Microsoft Offers Peek Into Newest Windows

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

[ALS]

Win2k Pro is the way to go

[Paleo Conservative]

They'll be forced into either XP or the later versions, just like now, they're offering Win2K on business machines as a special order.

My biggest gripe about how fast Microsoft puts out new versions of their operating system is how incompatible the new versions can be with existing software. I have a $40k software package I work with that did not have XP compatibility till early this year. Apparently Microsoft decided to rewrite all its math function DLL's to improve security. Trying to run the Windows 2K version on XP resulted in getting erroneous mathematica results, which meant that if you were buying a new machine to run it back in December, you would definitely have needed to order a machine running Windows 2K.

[oceanview]

The John Q publics are not buying a new PC every 3 years, business users are, and they could go to Linux.

We are going to see the ill effects of the Bush Justice department not aggressively pursuing the monopoly judgement against msft.

[Gforce11]

I am talking about those stores too...Yes I agree that some EB stores have completely shelved computer games in favor of Video games...but thats the company's choice. Its more of a response to THEIR customers rather than the market forces. But PC games are the dominant market in the gaming industry.

[dennisw]

Win 2000 is faster and leaner then XP. But XP has one thing I really like. Cleartype fonts that work great for LCD monitors. So much sharper.

[Gforce11]

What monopolistic practices are you talking about??

[eno_]

That depends: The improved plug & play and multimedia are a big deal for gamers and power users. XP also brought "Home Edition" which was the first NT-kernel derivative OS for the home (at a lower price point than 2k). Other than that, XP is not a major advance over 2k.

[Paleo Conservative]

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

You're right. Remember this?

Windows 95 = Machintosh 88

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

The computer has been completely displaced as the favored game platform for graphic intensive games. So that engine generating increasing demand for more and more video capability no longer exists.

Bwahahahahahaha!!! Please! Find me a "box" console that can run a modern FPS game at 1600 by 1200 with 6x AA and 16x anisotropic filtering and still get 40 fps. My P4 2.66 w/ Radeon 9700Pro can. The Xbox or PS2 would be getting .5 frames per second...

Developers LOVE consoles, because coding for consoles takes all of the compatability issues out of the equation. But the average console still doesn't get half the performance of a P3 with an old 3dfx Voodoo5 card in it (especially since Microshaft contracted Nvidia to provide the graphics chips for the Xbox... with technology Nvidia bought from 3dfx).

If you want full graphics quality on any modern game, you can't do it with console level hardware. Half Life 2 or Doom3 (both due out in this year) would bury a console in 2 seconds...

[dennisw]

An IBM DeathStar.

[oceanview]

the ones the court found they had engaged in.

[Petronski]

Today I have a movie and recording studio on my desktop. Not to mention access to the world publishing via the WEB!

Since none of these requires WinXP, I kindly disagree. ;)

[Paleo Conservative]

Other than that, XP is not a major advance over 2k.

If you run a DOS window in Windows 2000, and run the "VER" command, Windows will report that you are running version 5.00. If do the same thing in XP, Windows will report that you are running version 5.1. Obviously Microsoft doesn't think they are that much different. Also, Win 2K is more compatible with older and slower hardware than is Windows XP.

[rdb3]

The Penguin Ping.

Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!

Got root?

[Petronski]

Cleartype fonts that work great for LCD monitors. So much sharper.

Yes, cleartype is very cool technology.

I use hacked copies of TTF fonts that force the 'font smoothing' built in to Win98 right down to 4 point type.

It's a crude substitute for cleartype, but it eliminates the sawtooth thing, and is a huge improvement over 'stock.'

[Petronski]

I love the graphic, but now I feel compelled to ask: was that picture composed on a Linux machine?

[Paleo Conservative]

I would wait until the 3rd party vendors have caught up on virus software, defrag and backup before making the transition.

Excellent advice.

[rdb3]

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.

Ummmm... DHCP anyone?

Doing bad things to bad people...

[Gforce11]

Right and which ones are those??

[oceanview]

is this a joke? you can start here and search for more articles about the details of the settlement, what practices they were have found to have engaged in. the fact that the remedies had no teeth does not mean the findings regarding their practices were not true.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/pcworld/20030506/tc_pcworld/110593