Microsoft finally woke up and realized that people aren’t going to pay their usual rate for OEM copies of Windows when the PC itself is under $200, so they’ve decided to allow those computers to run Windows XP — the previous (and in many peoples’ opinion, better) version of Windows — instead of ceding the market to Linux. I don’t think it’s going to help them though.
Rumor has it that they’re frantically pushing to get the post-Vista version of Windows (presently simply called “Windows 7”) out as quickly as they can. That might help them stave off obsolescence, if they drop the user-hostile DRM code and produce something at least as good as Windows XP SP2… but I wouldn’t take bets on it.
Who knows, Windows ME and XP were a year apart, after all. I’d tend to doubt they could get it done in a years time without even a beta out, however.
Not if they want to produce something good, certainly. And Windows ME and XP were two different products — WinME was built on the Win9x codebase, just before it was scrapped.
Hm… MS is talking about scrapping the XP codebase now too. Maybe that explains why Vista is so poor?
Only one problem, when they scrapped the Win9x codebase, they had the mediocre (compared to say OS/2 or in its fundamentals BSD and Linux) but usable NT code-base to fall back on. Now they don’t really have an alternate code base, the server product is also Vista-based now. So if they “start from scratch” for the next consumer Windows they’ll really be starting from scratch. Creating a new version of Windows “in a year” that way, no matter how much resources they have to throw at the task, will be like using nine women to make a baby in one month. (See: “The Mythical Man-Month.”, which, incidentally, was about insights from the making of IBM OS/360.) It can’t be done. They just barely have the first milestone produced, a beta is far away.
No, Bill Gates is making marketing statements. “Don’t move to Mac or Linux! Just wait! The next version is just around the corner, and unlike previous versions, it won’t suck!” They’ve been playing that game for years. 🙂
There’s talk that this “MinWin” design is the core of Windows 7. That’s apparently already done, so it’s possible they could get a new version out in a year… just not real likely.
And yes, it could well be Big Bill’s FUD machine at work, but I’m happy to say that a lot of people are getting wise to that trick. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.“
Has MinWin ever been beta tested? If not, I doubt even that, an OS kernel, is ready.
Apparently they think it will be. 🙂
Interesting. GUI out of the kernel, networking in? Sounds like it should be called LinWin. 😉
I’ve posted on it on my website. 🙂
Here’s another one you might consider, or at least read: Gartner: Windows collapsing under its own weight; Radical change needed. And this one supports my earlier contention that a lot of people are going to skip Vista entirely, mostly on the advice of the family computer guru.
On an earlier point… if you recall, when Windows 95 and NT4 shipped, the GUI was supposed to be a replaceable add-on. MS apparently abandoned that idea, perhaps because they found that no one was willing to create such a replacement, due to the undocumented internals and the obvious and continuing reliance on MS’s tolerance and goodwill.
Anyway, it just makes sense to get the GUI code out of the kernel. Most of the problems these days (other than viruses and worms) are either in the GUI or in third-party drivers; if neither were able to damage the kernel, Windows machines would be a lot more stable. I’m not sure what kind of effect that will have on the speed and responsiveness of Windows systems, though.
On your first of the last two comments, that poll is interesting, its nice to know that experts (like us 😉 ) are listened to over marketing. Responsiveness should be more than good enough without the graphics being in the kernel, Linux graphics are decent in speed with the proper drivers; certainly less resource intensive than what Vista does now! Of course, considering the ineptitude of MS in the past, them being able to pull off good performance with the graphics more isolated is more problematic than say Linux or Apple doing it.
My apologies, since I emailed you about this, but you seem a bit incommunicado lately. I’ve heard of gmail delays of up to three days because of their captcha getting cracked, is that it? I’m thinking again about getting Apple though, a Mac Mini, which is the price of a typical PC though a bit under-specced (I can get a USB external drive enclosure to run the new hard drive you sent, I saw one for $30, and/or add any external USB hard drive for cheap to get more space – that’s the one hardware concern I have with a Mini, and I’d then have available automatic and easy to use and powerful backups too with time machine.)
I saw Parallels in action on YouTube on a low-end Mac, wow, a 3D cube with multi-desktops, each a different OS (multi desktops in general are part of the OS since 10.5, expose and 3rd party multi-desktop solutions earlier, but maybe that runs on tiger too if the app is doing it) or one screen sharing apps with 3OSs or more running. 😎 You’re probably familiar with that…
With a Core 2 Duo, the virtualization would perform well too – and at a lower price than on a PC with more (useful) features. (They must price it cheaper because they know Mac consumers want that.)) Dual booting either Windows, Linux, *BSD, or all of the above is possible too; for when you need 3D apps mostly, though 3D support is coming to either VMWare or Parallels, forget which.
The drawback? Hardware options are somewhat less, though 100% of the hardware I have now, ‘cept probably my low-end GeForce FX 5200, would run fine. My printer, camera, and of course my music player, all have support. Actually, in the case of my latest hobby, music, OSX includes Garage Band, which supports most USB and MIDI based devices, including the ones I’m interested in. My current hardware is inadaquate for that application, my CPU runs out of steam using guitar synthesis software, and Macs come with the latter free too (Garage Band), and the same software I used in demo mode has an OSX version too.
More drawbacks? OSX is less secure out of the box to those few hackers who target it, but I’d avoid Safari; run FF with NoScript, run the BSD firewall, maybe with a front end, there’s a good one that’s GPL I found, rather than the new partially broken Leopard firewall that always allows ntpd and samba access (though this isn’t exploited – yet, but since they include BSD’s ipfw, which is what Tiger utilized, no problem), and update the OS right way to get rid of the Leopard copying bug, and all the documented stuff I know of would basically go away. What do you think? Am I going crazy or what? (Well, as you know, I’ve already gone. 😉 ) Maybe my iPod Nano has a built-in reality distortion field?
The thing is, my music hobby is poorly supported by Linux. Else I’d run Linux full-time, and I need new hardware, and actually Macs virtualize Linux better (or sexier at least) than PCs at this point; I could be a keystroke away from Linux running at a decent clip! (My old Pentium 4 doesn’t virtualize stuff fast at all. 🙁 )
My 6 year old computer is slow, it runs out of CPU when running guitar simulation software, and the tax man giveth half the price of it this year, so I’m seriously thinking of finally getting a new computer. If I get a PC, I’ll be dual-booting Windows and Linux probably, and running an operating system with no future (Windows XP) coupled with an OS (Linux) that doesn’t support an important hobby to me (well, it has software that does guitar synthesis. I’ve tried it, it is so bad it almost makes one sick to the stomach listening to it. 😉 )
Or I could get a Mac, have Windows and Linux virtualized or dual booting well, and have a new OS to play with that does what I need. I’d thought I wouldn’t want one, especially due to games, but I’ve found that, as in the past, I am bad at games, and a few ones I like have MacOS ports. I never ended up getting many games, and out of the couple I play often, all but one run in MacOSX too; and one can always dual-boot Windows with boot camp.
There must be a flaw in my reasoning, Head Geek…. Is there?
Hmm, I should mention that VMWare Fusion is pretty featureful too, and upon research a lot more stable than Parallels at the same price. (Plus actually cheaper because of a $20 rebate, making it $59US.) So I’d probably get it instead. 🙂 It even can run a separate partition as a VM image, meaning I can make a separate partition with Boot Camp, then not have to add Windows/Linux to my main partition too with separate data, additional space needs, etc. 🙂 It runs Windows, Linux, and OSX programs side by side. It even can run some DirectX 8 game software, though it remains to be seen how good that is…? (GW I would think would be DX9.) To run Windows, I’d need to of course get Windows XP separately as I only have recovery disks; thus paying two evil companies at once. 😉 (Yes, I’m well aware that Apple is evil. So is IBM, so is Dell, so is Intel, so is the average corporation. I am looking at my purchasing decision purely from a rational perspective – I need XYZ, so I need to get XYZ. I’d love to run only Linux, but I need to run a niche of commercial software; a niche supported well on Apple as well as Windows, and not supported well by my old computer. Considering that Apple comes with some of said commercial niche software (guitar synthesis) for free, that makes it cost-competitive, even slightly cheaper. Plus its virtualization rocks, a necessity for a distro-hopper.)
It isn’t a GMail problem, I’ve just been extremely busy so e-mail has taken a back seat for the last few days.
I don’t see any flaw in your reasoning. The only reason I suggest to some people to avoid Apple is if they run programs that don’t virtualize well, such as many Windows games, for instance. You’re not tied to Windows, so it should work fine for you. If they’re cheap enough, and you’ve got the money to spare, go for it!
The “Fusion” feature of VMware is coming for us non-Mac users too — it’s already in the latest beta version. 🙂 I haven’t tried it, I’m waiting for the final version, but I’m eager to use it when it’s ready.
I hope you’re busy for enjoyable reasons.
VMWare Fusion’s betas and RCs for Macs are free. Though I don’t know how stable those are. Speaking of free, Apple’s developer subscriptions, beta operating systems, full-featured advanced developer IDE (they include the media for it with every Mac), and other stuff like that, are free too. They are desperate. 😉 It’s too bad the iPhone has a more restricted ecosystem, I don’t know what is going through Steve Job’s arrogant mind. 😉 The Mac Mini I’m looking at is 699 including memory expansion, over 750 including NYC and NY State sales taxes (!). That’s not an expensive computer, is it? OSX will run more than well on its core 2 duo.
About the only problem is some 3D games, I’ll probably have to drop my neglected Guild Wars game even dual-booting on the Mini, it has intel 950 graphics. (Their macbook laptop (not the expen$ive but tricked out MB Pro) has x3something intel integrated graphics, but that’s not good enough either so why bother if I never move my computer anywhere? Though the Mini is easily movable, it’s 3 pounds, but it needs a monitor, etc.
What Apple needs to make is a cheap minitower, but that’s not the Great One’s philosophy. (It’s for things like that that the company needed the Woz, who insisted, over Job’s objections, on the Apple II being very expandable.) Maybe Jobs is right though, their laptops far outsell their desktops. I hardly ever get internal hardware though, and one doesn’t really want a Mac at all if one needs to buy video cards; unless they spend a lot of time dual-booting, something I want to avoid! I might be keeping my other computer for a while anyway, the Mini’s small enough to have room for both! (Though to have a dedicated, essentially, Guild Wars machine?) That could be interesting… The Mini, if I were into that, is also a perfect media-center sort of machine. Small, quiet, Media-Center sort of software, the capabilities of Apple TV and more, etc. Great for the living room, if it weren’t my primary computer, and if my TV was HDTV.
I could move the other computer to the living room, with a cheap monitor (stupid to throw away the old one now), but to do that I’d want to run ethernet over; I don’t know how well a G router would be for GW. Or maybe run DSL’d phone wire over there, and use wireless for the Mini’s built in wireless. The problem is I have 3 others in the apartment though, two of which like TV all the time. Maybe if I got headphones? I’d probably get roasted though if I got another monitor for that. Sounds like a waste of time and money for a game I play twice a week to once every two weeks.
About get it. Maybe I should also order a black turtleneck and practice being arrogant. 😉
Whatever blows your kilt up. 🙂
A black turtleneck and kilt, weird combo.
I’ve seen stranger combos. 😉