"Analyzing one of American corporate history's greatest mysteries - the lost decade of Microsoft - two-time George Polk Award winner (and V.F.'s newest contributing editor) Kurt Eichenwald traces the 'astonishingly foolish management decisions' at the company that 'could serve as a business-school case study on the pitfalls of success'."
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Member since:2005-07-08
Member since:2006-01-08
Member since:2007-08-22
Redmond Desktop Linux was a breeze to install. You even got to play solitaire while it did its thing.
And yes, I installed that around the same time I did a test install of WinXP. Neither survived - WinXP because I couldn't stand it, RDL because it didn't have any developer tools so it wasn't of much use.
Member since:2012-03-14
if you don't have the cd then it's pretty sure that it will be difficult and time consuming. Apple for example provides a way to do that now with Lion but before you would run in the same issues you did with Microsoft.
Either you pay for your OS and you need to have the media and license, or you don't and then you can just download it. Windows install is a pain i agree, but your specific case was not their fault.
Member since:2012-01-13
"Have you ever tried installing any other operating system besides Linux?" Yes, besides many Linux distros I have (re)installled various Windows versions and some OSX-versions. Oh - and DOS in the past :-)
Linux has great online repositories. OSX at least gives you the CD. Windows you often get pre-installed, that is: legal, with license codes, but without (!) a CD. Yes it is possible to re-install even without the CD, but why for Wodan's sake does it have to be so complicated?
Well, it's a Microsoft thing. I installed an MS Office version on a friend's PC. Next day he calls: his Outlook doesn't start. Turns out that MS Word is the editor (wtf?) for Outlook, and that his Outlook (Dutch language version) does not play nice with the new MS Office (English language version). We're talking new, year 2010, 2011 software here. The concept "language packs" is common practice in OSX, Linux etc. But Microsoft want to complicate things here..... sigh...
Member since:2009-08-18
Member since:2006-07-04
Member since:2005-08-18
Although in all fairness the XP installation is rather complicated compared to a modern Linux distro (and maybe Windows 7/8, I dunno about that).
On the other hand, if you compare the XP installation with a Linux distro from the same time XP was released....yeah, Linux does not fare so well in that comparison.
What this really mean is that both Linux and Windows has made great progress since and complaining about the XP installation process today is a bit pointless
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?
Member since:
2012-01-13
This weekend I tried to reinstall Windows XP on my daughters laptop. Coming from a Linux background, I was shocked to see what a complicated and time consuming process this turned out to be.......Especially if you do have a legitimate license, but not the original CD (lost). Simple jobs made very complicated, that is what Microsoft seems to excell at......
Is it incompetence? Or - worse - was this intented to be? Are there really developers with Microsoft whose job it is to complicate stuff beyond compehension?