox if not more.
FireFox really isn't bloated, so there is no reason to push the myth that IE has an advantage.