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Microsoft is cautious on XP's successor | |
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| Time: 03:42 EST/08:42 GMT | News Source: International Herald Tribune | Posted By: Alex Harris | ||
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Ten years ago, Microsoft unveiled Windows 95 in a way that suggested that the product's arrival was no less momentous than when humans stood upright for the first time. The company spent about $200 million introducing the operating system. That paid for festivities on the Microsoft campus, rights to use the Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up" in a global advertising campaign and permission to bathe the Empire State Building at night with the Windows logo. What was remarkable about the Windows 95 introduction was the acquiescence of customers, who took part so willingly in the spectacle. | ||
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| #1 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 4/11/2005 11:59:57 AM |
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#1--yes, it's hard to look at it now and see it as anything other than old, but for all its failings, it's all too easy to forget what a leap forward it was for PC users.
Pretty interesting article overall, but I don't quite get the single-sentence, near-afterthought "Linux is the answer" thrown in at the end. It seems an all-too-rare occurrence that a tech author has the presence of mind to admit that their criticisms of the company often put it in a catch-22 position--"Microsoft really needs to implement better security!!" but "we want backwards-compatibility with our old, insecure applications!!" and "We don't want feature bloat!!" but "Why should I buy Longhorn if it contains few new features?!" etc. etc. Interesting, too, that the author suggests that there is seemingly no reason to upgrade from XP--which is precisely what many were saying about prior versions of Windows when XP came out. It's funny that the author makes the point that there's definitely a "good enough" mentality among customers--"Unless the TV doesn't turn on, they won't replace them"--but then suggests that they would replace them with a Linux box because the development is faster? If you're going to sum up an article by suggesting an alternative, you should spend some time on showing why that alternative is better (using some real examples), and contrast it against your previous talking points that lead to the suggestion of that alternative. Telling the reader that people aren't going to replace Windows because they don't care about new features, then suggesting that people need the alternative of Linux because of a faster development model for new features--without any evidence to prove that it is indeed a faster model, let alone that it has lead to any new features not already present in Windows--just makes no sense at all. |
| #2 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 4/11/2005 1:35:43 PM |
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msucks: to some users, win2k is enough.
Of course. So why, then, the suggestion to migrate to Linux for the supposed faster feature development? |
| #3 By 8556 (12.217.161.186) at 4/11/2005 1:37:00 PM |
| It is difficult not to be cautious when the EU is taxing MS under the guise of advantageous product positioning as a monopoly. Half a million bucks because Media Player was included? Ridiculous! Due to predatory government activities many existing and new features may be made available only as a free download. Time will tell. |
| #4 By 17996 (12.175.5.133) at 4/11/2005 1:40:53 PM |
| msucks: Longhorn is NT 6.0, not 5.3. There's a lot of significant changes coming compared to those between 2000/XP/2003. |
| #5 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 4/11/2005 4:43:00 PM |
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get rid of DOS completely
Have you tried Monad? It's a HUGE leap over DOS. However, I think folks will still pull up cmd.exe occasionally for a variety of reasons--it's simpler to use for some tasks, and more familiar for... well, probably everybody at this point. most of those improvements will be backported to the previous windows versions Indigo and Avalon will be ported to XP according to MS, and that is probably a good thing for both XP and Longhorn (it should drive software development on the platform). When you consider how many companies are on W2k on the desktop, Longhorn should enjoy a significant uptake; Microsoft knows all too well that their best competition is their own previous versions. On the other hand, I think MS has been a little too shy (perhaps because some of these things aren't nailed down yet) about communicating the differences in this new version, and it isn't helpful that they touted Indigo, Avalon, WinFS, and "fundamentals" (mumble mumble) as the pillars of the OS. Yet, in the materials you find from the breakout sessions, blogs, etc., it's pretty clear that there are many other significant differences coming in Longhorn. As well there should be--they've only had how many years to work on it, now? ;) In some respects it may end up looking like XP vs. 98 in terms of the OS, with Indigo and Avalon like the .NET framework. Undoubtedly, XP is a better OS than 98, yet you can use the .NET framework on both. We'll just have to wait and see. And probably to linux too. You never tire of trolling, do you. |
| #6 By 61 (65.32.174.229) at 4/11/2005 9:25:56 PM |
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msucks: "Features" are not what is being backported. Foundations to the features built into Longhorn will be backported, and that is a big difference.
There are many other things than what is being backported that are being done to Longhorn, like LUA, rewriting of many OS parts in .NET, new UI, etc... these things are not being backported. |
| #7 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 4/12/2005 2:41:46 AM |
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#2, Excellent points. Few technologies - especially those which are as complex as Windows, do not evolve substantively. Simpler devices, say, can openers do not. Few reasons aside from a broken device like a can opener, compell getting a new one. Windows is very different and the differences and evolution far surpase features. Fundamental changes are so many that it is very difficult to address them here - in a single thread. How LH will work as a host opposite SW built with equally evolved tools is perhaps the biggest difference. In isolation, the evolution is compelling enough on its own, but as part of a platform upgrading to LH becomes more than compelling, it becomes exciting and that drives interest and demand.
After reading editorials and the technical information about LH, I often wonder if I am reading about the same technology... On one hand one see's opinion and advocacy and on the other, the LH side, I see amazing technical achievements designed to really help people. Let's take for example "security" and policies of least permissive. It's so easy to say, look at Darwin, er MAC, or a *nix and see how that is done..., or worse, see how XP does not do that natively [not as if Run As is not the same thing....]. Set that aside and all opinion and look at just one aspect in LH, the way .ini is accessed and managed - win.ini for example and the way LH development provides for not only least permissive security, but also a butter smooth transition for users across the permissions model. That is, it is so evolved that it is smart enough to know that what a restricted user is trying to do is "safe" - say, installing a simply children's game. Under LH, bahaviors drive the OS, drive develoment and are available within tools to allow developers to build on this model. This one small area, is so subtle, but so fundamental, that it alone would be reason enough to upgrade. It isn't of course restricted to that by any means. I hope many people would take a closer and different look at LH and see that it is not "just" as evolutionary as Win 95, but much more so. |
| #8 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 4/13/2005 1:05:14 PM |
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Quux--there will definitely be a command-line interface (yes, the DOS reference was more accurately to cmd.exe) in LH. It is called MSH (code-named Monad)--do a search for Monad on Google, or even get the beta and start giving it a whirl (you'll also need the beta of the .NET Framework 2.0). It's pretty wild--definitely a radical upgrade from cmd.exe, and something to put Windows CLI administration on par with, if not a step ahead of, Unix CLI admin.
At the same time, I think cmd.exe will still be an option--there are so many scripts out there that would be useless without it, so I can't imagine Microsoft wouldn't put it in there (or even continue to improve it) for backwards compatibility. Plus, it will probably be easier to use for some simpler tasks. But definitely look into Monad--though I think it will be made available for XP as well, the inclusion of it in LH will make the upgrade a boon to admins. |
| #9 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 4/13/2005 5:27:28 PM |
| Incidentally, ipconfig and ipconfig -all still work in MSH (at least in the beta version I'm running). But there will probably still be some things for which MSH is overkill, and it will probably require a bit more in terms of resources (RAM, if nothing else) than CMD.exe. |
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