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Really? Do you have data to back this up, or are you just talking out of your ass? Would love to see how Wine does with the latest DX10 games.

Really? Do you have data to back this up, or are you just talking out of your ass? Would love to see how Wine does with the latest DX10 games. "

Props. I didn't want to say it, because I haven't done it, but I've heard both sides of that coin.

I'm still amazed at how many people love Java and hate DOT.NET. Java compatability between versions is rediculous, not to mention its a complete hog with resources. DOT.NET on the other hand is a hugely scalable and has cross language compatability: kernel level API written in C/C++, Front End API written in ASP/C#/VB and complete integration in between. You can make calls from C# into VB modules or C/C++ binaries or references to C/C++ Header files. Hell you can even utilize Java and Javascript inline or by reference. And what Win32 'crud'? The only issue I've ran into with non-support in writing Win32 Binaries have been where I was trying to utilize old calls due to my own lack of education in an area.(WOW/WOW16/etc..) Granted there are bugs, but name one OS that doesn't have some malformed code?



?? An intesting undertaking.. I'll give you that. Likeliness to happen borderlines on never. Why reinvent an already well engineered product.



If you want to play games, buy a PS3 or a Wii. The reality is Gaming will always play a slow role in moving into new OSs. XP was the same way. If WINE works for you sweet. The general populous on the other hand... not going to happen. And PCs make really low end gaming systems in comparison to consoles. The OS layer consumes far too many resources to avidly be able to take use of the hardware for serious gaming. Consoles are far more efficient, and far less $ per proc cycle of use.

And yes, I wrote this from my Windows Vista PC (Which happens to also be 6 years old, and has no issues supporting Vista fully.)

... I know.. I know.. zealot right? I also have a Thinkpad with OS 10.5.1 on it and a ESX server with several flavors of Unix/Linux, so please keep the name calling to a minimum.

WINE is NOT an emulator.

But yes, WINE CAN run a lot of things that Vista can't.

To be fair, WINE also crashes a lot of things that Vista doesn't.

Edited 2008-06-30 05:38 UTC

The NT kernel itself is quite good. However, what kills Windows is (a) 3rd party drivers (e.g. non-Microsoft provided drivers) for hardware such as video cards, sound cards, NICs, and various chipsets - yep, about the whole system; if you have good hardware with good drivers you're fine - and usually the Microsoft Certified drivers are good drivers - in terms of being friendly with the OS and not crashing the thing. (Keyword: usually)

(b) The Win32 API. As far as security goes - it's just horrid. For example, any application can modify any other application's GUI interface without necessarily having permission from the originating application. (Don't that before to get passwords; a little harder now since they did fix that by using encrypted text for the text box when its designated as a password text box; but it can still be captured without permission.)

Honestly, they need to get take the whole Win32 API and deprecate it; and start a new API that has security as its foundation. Keep it around for legacy support; put it in a sandbox even so it can't harm newer applications. And they could do that. (And no, the .NET API does not qualify since it basically calls back to Win32 to begin with.) The required functionality is already a center piece to the NT kernel since the Win32 API is one of a number of APIs (including a POSIX specific API) that the NT kernel supports natively through a DLL extension. There's nothing saying they couldn't create a WinNG (Next-Generation) API and support it alongside (at the same level) as the Win32 API; and move developers over to it - leaving the Win32 API there for legacy and basically unchanged. Developers will move; even if forced.

The likelihood of Microsoft doing that - near zilch.

It doesn't have to (as the mono guys have proven).

BTW, GUI alternatives are no better. E.g. it is way too easy for one X11 app to crash the whole sessions (in fact, much easier than to crash WinXP GUI).

I am not sure about MacOS X here, but since it follows basically same coding paradigms, I would not be surprised it shares same problems.

In reality, I believe that bad security of GUIs is somehow caused by its very purpose:

Advanced GUI is about sharing between applications (mouse, keyboard, clipboard, objects etc...). Wherever is sharing, there is insecurity. Security is about isolation - but not many users would welcome "isolated" GUI....

So, do suggest that all Windows software, including e.g. OpenOffice or FireFox, is to be rewritten?

Can you imagine the real impact of obsoleting Win32?

And, BTW, Win32 has security in its foundation. Maybe later, to allow users to do what they need to do (like sharing clipboard etc...) they have softened the approach.