The calendar turns over and Windows is now 20 years young. Although Redmond has plenty of changes slated for the upcoming Vista release, what would you wish for in Windows if you could wave a magic wand? The analysts of eWEEK Labs offer a “what-if” remaking of Windows history.
Wish List for Windows on Its Twentieth Birthday
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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– Improved security, but that goes without saying
– Some of the features from Directory Opus (including tabs, aliases, and flat file view) built into Windows Explorer.
– More flexability with the Windows taskbar
– More ways to customize the GUI without needing TweakUI and similar tools
– Better multi-tasking, especially when reading from the CD-ROM drive
– Ability to easily slipstream all current hotfixes and drivers for my machine into the install disc
– BETTER COMMAND SHELL
In other words, most of the stuff that Linux has already
Having these features plus the apps I love in Windows would be a great combination.
Excellent suggestions. The “better multitasking” is a big one. Almost the entire UI locks up when an optical drive is having trouble reading a disc. The same goes for browsing for workgroups/computers.
I would also like to add “deconvoluted system architecture” to the list. As it stands right now, Windows is so amazingly complex that when something breaks, it breaks for good. Unless you’re a Windows engineer, you have no chance of repairing a deep problem. If they were to simplify the architecture of Windows, it would make things like repairs, spyware, and security that much easier to manage.
For instance, recently I was helping a friend fix a completely FUBAR’ed Windows machine. I mean, this thing was full to the brim of crazy spyware that was disallowing access to virtually everything under the sun. We set out to investigate where some of this shit was being loaded from, and I was amazed to see that there are probably about 12 places in the registry *alone* where spyware can put its EXEs/DLLs so that they are loaded at specific times. That’s just effing pathetic. In OS X there are basically two places where stuff can get loaded on boot. The same goes for Linux and FreeBSD.
Why does Windows have to be so damned complicated? Make it simpler. The other stuff will follow.
Backwards compatibility plus new ideas for 20 years…
When something is shown to be bad on Mac or *nix, they cut it (well, not always, but stuff like this yes; obviously cutting posix functions could be a nightmare).
Backwards compatibility with what? Older spyware? 😉
No, I know what you mean. The thing is, Microsoft is very resourceful. They have lots of money, and they have many a smart person working for them — why can’t they come up with a better system for this? They could do something like what Apple did with OS X and Classic.
The next version of Windows could have a completely simplified architecture, and for any “legacy” applications, you could start a compatibility layer that does not touch the new Windows at all. Eventually, all applications would migrate to the new system, and there’d be much joy and love in the world.
Maybe.
I suggested something almost identical a few days ago.
So except for our different opinions about linux, we have something in common 🙂
The Microsoft of today I think would be more apt to just say “forget it, update your code ya bums!”
The Microsoft of 5-15 years ago was much more into keeping things compatible. Some of the compatibility stuff Microsoft has done goes faaar beyond what OS X does to work with OS Classic. They set aside special process profiles for some programs… I mean, programs like SimCity get special notice when it comes to memory protection…
I’d be all for them saying “ok, we’re changing stuff, deal, update.” But Microsoft isn’t user focused, they’re developer focused. I’m still in shock that they’re actually cutting off the VB6 guys!
Looks like what sappyvcv and I was talking about a few weeks ago. I think the idea about a compatibilty layer or a sandbox environment for old legacy apps is something everybody (at least everybody here) wants.
It would make a it possible to have a much simpler windows architecture, and that’s what I want (and proper scaling and proper support for drag’n’drop).
That’s what OS/2 did to run DOS and Windows 3.x programs — while the DOS kernel was virtualized by default, it literally ran a rewritten copy of Windows 3.1 in an isolated virtual machine. Worked very well.
A similar thing would easily be done with Win32. Heck, that’s what VMWare and friends already do to a certain extent, and with enough horsepower perhaps a VMWare code would be enough. Microsoft already owns Virtual PC.
They wouldn’t even need something as isolated as VMware. VMware virtualizes everything in a common PC — processor, hard drives, buses, network card, etc. That’s where most of the CPU cycles go. All they would need to virtualize for a sandbox environment is the operating environment — make the sandbox think that it is God Almighty in its own little space.
Yeah… a real emulator for Win32 would be overkill.
A sandbox was the idea sappyvcv and I were discussing. And a solution we both prefer as I understood sappyvcv’s posts.
16-bit windows can already be emulated utilizing DOSBox (install win3.x inside it).
“- Improved security, but that goes without saying ”
Probably won’t truly happen for quite a while. Vista will be an improvement if they force you to run as a user.
“- More flexability with the Windows taskbar ”
This is the sort of thing that makes me call Windows a toy, and not a real tool. I wish they’d do this too… Being easy for idiots is fine, but make it adjustable for power users!
“- Better multi-tasking, especially when reading from the CD-ROM drive ”
I’ve not seen this on any OS. I think it’s a problem with PC hardware.. Put your cd drive in a USB enclosure.
“- Ability to easily slipstream all current hotfixes and drivers for my machine into the install disc ”
I know someone who does this. It doesn’t seem too difficult.
“- BETTER COMMAND SHELL ”
Monad will be available at some point. While it really doesn’t look like shell, it looks interesting.
“- Better multi-tasking, especially when reading from the CD-ROM drive ”
I’ve not seen this on any OS. I think it’s a problem with PC hardware.. Put your cd drive in a USB enclosure.
I know I have no problems with my SCSI CD drive on my old PPro (no pausing at all when reading/writing CDs), so part of it could be a limitation of the IDE interface.
I wish only one thing
a change of attitude, the consumer first, profit a result of that.
With this, every wish will be answered.
Well, let’s see. They won’t sue you if you leak a private build, post leaked screenshots, probably won’t sue you over patent infringment (have they ever?), they support their users without legit copies, their employers blog about their work and they hand out free copies of their software on numerous occasions.
Can you be more specific about what you mean? Or what kind of a “consumer first” attitude are you talking about (don’t even dare to mention Apple, because they do everything the opposite of everything I just listed).
Well, from my experience, when looking at improving Windows, money seems to be the most important driving factor?
* What can we do to make sure we remain just ahead of the competition so that our customers continue to pay us?
* Lets see what our Most Valued Customers (i.e. the ones paying us the most) are asking for, since they’re the ones that we really need to keep happy
It never seems to be a case of: “What do people really want from our software, and how can we deliver that?”
I’m not saying Apple’s approach is necessarily perfect (I personally think it has quite a long way to go!), but it seems to produce results that are a lot better.
To me, when using Windows, it always feels like they’ve simply thrown Human Resources at the problem until it’s “Good Enough.” With most (but not all!) of Apple’s products it actually seems like people-who-understand-what-people-want have actually sat down and decided what the best way of tackling the thing is. Also, if there is something that you don’t like, or want to see added, there does seem to be a fair chance that Apple will get round to doing it at some point.
Edited 2005-11-14 00:50
I have a couple of examples for you.
They knew they had a good OS with Win 2K, but how many desktops or laptops did you see with Win 2000 installed by default? They had to sell ME instead.
Similarly they knew that they had a good OS with Win 2003. Did they listen to the thousands of users asking for a Workstation edition?
Do I need to explain why? Obviously because they have to sell their better OSes at a much higher price.
Well, now we’ll have Vista based on the Windows 2003 kernel, but just because they realized that keeping patching XP wasn’t feasible any longer.
I think they believed there wasn’t anything sexy about Windows 2003 for home users to care…
And as for ME, I think they were still under this insane assumption that people wanted speedhacks instead of stability because their computers were “slow.”
So they grabbed up the 18 least intelligent guys in the company and had them make some “fixes” and add on some “features” to Win98SE and they shipped that as WinME. Oh, I forgot, they added a new intro video right?
Probably it wasn’t about “sexy” but about a better kernel.
It wasn’t even the home users who might want Windows 2003, rather the geeks…
I suppose you are right about ME, although 2000 was by no means a slouch…
Windows 2000 was not nearly as compatible with existing consumer applications and devices as it needed to be for MS to promote it as the combined consumer/business client OS. It’s as simple as that. A lot more work went into software and device compatibility in XP. Part of the work was done for Windows 2000, as it was originally planned to be the OS for both markets, but it couldn’t meet the compatibility goals in time. For similar reasons, XP x64 is an OEM-only release and there won’t be a x64 product distributed at retail until Vista. Just as with Windows 2000 though, however MS targets a product doesn’t stop people from other markets from using it if it also meets their needs.
There’s no reason to release a seperate SKU for Server 2003 to use as a workstation when 1) that’s XP’s role and 2) those wanting to use Server 2003 as a Workstation can (and do) purchase one of the Server SKUs and use it in that role anyway simply by enabling some of the services that are off by default.
Actually, Yes – let’s mention Apple.
* Apple put up the huge financial risk to create the iTunes Music Store, _nobody_ was interested in making a legal store because it was thought that nobody would use it and piracy would never change. No other company in their right mind would have enough belief in their consumers to know that despite the huge risk and undertaking it would work. Would you go to Sony and say – “we think we should make an Online music store, even though Piracy is at 80%” (Yes Apple had to kiss RIAA’s arse for the DRM, but still they built the best online music store and created a market with shear bravado.)
* Apple’s iTunes Music Store is a first class consumer-orientated shop. They try and feature as wide a variety as music as they can. If this was anything other than Apple’s store you could bet large swaves of money that Adverts for outside products would be there and that the entire front page would be full of marketed tweeny-pop crap. It’s not. They try and feature everything that’s quality, good, and entice you to explore more artists. Heck you can even write album reviews on there yourself – do we want to be more consumer friendly?
* Apple invented an MP3 player that the average person could use. Apple saw a small 5% market of geeks that bitch, moan and complain at features and specs no matter what God blessed device you give them, and a market of 95% of people who couldn’t take their entire music collection around with them with an MP3 player because they just couldn’t understand the self-centered, geeky and badly designed other devices. (Copy and pasting folders is soooo the superior and easy way to sync :|)
The iPod is a three fold strategy. The device needs to be simple and do one thing _really well_. Multifunction means everything is done poorly. It must also Sync with the computer so easy a child of 6 can do it. And so they can, no other MP3 player is as easy to sync and that is why they just don’t understand why they’re getting beaten by Apple. And thirdly, brand and marketing. Trust me when I say, iPods were selling well on the back of word of mouth and quality before all the massive marketing happened. The marketing informs people of the product, the quality of the design sells it. You can mega-multi-billion build a brand around a piece of turd, but at the end of they day, if it’s too hard to use, people won’t buy it.
* Apple have the best OS for consumers. Have you ever actually tried installing a bluetooth device on windows? It’s like the most pain inducing thing anybody has to go through. Windows is completely shit when it comes to anybody but those who know what they’re doing.
* They constantly try to avoid stagnation. Unlike Microsoft who ride on the back of one great success (Windows95) and then try and milk the cow until blood comes out of it.
At the end of the day, Apple is a company and must make money – and they must make as much money as possible. But they believe that they do that by making the absolute best quality products and consumer experience. Microsoft believe that to make profit they have to rape you for ever penny you have through arcane licesning. vendor locking and bullying tactics.
So don’t even say Apple are anti-consumer until you’ve walked into an Apple store and realised it’s like no other store you’ve ever been in, it’s friendly.
Except that Apple was not even close to first to market with an online music store (not even first to popularity).
Oh yeah, that iPod thing. There were definately harddrive MP3 players around way before the iPod and much easier wayse of connecting them to the computer (you could only use iTunes in the beginning). People actually had to make hacks so that they could use it with a decent media player (before iTunes was launched on Windows, as MusicMatch has always sucked).
How is no other MP3 player easy to synch? They came with special software just for synching. You could plug it in just like an external harddrive and it would pop up in Explorer. Or, you could use your favorite media player to connect to it. Thre was nothing revolutionary about the iPod except for the sleek look.
Well, let’s see. They pushed for software patents after they became a monopoly, but were against it before, they constantly threaten about patents, spread FUD, only support their users without legit copies because they didn’t know how NOT to before. They don’t support non-legit copies anymore. Hide key interfaces when all non monopolies encourage interoperability, hide proprietary file formats, try to addict people to their technology through questionable means (forced licenses for Windows, bundling with browsers, streaming media, Office back in the older days – although not true bundling). Deny under oath about hidden API’s then release them the same year, keep source closed since it would be security disaster, and then share the code with China within a year.
I guess I could go on, but if you haven’t been following the news this whole time, this is just the tip of the iceberg to what the original poster was referring.
a change of attitude, the consumer first, profit a result of that.
I couldn’t agree more.
The attitude of most corporate structures, once they hit it big, is to become bigger, by any means possible.
I’d love to see Microsoft chnge their attitude and provide the following:
1. lower prices on their software offerings.
2. foster competitive atmospheres which would spark more inovative thinking and creativity.
3. security specific fixes provided by Microsoft. (nobody should ‘have’ to use a 2nd/3rd party utility package to correct registry problems with Windows).
One aspect of dealing with Windows that I personally find disgusting is the volume of companies (Symantec, MacAfee and others) that have made literal fortunes by providing cures, remedies and security fixes for Microsoft products.
These remedies should have been provided by Microsoft since it was their products that were deficient. Instead, the consumer has been forced to pay for additional software to protect themselves from exploitation due to the security issues present in every version of Microsoft Windows.
If Microsoft made cars instead of software, the types of deficiencies they sell their products with would translate into massive product recalls. At least there are laws that protect consumers when it comes to autos.
I realize I’m rambling and I’ll never live to see Microsoft change their attitude. But it feels good to be able to say it, anyway.
I would request a couple of things be REMOVED from Windows: hiding file extensions, Personalized Menus, and the fade effects.
The eWeek article touched on one of my pet peeves, hiding file extensions. Why did Microsoft ever decide to remove them when they don’t have a way of tracking metadata? I can see where icon view has its place. But for me, the icon view has never provided enough information about the file. You can’t always tell what the icon is depicting. What it comes down to is if it is a part of the filename, show it to me.
Personalized Menus don’t seem to be AS big a problem on Windows XP, but I don’t remember how many times I got support calls from end users telling me that a seldom used application or Office function was gone. You can only tell the users so many times, “Click on the triangle/arrow at the bottom of the list.” It was not too long before I just started disabling Personalized Menus by default. Echoing the above, if it is installed, show it.
Who thought up the Fade Effect? Great idea. Let’s make a computer seem slower by fading the menus. Every time I turn this off, my end users tell me how much faster their computer feels. Did they forget the “snap” that end users want?
If you don’t like the fade or hidden file extensions, turn off the options, and quit your bitching.
All these things are options that you can turn on or off.
It is correct that they can be turned off, but not all have a Windows Policy that can be turned off for large groups of users easily. Something that can easily be turned off for an individual rapidly becomes a pain when you are deploying 300 – 400 desktops.
My main point is that for all of Microsoft’s supposed work with UI design, extension hiding, Personalized Menus, and fade effects somehow got put into Windows as a default setting.
Edited 2005-11-14 00:18
> I would request a couple of things be REMOVED from Windows:
> hiding file extensions, Personalized Menus, and the fade effects.
Amen to that!
And speaking of file extensions, try to create a folder named “.ssh” in explorer (not an uncommon task). It’s impossible. The stupid thing just says “You must type a file name.” which is moronic for at least these reasons:
– you were creating a folder, not a file
– you did type a name
– even if it was a file “.ssh” would still be a valid name
– file extensions aren’t even used for folders
At one time, early on when IBM and MS were still both putting money into OS/2, Windows was targeted to build on the OS/2 codebase. Some folks at MS figured out how to use extended memory to “cooperatively” multitask Windows apps, and MS correctly decided that users cared a lot more about mice, windows and GUI’s than they did a robust codebase. And, lo, the 16-bit Windows rooted in DOS was born and refused to die until XP was releases.
In a land of What-If, I’d rather MS had stayed with the original Windows-based-on-OS/2 plans.
Yeah, whatever. They did NT 3.1 instead and that is 32bit.
Not really. The Win API was 16-bit (though Win32S was available later on).
Aer you confusing Windows 3.1 with NT 3.1?
Remember that “3.1” was also the version number attached to the first release of Microsoft’s true 32-bit Windows product: Windows NT.
No I’m not confusing anything.
Windows Nt 3.1 was shipped with a 32-bit kernel and a 16-bit Windows API on top of the kernel
Later on Win32s (a subset of Win32 API) was released for DOS-based Windows, NT 3.x as well as IBM OS/2.
Some good items. Too bad they are going under WONTFIX in MS Bugzilla. 😉
I think all of this sounds much more like OS X than like Linux. No operating system is perfect, and I have a wish list of my own for OS X (and a much, much longer one for Linux).
Be Great if Windows Was Cheaper, an Secure, for starters,
A good package manager. I still think installing software on Windows sucks. Microsoft also needs to tweak their proc/IO schedulers. It’s just unacceptable for copying files onto a floppy disk to freeze the whole system momentarily. Unzipping files is a nightmare. Copying to and from CD/DVDROM is hell. Installing software sometimes means you have to close all running windows, etc. Oh and finally…
“All we are saying, no more reboots!”
I agree with most of what you said, especially the floopy part. But what the hell, package managment? Windows probably has one of the nicest way on installing applications. What is so wrong about having a setup and clicking a few times to get it installed? I agree most of the time, setups are bloated with uninteresting info, but if use right they provide everything you need to install what you want, where you want. I won’t even comment on the package manager thing, because you either don’t understand how much software is available for Windows, or how software business works.
About the reboots. I think (note: think) that’s legacy still holding on at software development. Because I have never ever installed an application that would need a reboot even though a lot of them say they do. And I’m not speaking of drivers or “system applications” like that toy with the core of Windows. Those are understood to need a reboot. But if someone tells me why Quake3 needs a reboot after install I swear I will smack them.
There’s some reboots left (partly?) because Windows cannot replace files in use and it makes sense.
Windows doesn’t have a way of installing applications. Out of necessity, a few methods were formed. InstallShield, Installer Vice, MSI. Each of these methods uses the following philosophy:
“An installation is the process of spewing files all over the file system, asking users if they want to overwrite anything we have to, keeping a log of files installed and providing a means of uninstallation.”
Due to the fear that someone may overwrite a DLL used by another application, most Windows application simply install all the required DLLs into their program directory, like C:Program FilesAppDirla.dll.
Package management, a la Linux, adds the element of dependencies. This is why Linux machines with thousands of packages of software tend to take up only a few gigabytes of space, whereas even a lightly loaded-up Windows system takes up much more. If a Windows program needs access to library X, it had better provide a copy in its directory. When a Linux application needs library X (say, libxml), it’ll be installed once for all applications that need it.
Installation is only “easy” under Windows because you’re used to it. In a Debian system, two commands at the command line can let me find _and_ install an application. From the GUI, a couple clicks in Synaptic gets me there. In Windows, I have to Google for my application, find its homepage, download the installer package, choose an installation directory, run it, install it, and sometimes, reboot. That’s not actually easier. You’re just used to it.
“apt-get upgrade” is also a lot easier than Google N times where N is the number of applications installed on my machine, download N installer packages and run each one in turn to upgrade all applications.
No more reboots would be a good thing, just a pity it would be impossible.
proc/io scheduling, now that does need to be vastly improved, as does their nice, if they even have a nice.
And taskman needs redone. You, or the admin, should be able to stop/start/suspend all processes at all times from one location.
The registry needs dumped.
In fact, it needs dumped and then set on fire.
Actually it’s 20 years old, which, logically, must mean that it’s 0.05 years^-1 young. 🙂
0.05 years^-1 =
0.05 / year =
0.000 136 892 539 356 605 / day =
5.703 855 806 525 21 * 10^-6 / hour
9.506 426 344 208 68 * 10^-8 / min =
1.584 404 390 701 45 * 10^-9 / s =
1.584 404 390 701 45 * 10^-9 Hz
Happy Birthday!
I wonder about this. Sure, it’s easy to envisage a utopian world without Windows where a number of different operating systems interact flawlessly because they all make great efforts to be standards compliant.
I wonder if Mac OS X and the various Linux distributions would be as good as they are now if it hadn’t been for the monopoly that Windows holds over the market. Because Windows is so popular, these other operating systems have to try and be extra impressive in order to lure people away from the ‘industry standard’.
Just a thought…
1) Separate home partition.
2) Real and easy to use symlinks.
3) Get rid of Registry.
4) A good software manager akin to apt or Smart.
5) Ability to set any font size for UI. Currently the only way to do that CONSISTENTLY is to change dpi resolution, which b0rks things for me (like system tray icons). Desktop settings for some reason don’t change fonts for all system dialogs. Because of this I’m forced to run at 800×600 on a 15″ monitor while in Gnome I can comfortly set 1024×768.
Not bad, but it sounds as if you are asking Microsoft to make a linux distro 🙂
(Not that it would be a bad idea: see what they can do with linux with all their money and developers)
Nothing in the CDDL which OpenSolaris is licenced under prevents Microsoft from basing their next operating system on Solaris, porting the current crop of drivers to Solaris and bolting a nice gui ontop.
Along with some of the other comments, I’d like to see Windows support a built-in SSH client and server.
Scrap everything and port the win32 gui to Linux, aka like Apple did with BSD….
….or not and die…their choice.
>Scrap everything and port the win32 gui to Linux,
>aka like Apple did with BSD….
>….or not and die…their choice.
How about if you live in the real world, and get a decent job. Mcnasty isn’t a real job. So go to school and get some skills and while you are there learn some social skills.
Microsoft isn’t going to die, but you are going to die lonely if you don’t do something about it.
what would I wish for?…….. hmm….. how about they open source Direct-X and the Windows API.
I know this would never in a million years happen but it would be cool to break the vendor lock in (yes I know MS wants lock in)
Think Wine with 99% compatibality with windows applications.
well, one can dream can’t he.
Edited 2005-11-14 02:45
As for everything locking up when someone tries to access Network Neighborhood or uses the optical drive, I think if you go into the registry and enable the option to create the desktop in a separate process then things go a lot smoother.
Also XP should have been what XP with SP2 is when it first got released.
The best part of XP however is the little program nLite which just removes a lot of what makes XP crappy!
Ok, I know this is “off topic”, but why do people even bring up the whole “MS vs Apple(OS X, etc)” issue. Does anyone remember the headlines that goes something like “MS Bites Into Apple”? You know, August 6th 1997.. $150 million.. Ring a bell anyone? $150 million goes a long ways folks.. a very long ways.
1. Become a ninja OS – vanish without a trace
2. Significantly lose market share if not 1
I already have posted it elsewhere. I guess it is just one wish.
My username in that thread is jx3000.
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=9…
Actually I wish any OS behaved according to my wish.
Edited 2005-11-14 06:08
>- Improved security, but that goes without saying
Already on the way with LUA and an almost total rewrite of the OS with security in mind and the #1 concern. Will Windows Vista be more secure than Linux. Time will tell here.
>- Some of the features from Directory Opus (including tabs, aliases, and flat file view) built into Windows Explorer.
Better organisation is on the way, I dunno about tabs, but they are planning to do further work on this before WinFS comes out. Should be more about this in Beta 2. There is of course better views of data already in Beta 1.
>- More flexability with the Windows taskbar
Not just this but adding in a sidebar as well. So this is already in Beta 2.
>- More ways to customize the GUI without needing TweakUI and similar tools.
You can do this with the new windows Manager built in with Beta 2, you can do even more with third party tools, but that is the way it should be.
>- Better multi-tasking, especially when reading from the CD-ROM drive
Yeah, this is already in the works to improve the kernel.
>- Ability to easily slipstream all current hotfixes and drivers for my machine into the install disc
I don’t know about this one. They are working on a method that will keep your programs in memory when you reboot so you won’t lose any data. Think hybernation. That doesn’t exactly answer your above question. However can’t you just download windows updates directly to a disk that you are going to restore windows from?
>- BETTER COMMAND SHELL
We call this MONAD Shell
>In other words, most of the stuff that Linux has >already
Having these features plus the apps I >love in Windows would be a great combination.
Most of this stuff is already being worked on and pulling things out of the kernel to make windows even more stable and not like the kernel of Linux where tons of stuff is stored in the kernel awaiting more crashing problems and lockups.
To add to the parent WRT slipstreaming hotfixes and drivers:
This can currently be done, however it will be easier with Vista’s image-based installation and maintainence tools. I believe most of the tools from MS will be targeted at OEMs/system builders, however, there’s an API that can be targeted by ISVs to create custom software that works with the images and a file system driver that allows one to mount and edit images in Windows.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/expert/ximage.mspx
What a disappointing article. Microsoft is actually working on several of the points made and they neglected to mention several other areas which would be places for improvement–many of which have been mentioned in these comments. Either the auther didn’t do any research and wasn’t deeply aware of these initiative, or they’re well aware of them and just thought it would be nice to publish this crap article that will meet their deadlines and allow them to pat themselves on the back when Microsoft’s efforts finally begin to bear fruit.
I wish Windows finally had some good installer [with e.g. mountable device support for partitions, removable storage, nfs]. I wish Windows natively supported some filesystems and protocols [xfs, nfs, ssh/sftp]. I wish the windows gui would finally be customizable to the extent that I can make it feel as comfortable as my kde desktop is [and before you begin, I use about as much, or more Windows a day as linux]. I wish I never saw windows media player and internet explorer again. I wish messenger would be disabled by default. I wish they would concentrate more on real features than on a bloated desktop which needs a dx9 card to even run [yes,I know it can disabled]. I wish Windows would need about a quarter of that processor and memory as Vista seems to need. I wish they made an installer which makes possible to choose to install a barebone Windows environment without _any_ extra services and applications whatsoever, just networking support. Finally, I wish I never had to use Windows ever again.
Running as a non-administrator is a good start, but there is MUCH more that Microsoft could do to improve security.
At its heart, Windows offers two modes of operation – Kernel (Ring 0) and User (Ring 3). If I install any drivers or services they run as Ring 0 and can bring the system down.
What I would love to see is use the additional “levels” built into x86 CPU’s so that drivers and services written and validated by Microsoft would run at Ring 0, and ONLY Microsoft code would run at Ring 0. Any other drivers, services or other processes would run at a higher level and could NOT modify Ring 0 code, data or their files (no more non-MS processes running as “system”). Note that this would mean an end to many pieces of software – including rootkits, many viruses and most spyware.
Of course, this cannot happen. This would break WAY too much code, so the only way something like this can ever happen is to create a brand new OS (like MS is looking into). Windows has to live with it’s 20 year history. They have ALWAYS been focused on giving the programmer ever larger control and opportunities. I remember looking at the shell extention system in Windows 95 and I was shocked. I could do ANYTHING – write code that would completely take over or just monitor anything. Powerfull is one word, but this was terrifying in what it suggested.
Windows has many security holes in it – not by bad programming, but by design by a company laser focused on the developer adding value to their operating system. Once a house it built you can patch it or add on rooms, but you are pretty much limited to decorating from that point on.
Best of luck MS,
David Stidolph
Austin, TX
> Note that this would mean an end to many pieces of software –
> including rootkits, many viruses and most spyware
Yeah, you wish! There are so many security holes in windows that rootkits, viruses and spyware would just find some other way to do their thing. (However, if MS were to make a new OS with capability-based security then that could be the end of rootkits, viruses and spyware.)
> Windows has many security holes in it – not by bad programming,
> but by design by a company laser focused on the developer
> adding value to their operating system.
I disagree. I think windows is so bad because MS doesn’t want people to have decent software, it just wants to make as much money as possible. MS always wants to provide only just so much that people won’t switch. In other words, MS is essentially maximizing the suffering of its users, by walking the fine line between not making windows better and people not switching to alternatives. (They probably don’t see it from this perspective themselves, but that doesn’t change the fact.)
Edited 2005-11-14 15:20
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Microsoft just came out and re-released Windows XP- with all the bugs fixed, stability issues resolved, and massive security hardening. Same exact product, debugged thoroughly.
Would people buy it?
Why does Windows still not allow volume control by application? I’ve heard that Vista will address this but why has it taken so long?
Also, why did they break the clipboard? Bring back the old one — I’ve got several DOS applications that could cut/paste with the original Windows clipboard but not the one in XP 🙁
Get rid of the onerous registration hassle. When (not IF) one of my hard drives fails, I don’t want double or triple the hassle just because MS wants to play global policeman. They’re not increasing their sales by this game, just pissing me off.
Ship Windows with a better default editor than Notepad / Wordpad. Load a one megabyte text file in Notepad and character deletes take a second or two to refresh the screen. Pathetic.
Same goes for MSPaint.
Stop messing with the Start menu tree — it is just fine IFF they would just leave it the F alone.
Ditto “My Computer”, etc.
Get rid of those generic ‘SVHOST’ entries in Task Manager. What the heck is each one, and why does the memory usage grow sometimes — is it a leak (in that case I’ll reboot) or normal?
That’s a good start, I’d like to see a windows which is actually usable out of the box, not an OS where you need to install an Office Suite to do any work.
Sack up, pay some royalties and include some common codecs while your at it. Nothing too fancy, at least DVD on a base install.
My personal pedantic rant: I really really wish I never had to use a backslash again. I use windows 99% of the time, but damn it, this->”/” is a slash. It’s been embedded in my skull for 12 years now, and I still make the same mistake.
You’re comment about svhost. I hope that’s just a typo for SVCHOST.EXE, SVHOST.EXE is a common carrier for virii.
Edited 2005-11-14 16:22
SVChost.exe — quite right.
Is that you Grishnackh?