Microsoft Offers Peek Into Newest Windows

Yahoo! News Technology ^ | 5/18/03 | Reed Stevenson - Reuters

[Petronski]

It's a Microsoft - Intel conspiracy and the consumer is the loser:

Intel fights to make constantly faster and more powerful processors to make our software run better.
Microsoft sees newer/faster processors as machines with extra cycles that need to be exploited.

The result is lardware like XP, which makes ludicrously fast computer systems seem pedestrian.

Windows completely fulfilled the 'must-have' computer feature set with windows 98SE, and made it rock stable with Win2000. Sorry, no more upgrade money from me.

[Mark]

Since Palladium also makes it easier for Microsoft to track users and locate illegal copies of its software,...

Why can't we just give them copies of the keys to our houses?

[Terpfen]

Instead of wiggling windows, can they just make the damn thing stop crashing? Just use Linux and build up on that or something.

[Myrddin]

I'm happy with Windows 2000. I've seen no compelling need to go with XP. Nothing in the Longhorn announcement is particularly compelling either. The new filesystem will take a few releases to be stable. I would wait until the 3rd party vendors have caught up on virus software, defrag and backup before making the transition.

[Timesink]

The world's largest software maker is betting that users will be ready to upgrade within the next couple of years as personal computers become more powerful, faster and affordable.

That's a damn stupid bet given that we've already reached the point where most users simply don't need the extra power, and certainly won't pay more to get it ... and the "faster" computers will of course remain more expensive. Only about 50-60% of the people I know ever even upgraded to XP. Why would they jump to Longhorn? Especially when the biggest "benefit" will be eye candy? Translucent windows! Whee! I know that's why I upgraded to Mac OS X, so I could play with the opacity of the windows.

And all these points are nothing when compared to Palladium, the Mother of All Privacy Violators. Once the public gets wind of that, MS is going to have a PR nightmare on its hands.

[Izzy Dunne]

The individual windows in Longhorn will be semi-translucent, making it possible to discern the contents of one window hidden behind another.

Wow Windows 2005 has features of Macintosh 2001 !
Microsoft is shortening their "design" cycle !

[eno_]

If it's just Palladium plus a knock off of the OS X desktop, Microsoft is going to enter an era of market share erosion.

[sackofcatfood]

Well, well, Microsoft is finally catching up to Linux with a journaled file system. Too bad they're so far behind in everything else. . .

[Timesink]

Bloatware! Spyware! Eveningvear! ping!

[Poohbah]

As always, games will drive the hardware to its limits.

[Timesink]

Well, well, Microsoft is finally catching up to Linux with a journaled file system. Too bad they're so far behind in everything else. . .

Except Linux and OS X don't send the contents of the journal back to "headquarters."

[Timesink]

As always, games will drive the hardware to its limits.

Yes, but that's a limited market.

[Myrddin]

I like the move to the .Net common language runtime. You can add that to Windows 2000 and later. It fixes DLL hell and gives a consistent, garbage collected set of libraries to all front end languages. C# gives you the best of C++ and Java concepts. I'm still using Java in servlets where appropriate, but I prefer C#/managed C++ for most new work.

[Gforce11]

Eh, why can't they have Palladium? It is after all their OS...they own it..and they can do whatever they want to it. If you guys don't like the privacy thing or something just don't upgrade.

Also you'd be surprised at how many people have OLD Pcs running 9.x/2000. Those are the people that will be upgrading their hardware as well as the new OS.

[gitmo]

I've tried to make my 4 XP systems crash. It's quite stable. I regularly unplug my laptop from our lan, take it to a meeting (still running), plug it into a lan connection and continue working like nothing happened.

I run it on multiple LANs seamlessly.

I thought I had a major XP crash, and was cursing MS. It turned out to be a fatal disk problem.

[Poohbah]

Yes, but that's a limited market.

All markets are "limited."

[Timesink]

All markets are "limited."

And some markets are more limited than others.

Market for PCs: big.

Market for cutting edge PCs that cost >$3K just so their owners can shoot their weapons in Quake XXXIV 3/1000ths of a second faster than their opponents: small.

[Gforce11]

Yes it is...with obviously an upgraded look, design, and much more stable and imporved than 2000's Kernel, imo.