“Have you ever wondered what operating system you will be using in 2005? Australian tech writer Andrew Parsons investigates the future of Windows, code named Longhorn.” Read it at ZDNet Australia.
The Future of Windows
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
What MS is planning sounds incredibly vague. What is a 3d GUI supposed to do and how will it make things easier?
It also sounds very pie in the sky. Why not bring things down a little closer to earth. Like eliminating the need to install drivers for things like digicams. Simple but meaningfull to end users.
Maybe they are just “pulling an Apple” and not telling us what they’re doing. Well, in any event we will be waiting until 2005 or later to find out, and for home users maybe even later if the pattern with NT is followed.
The only “innovation” seen in Longhorn so far seems to be… a dock, and dockapps! Yay, go Microsoft, copy what NeXT was doing 10 years ago and call that innovation.
Bascule, you and the others please hold your horses from flaming around here, with stupid, uninformed and fully trolling intentions.
Longhorn has a lot of things in store that are really modern. From the database fs (no, Be’s filesyste is not similar to this), to the 3D accelerated desktop (possibly similar to QE’s), to the task-based user interface…
Eugenia…. does this mean that I’ll need to upgrade my system again to get all those new features working?? What kind of system will I need this time??? Dual 9.9 CPU?? (This is not an attack at you, just reply)
My only ick with all the future “Features” is the HOGGING of my cpu power! I like features but I hope they can be turn off so people are not forced to throw away old systems… I seem to be always turning old systems to BEOS/Linux systems for the sol reason that Windows .X can’t seem to use it anymore.
Would be nice if MS had a Poll (Not running on Windows in fear of hackers
) where people would vote for the feature you’d like to get.
Um, it’s simple – if you don’t want the new stuff, don’t upgrade.
Someday, when I do have a dual 9.9 GHz machine, I don’t want all those cycles just going to Quake 10 framerates. I hope somebody *does* come up with some really cool features to use that power. There’s no use having that power just sitting on the floor warming my feet.
> Eugenia…. does this mean that I’ll need to upgrade my system again to get all those new features working?? What kind of system will I need this time??? Dual 9.9 CPU??
What are you talking about? This will be out in 2005. It might require a faster machine, yes, but I can’t answer this first because I do not know, and second because I don’t know what machine you alread have.
PCs are ‘obsolete’ every 2-3 years anyway. And Longhorn is scheduled for 2005 or later.
WinXP runs on 233 Mhz and above. Have you seen the Lycoris box? It says that minimum is 333 Mhz and recommended is 500 Mhz. I have here a dual Celeron at 533 Mhz and WinXP runs WAY FASTER and MORE RESPONSVE than Lycoris and Gentoo and Mandrake Cooker.
Stop being blind and hate Microsoft JUST for hating Microsoft and attacking them even when there is no reason for doing so. Please be fair.
I’m suprised that a guy with a sig of “appleforever” doesn’t understand what a 3D gui does; the dock on aqua is a pretty good example. The basic idea of a 3D gui is:
a) everything is there
b) your focus will be on what you want to think about
c) related stuff will be “more there” than unrelated stuff.
For example here is what a 3D filemanager might look like:
http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/macwarriors/eoh2k2/3dosx/screenshots.html
I find that mandrake cooker runs way faster then any version of windows on the market,, now im not talking vanilla install im talkikng once in a usable state,, with apps loaded and ready to play a game or write my essay. I find that XP has to sit and think whenever i hit an icon. Now dont get me wrong Linux does it to,, just seems faster. This is on a Athlon 1600+ XP with 512 ddr (333 mhz) so i woudl think it would go a littel faster. Maybe its just CPU optimizations,, who knows.
THeres an idea,,, why not run some benchmark tests on the various OS’s for your site. at least that way you would have some data to back up your points
Whether people want to hear the results is another story 
.
I know this has nothing to do with the story.. I just liek to post
>why not run some benchmark tests on the various OS’s for your site
Because it depends what you want to measure… In an OS, there are _a lot_ of things that are going on. It is not just when you benchmark a gfx card that you only care for fps. OSes has a lot of things going on, from server performance, to UI responsiveness, latency etc.
It is a big job to do it right.
>I find that mandrake cooker runs way faster then any version of windows on the market
Not over here. I was talking about UI responsiveness. XP is just better/faster here in this area.
Urg … just looked at your site. Sorry but I don’t beleive a 3D desktop can improve AT ALL concept of productivity and easy to use. It’s just look more like “in-your-face-flashy-stuff” than “improve-your-productivity”.
I hope we’ll never get there. Or that I’m totally wrong.
Thinking about it, the only “futuristic” new UI concept I saw in the last couple of years that actually make sense to me, is the interface in Minority Report.
Even though I am writing this with enlightenment 16.5 alone (for you people who don’t understand, yes you can run it alone without Gnome) – XP is much more responsive. I have found no window manager (ice, sawmill etc) to compare to explorer.exe.
This is half the reason why there are so MANY different window manager. But none have as much success as explorer.
That is simply the truth and others should come to grips with it. Or moreso, help optimize one of the thousand different windows managers that already exist.
But off all things, please don’t mention the IDEA of starting a NEW project to create a window manager. We have enough as it is, so just optimize the already founded.
The problem with 3D desktops is that it is hard to use making it inefficient (in the sense of usability).
I must say that in my opinion, 2D desktops will always be more usable than a 3D desktop – unless they innovate it drastically
“The problem with 3D desktops is that it is hard to use making it inefficient (in the sense of usability).”
With a mouse anyway.
Personally, I’m one of those people who believes that easy of use should not take over effeciency. I think that it needs to be balanced between stability and resource management. Makes no sence to move on to new stuff when you havent even mastered the original concept.
– Kelly
It seems to me even with the multimedia and graphics capabilities of OSX (and beyond (!)) that a 3d desktop in fact would not serve to boost productivity, just cpu activity.
the thing to remember about a 3d desktop is that it is a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional concept, not true 3d.
the macwarriors screenshots, while impressive and innovative, didnt seem to me to add much to the usability – the vaious icons are now presented in a floating oval rather than in a window. transparent or windowless info might be a little more user friendly, IMO. I just want my file info, i dont need a pixellated robot wearing an info-emblazoned sandwich board running into my field of view from the infinite horizon on the back of the screen, just gimme my info!
I dont honestly see MS gravitating much toward this kind of interface simply because it would involve too much work on too much buggy code. they have only managed to get a 2d interface remotely usable, and it is still unstable.
“She ain’t pretty, she’s my wife.” – Lyle Lovett
By 2005? Hmmm… probably less people running windows is all. Well, I hope. Not any monopoly has ever been good for customers.
As for 3D desktop, I dunno what they mean by this (is the desktop fully in 3D or icons, windows having a 3D look ?!), but a fully 3D desktop would just make things longer to be done. If we have to naviguate throughout the desktop to get to the file or program we want, I don’t think it’s good innovation.
I’m not blind and just Windows cuz its MS… Ha.. I’m just saying that it seems that if you want to use the latest OS your forced to dump your PC.. And sure.. I’ve heard it before.. Just don’t upgrade issue.. but the fact is that DRIVERS are sometimes dumped and no longer supported in older OS, plus security or support from MS is also not given for older OS. So if you want a “fix” for a video/sound/TVcard what-ever, you end up having no choice…
Also.. Personally..(I Hate linux more than any other OS out there and by saying this I’m suring I’m starting a Flame war, but its a personal opinion. So please don’t start a war on this.)
When it comes to Windows VS ANY Linux (DESKTOP Full GUI).. Windows beats it hands down…. I’ve yet to see a Linux box run fast, easier, less configuration than Windows… So I’m not surprised that you tell me that Lycoris is slow. But on the flip side.. I can still install CLI only Linux and use it has box for Mail/FTP/Web etc server AND have the latest software running on it (Security and app patches)… Windows doesn’t allow me to do that… To get the latest Security fix I need to upgrade the OS eventually. And in some cases, Newer versions of OS are slower than older version on same hardware. Forcing me to upgrade hardware to get my previous speed. (This issue is more visible in games. Win98 – WinME)
And for general info… I’m running 1.4 Athalon, 512 megs GeForce 2. And I can hear my Hard-drive spinning like hell when there is no sofware running. And of course the Task Man. Reports no CPU cycles used. Go Figured. Yet to figure what is causing that. (I’ve defragged already a few times)
Plus like I said… Features are nice… so long that they are OPTIONAL! Let me easily turn them off IF I find them to get in my way. That Baloon popup about .NET was starting to really P me off after every reboot. (In the beginning)
Also, Eugenia, Please don’t bite my head off… I’ve been reading OSNews for along time, never posted. And got lots of respect for your opinions. (Down to earth) I can understand you reply. Considering that there seems to be an increasing amount of posts that are ANTI-MS with no reasoning.
Thanks Solkrin.
Most of you are mis-reading what Alchin and others have said in relation to the 3D stuff…. Alchin has only said “3D UI technology”, which could mean a lot of things…. personally, I believe that it will still be the same 2D type of desktop metaphor (although, re-designed to utilize an inductive style interface, rather than deductive, and also task-based), however, it will be rendered with with DirectX (Direct3D), allowing them to have MUCH more freedom and even more of a realistic (for lack of a better term) sense of the UI. I do not, however, think it will be a 3D UI, such as presented by MSR’s “Task Gallery” technology.
Took a peak at that 3D file manager, very interesting concept. Do you know how it works?
Does it have separate folders on a platter, or is it separate types of tasks that you can do on a platter (ie, music on one platter, videos on another platter, etc…), also, does it allow for sub-platters?
As far as computing needs of Longhorn:
First, if you have over a 1ghz CPU (even less may do), you will be fine, as far as the CPU is concerned, the real issue is with the GPU, since it will be rendering the UI with DirectX (which will consequently free the CPU up of the task of rendering the UI).
Also, harddrives may become a big issue with the new “WinFS”, and really, I think a faster harddrive is more important than a faster CPU.
We have talked about it in the past for Christ’s sake. I don’t understand why people are making things up.
The 3D technology is nothing but similar to Apple’s QExtreme, which is a natural evolution to the graphics rendering. It is NOT A 3D INTERFACE. It is just using the 3D capabilities of the card to render the 2D desktop.
Read here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1000
I won’t be impressed with any new Windows or any OS unless it can read my thoughts. And I don’t want to talk to my computer, ever.
That said, I can’t wait to have a third dimension to search things through.
Here is a hint of what might be coming in the Longhorn GUI:
http://research.microsoft.com/ui/TaskGallery/index.htm
Sorry Eugenia, I know I keep posting this every time a conversation starts re: 3D GUIs.
I’ve seen a couple of reports so far stating that Longhorn is going to have a “database filesystem” based on SQL Server or a derivative.
Database filesystems are really nothing new. For example Pick/D3 (www.rainingdata.com) and it’s many derivatives have had a database filesystem since before time began!
I used to administer several D3 machines as well as program in it and when the filesystem got screwed the only real options were either to truncate (read “lose”) data or restore the entire filesystem from a backup! Some choice!
I’m very sceptical that a database fs at all good for data integrity and until then I think I’ll stick with good old “traditional” filesystems.
“I’m not blind and just Windows cuz its MS… Ha.. I’m just saying that it seems that if you want to use the latest OS your forced to dump your PC.. ”
Dude, I have XP loaded on a P3-450, which I got sometime in early 1998, and XP runs fine on it. Back when I bought the P3, I don’t think WinME had been released so through WinME, Win2k, and now WinXP, I could run them on the same box, and I NEVER felt forced to upgrade. In fact, this PC will probably be good through 2005 when Longhorn is released. So, 6-7 years I think is pretty respectable, don’t you?
The only thing that Longhorn means to me is every application out there will be incompatible and loss of control over my PC. Funny how nobody talks about that aspect. Right now most apps besides lower level system utilities from 1995 to 2002 all still work with XP. With Longhorn you can say goodbye to this. Plus you’ll have nice things like DRM and Palladium built in, so that will be fun.
Its funny because these things are being touted as “protecting” the consumer, while in reality they just take away rights and put MS in the position of gatekeeper.
http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/longhorn.asp
I look forward to the entire shareware and freeware industries dying because they can’t afford to buy certs for their programs.
Thanks but no thanks, I’ll stick with XP or go to an OS which won’t restrict me to “only authorized” programs and music. Of course once all computer hardware only works with “authorized” OS’s that will pretty much eliminate runnig linux on any modern hardware as well.
Gee sounds like fun.
Seems to me, then, that the word “3D” shouldn’t be used by reporters/marketers. If you say “3D interface”, people are going to think “Lawnmower Man” (awful, deplorable movie) or the excrecable “Task gallery” which always pops up. Props to Gil Bates.
They should emphasis the *usage* and if they want to talk about the quartz-extreme style acceleration, they should say as much.
As it stands, such statements are misleading.
I don’t see where the “only run authorized programs” comes from. Palladium is optional for a program. I like the Slashdot-like “it takes away our rights” stance in MS user’s opinion, because it’s so wonderfully vague and unsupported. If Adobe wants to make it such that I have to have Palladium enabled to run their software, fine. My rights are simple: either agree to their terms or don’t buy/use their software. Welcome to the wonderful world of freedom to enter into contracts. I don’t have a “right” to demand that they sell me software which works in one way or the other. Furthermore, a system administrator should be able to turn on a “only run programs with certs” option. Imagine all the headaches that could be avoided if you worked at a company who didn’t allow you to install untrusted software. A lot of virus and other issues simply disappear.
“I don’t see where the “only run authorized programs” comes from. Palladium is optional for a program. I like the Slashdot-like “it takes away our rights” stance in MS user’s opinion”
Yes, I agree. And what is the alternative? To kick one corporation off the throne and replace it with another? The dreams of the majority of ‘consumers’ using an open and free OS are only pipedreams. Stuff like that happens in fairytales, but not in the real world.
‘MS user’ : you are missing the point, if you were to watch the video from Microsoft at http://research.microsoft.com/ui/TaskGallery/pages/video.htm as user ‘Bill Gates’ provided – they clearly say that the applications in NO WAY had to be modified. This is one of the primary goals and they have succeed in doing so. All it is is a bitmap of the application render 3D through your video card. When the application is choosen, it runs and operates as normal. The OS doesn’t even recognized the difference in the task manager, it is simply another application running to provide a 3D desktop.
So, yes ‘Darius’ – as I am like you with a PIII-450 we will mostly likely be able to run this 3D desktop since they are already doing on a modified Win 2000 computer. A note to all, this video was made over 2 years ago !!!
RAM is the real issue.
Took a peak at that 3D file manager, very interesting concept. Do you know how it works?
Does it have separate folders on a platter, or is it separate types of tasks that you can do on a platter (ie, music on one platter, videos on another platter, etc…), also, does it allow for sub-platters?
The contents of the foler are on a circle. Since Mac icons can shrink and grow they all support 3D effects. You can group icons on the circle anyway you like so for example if you group by data type and file name you can then rotate the platter with the icons to find the file you want. Since you can in some sense always see all the icons its easy to estimate where to grab (as contrasted with a scroll bar). Parent directories open above the main file (the robot is “..”). Subdirectories open below. You can open up a collection of folders then “backup” to get a more global view of how files are related to one another (which is impossible to do in 2D) even if the layout is confusing.
Of course the file manager takes a boatload of resources relative to a 2D file manager.
Well a 3D GUI is going to need a lot of RAM and a lot of CPU power. I’ll bet the hardware industry will be right behind them.
And sorry to bag fellow aussie but “who knows, in five years’ time, users may not even care what Windows 2005 is like”
Is that more likely to be in 2-3 years not 5 ?
That Task Gallery is ugly … I’d never use it.
nuff said
I found the interfaces in the movie to be a perfect example of how NOT to do an interface. Turning to talk to someone and wiping your entire work off your screen is completely counter productive.
The use of “newspaper” to give updated stories were neat. However, I don’t see how the 3D interface would be even remotely useful. There were many other problems with the interfaces as well. Not least of which is the fact that everything about the computers seemed designed to get in your way and require some sort of interference from the user. But I digress and I’m getting WAY off topic.
For the most part, 3D interfaces will not likely be useful as shown in the screenshots. It might be possible to use certain aspects of that.
However, I can see 3D and T&L for transparency and fancy widgets and eye candy. I can also see using more transparency for searches where the less relevent items are more transparent than the more relevent items. That’s just one example I can think of, but I’m sure there are FAR better uses for the 3D capabilities.
I think it loos pretty silly. Actually just straight hard to find things. How does 3D help? I think less productive, we’ll see though.
I find that XP at times can respond very slowly. The only evidence I have is anecdotal, but experience is good enough for me. I changed the settings back to classic in XP for this reason. The start menu in XP can be very schitzo. Sometimes fast other times just slow. Not sure if there is a memory leak.
Linux has been slow (responsiveness) in the past, but I find that the responsiveness starts out slow, but after a few minutes things seem to speed up (caching?).
Right now I find SuSE 8 to be equal if not better on my PIII 256Meg notebook than XP in terms of responsiveness (SMP patch may have something to do with this).
I am sure 8.1 will be a further improvement being compiled with GCC 3.2 or is it 3.1.
If you are after responsiveness go with Mac OS 9.
Just my personal experience.
3D might be useful in implementing zooming interfaces like Jef Raskin details in his book “The Humane Interface”. The basic idea is that you start with a high altitude overhead view of you spatially organized data and you zoom in from there. Zooming in close enough effectively “opens” that item for editing/viewing/whatever
I have problems with his zooming UI idea , though I’d have to re-read his book to remember what they were exactly.
The big problem I forsee with VR type UI’s like in Minority Report is Gorilla Arm. Then again, we could all probably use the exercise
Isn’t the TaskGallery really just Microsoft Bob?
No one seems to be noticing what Eugenia and others have already mentioned.
Longhorn’s 3D GUI is NOT Task Gallery. Task Gallery is a years old failed research project, nothing more. For the most part, it is simply quartz extreme – just 3d acceleration of a 2d ui. Check out Paul Thurrot’s explanation: http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/longhorn.asp
Basically, this 3D gui is an attempt to bring XP’s graphics capabilities up to par with OSX in areas where it was lacking. in some ways XP’s rendering engine is more advanced than quartz, but in others it’s lacking. In theory, this will address those areas.
Is not the processor speed, but the amount of memory + other components. I have a PIII 550Mhz on a BX Board, with 768MB RAM + Matrox G550 32MB DDR running Windows XP Pro w/ SP1 + other ditties, and the speed is very good.
Processor speed isn’t everything. If you are experiencing slowness, upgrade the hard drive to a 7200rpm, upgrade the graphic card, upgrade the memory to around 1gig. That should improve it without the need to upgrade the processor.
“In the future Windows, starting with Longhorn, will have a refresh of the interface. It’s still difficult to determine how “revolutionary” it will be, but one thing that has come through is that it is a much more feature-rich experience. Incorporating not just two-dimensional graphics, the intended “desktop” will be a three-dimensional environment, with layers of 2D images mixed in with video, animations and ***depth***.
These changes are going to challenge developers who rely on their own applications seamlessly integrating in a visual sense with the operating system. This user interface model is going to allow users to more intuitively share and organise their information.“
Now, after reading this quote from the article, it sure seems like he is talking about a genuine 3D GUI (something like TaskGallery) and not merely about using the graphics card for rendering 2D objects, doesn’t it?
Sorry, but that’s what MS looks like.
See http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/19184.html.
So MS will copy Quartz, maybe clean up those crazy control panels in windows, and do other things to put Windows on par with OS X in terms of user friendliness. Yawn
What they should do is throw windows in the trash can and rewrite the OS. Who knows, maybe that’s what they are doing.
I’m sorry appledude, but that osOpinion story you linked to is pure crock…
“Microsoft would have you believe that its latest OS, Windows XP , has been widely accepted in the marketplace. But it seems that very few customers are upgrading to XP by choice. Rather, the vast majority of sales occur when new computers ship with the operating system already preinstalled. There is no rush to snag copies of XP from store shelves.”
WinXP is the fastest selling version of Windows that has ever been produced. 36 million licenses sold, and that does not even include any of the large corporate accounts, that number is all individual user licenses (yes, it includes pre-installs but the bulk of that number is in upgrades).
“For the most part, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) doesn’t seem to have this problem. Sure, there are some OS 9 holdouts, but the majority of Mac users seem not only content, but excited about the prospect of moving to OS X . OS X may not be perfect — it runs slowly on G3-powered machines and a few kinks remain to be worked out — but it is new, it is different and it is better, offering users new ways to accomplish tasks in a productive manner.”
Sure, there are some OS 9 holdouts…!!!!
About 90% of Apple’s customer base is still running OS 9 and the rate that they are upgrading to OS X is almost glacial because they usually would have to throw out their existing hardware and buy new machines to run it.
For God’s sake man, if you’re going to quote someone, don’t quote osOpinion. They are the equivelent of The Register except that they have no f*cking technical or industry knowledge whatsoever.
Where did you get that number for XP upgrades is more than bulk installs? I don’t believe that one bet. That is a lie. Dork.
Where do you get 90% Apple’s base is still running OS 9. Idiot.
In this economy, people being holding back in upgrades. Much less being a flipping new computer.
Go away.
Sikosis: Again, 3D rendering will be done on the graphics card, NOT (that means NOT) on the CPU.
Task Gallery was a research project done years ago at MSR, the final product (if there ever is one) will look completely different, as what they have posted on the website is still RESEARCH, that’s pre-pre-pre-alpha.
Finally, I’m really getting sick of the morons who think they know what they are talking about when the issue of Palladium comes up, in reality, you don’t know a damn thing about it, so, basically, shut up. I don’t want to hear it, and neither does anyone else. The computing world today is like middle school, where everyone spreads rumors (most of which are false, or have no factual basis).
Whenever I see this kind of crap, I classify you as a mindless drone who has nothing better to do than try and tarnish a company’s reputation.
IDC: 73 Million WinXP Users by end of 2002
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=22504
“And according to IDC, XP will quickly account for more than 67 percent of all Windows product sales, letting Microsoft move away from the Win9x code base.”
That 67% would have to be mostly upgrades because not that many new PCs with XP pre-installed have been sold in the timeframe that XP has been available.
Microsoft may dump Mac if OS X sales don’t pick up (and Corel is not too happy either)
http://www.randommaccess.com/newspro/articles/1026761185.shtml
“Phil Schiller, Apple vice president of worldwide marketing, called the concerns misplaced, and put the blame on the $500 price tag carried by Microsoft Office. He told the Journal that Apple’s marketing efforts were “on target” with 10% of its installed base now using Mac OS X [as of July 15, 2002], and five million users expected by the end of the year.”
i.e., 5 million OS X users by the end of 2002 (compare that to the WinXP number above).
Now go back to Slashdot where you belong little scriptkiddie and please leave us adults on OSNews alone, OK?
This is what is known as ‘smackdown’.
Gil Bates, you may not like osopinion, but isn’t it true that windows has not changed much for 6 or 7 years, like the article says? The interface seems nearly the same to me, with only modest changes. The biggest change is putting NT underneath the consumer OSs, but like the article says, NT has been around forever too.
I seem to hear lots of people on this board say they didn’t upgrade from XP because it’s not substantially different than 2000.
MS is just dull and uninspiring, I’m sorry. They seem to want to blanket the world with mediocrity and charge the sky for it. Why should we put up with this?
I am sticking to what I said about osOpinion, but you just asked a couple of reasonable questions, so here is my reply…
I’ll agree that UI-wise Windows has been very static, but that may change dramatically when Longhorn debuts – we don’t quite know yet, so all we can do is wait and see on that one. There are many other things besides GUI eye-candy that people are interested in with an OS, you know (no offense).
I would say that most people on this board who did not upgrade from Win2K to WinXP did so for reasons related to DRM and WMA, but I agree, the only killer-feature that XP has, IMO, is the Win95/Win98/WinNT ‘compatibility modes’ for running older software. Win2K does not have this and a lot of older Win32 software breaks on it, but will run just fine under XP. Other than this, I won’t argue with you.
If you look beyond the Windows GUI to other things that Microsoft is doing with Windows under-the-hood and with its other products, it might be possible to appreciate them more (yes, I know better than to ask and I am not even inclined to do so anyway, so relax). For example, I have never heard anyone who has used it say anything bad about SQL Server 2000. It is an excellent database by all accounts and much cheaper than Oracle-on-Windows (I don’t know about DB2 though). Bundling Analysis Services for business intelligence into the core SQL Server product was an industry first. It made business intelligence functions affordable to smaller companies for the first time (that’s innovation). The new Windows .NET Server RC1 is light-years ahead of Windows 2000 Server in terms of features and capability that people are interested in, but yes, it has pretty much exactly the same GUI.
I think all of the big corporate vendors like Microsoft and Sun and Oracle and IBM basically come off as ‘dull and uninspiring’ compared to Apple because they serve a different market. The administrative corporate business world LIKES ‘drab and dull and uninspiring and predictable’. The company I am working at right now won’t even let anyone change their desktop wallpaper on the machine they use (it is locked down to their default, a flat, neutral grey-blue background). The idea of letting people skin their UI or apps would probably scare the sh*t out of them – they just don’t like that kind of stuff. They practice the beige-box philosophy. Apple’s stylishness has always been a subtle but real barrier to them getting into the corporate desktop world, precisely because they “think different”. Apple and say, SGI, have a lot more ‘flash and excitement’ because they are in a different market (hollywood, graphic design, animation) and their products reflect this. So your preference for Apple’s style is more a matter of taste than anything else, IMHO.
Compatibility modes – lol – i think it’s just a marketing trick because I’ve given it a shot and I must say it doesn’t work as planned. There are a lot of programs that work with this new feature but sertainly not all, and I think that’s the point.
Who needs MSwindows in the year 2005?
Well, it was late and I was grumpy about MS. I know they are not terrible. Bill Gates seems to genuinely care about technology, and the guy is giving lots of his billions away. He is not terrible by any means.
Actually, I think MS and maybe the whole tech industry (with exceptions) is stuck in a funk because a lot of this is becoming commoditized. This happens in a lot of industries. Today’s innovation and money maker is tommorow’s version of salt (lowest price wins). I think that’s what Linux is doing to windows. MS is planning to invest billions to try to innovate. Let’s see how they do. Lord, do we have to wait for it though. And I won’t be too surprised if what we end up with is underwhelming.
appleforever, you, like many many other people (I’d say every single Mac user on the face of the planet), don’t seem to realize that there is more to an OS than just the interface.
You have to remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder… to this I apply the function that what may be a killer feature to one person is garbage to another (or vice versa).
…isn’t it true that windows has not changed much for 6 or 7 years, like the article says? The interface seems nearly the same to me, with only modest changes.
DevilsAdovocateMode = 1
Maybe it is because they got the UI so close to right the first time (Windows 95) that they only need minor tweaks every couple of years instead of reinventing the UI every 6 months to a year because they didn’t know what they were doing the last time? Some people like to be able to learn an interface, even a sub-optimal one, and then stick with it for _years_. I think this applies just as well to the CLI and traditional WM crowd on Linux. Come to think of it, it applies to the Classic Mac OS crowd too. And GNUStep, and OS/2, and BeOS, and …
DevilsAdovocateMode = 0
appleforever: It also sounds very pie in the sky. Why not bring things down a little closer to earth. Like eliminating the need to install drivers for things like digicams. Simple but meaningfull to end users.
Any digicam that can work with Mac OS in the first place can work flawlessly with Windows XP. My church friend’s digicam (2 years old, BTW), didn’t require any download nor installation of driver, just plug it in, and some dialog comes up and ask you what to do with it.
Now, this isn’t the case, sadly, with Windows ME and Windows 98, so that girl that saved Christmas was probably competing with old version of Windows (like most Switch ads do anyway).
Bascule: The only “innovation” seen in Longhorn so far seems to be… a dock, and dockapps! Yay, go Microsoft, copy what NeXT was doing 10 years ago and call that innovation.
Tell me how do you judge a product without even screenshots of it being available? Strikes me odd you wrote this, Bascule. Besides, from what I have gathered about NeXTstep’s UI (which is the best UI ever create IMHO), it isn’t that similar to what I could gather about Longhorn.
Eugenia…. does this mean that I’ll need to upgrade my system again to get all those new features working??
How would she know what the requirements is? (Besides, by 2005, there still won’t be dual 9.9GHZ PCs available, and if tradition continues, it would be able to run on fairly new hardware (ie 2- 3years old)
Steve: Urg … just looked at your site. Sorry but I don’t beleive a 3D desktop can improve AT ALL concept of productivity and easy to use.
Wow, you are SO fair in judging 3D desktops in general before ACTUALLY USING IT. Wow. Besides, Longhorn most probably ISN’T a 3D desktop.
ced: By 2005? Hmmm… probably less people running windows is all. Well, I hope. Not any monopoly has ever been good for customers.
Right. Rockfeller Standard Oil with its cheap fuel is bad for customers… 🙂
Monopolies sponsored by the government (e.g. US Post Office) would always be bad for customers. Monopolies that create their own market wouldn’t have a negative effect on most of their customers.
Solkrin: But on the flip side.. I can still install CLI only Linux and use it has box for Mail/FTP/Web etc server AND have the latest software running on it (Security and app patches)… Windows doesn’t allow me to do that…
Because Windows wasn’t intended to do that, and thinking it should do that makes as much sense to me as judging Palm OS badly because your compare it with AIX on those mainframes.
Right now most apps besides lower level system utilities from 1995 to 2002 all still work with XP. With Longhorn you can say goodbye to this
Microsoft never massively broken binary compatiblity before, I don’t think they would ever do that.
Besides, on your title on the message: every version of Windows is released to make money. No released was made for charity. Yeah: MONEY. This is what every other for-profit corporations are after.
And as for DRM and Paladium, what little facts out there doesn’t either prove the paranioa right (you loose control over your PC and its content), nor does it prove it wrong. Why? THERE IS SO LITTLE FACTS ABOUT IT. So just wait for the release, no point physcologically blocking out Longhorn when probably it won’t have the restrictions you claim it would have.
So read the URL you gave: “Longhorn will optionally include the Palladium technology Microsoft is developing with Intel and AMD (see the next question for details). ”
Sikosis: That Task Gallery is ugly … I’d never use it.
Uhmmm, the concept isn’t about looks. It is about the UI. Microsoft would for sure make it look nicer if they were to commercialize it.
So MS will copy Quartz, maybe clean up those crazy control panels in windows, and do other things to put Windows on par with OS X in terms of user friendliness. Yawn
Yeah, maybe Microsoft would make something like Quartz (though I doubt it would use Postscript/PDF), but what the heck is wrong with their control panels? In fact Mac OS X’s control panels are beginning to be cluttered (I didn’t say it is cluttered now, throw in a few years and it would be cluttered). The only problem I see with it is that it over uses wizards…
Besides, on your osOpinion article, there is little wonder coming from a Mac user as the author, and a site own by a Machead (named Kelly M). There is an reason why it dwindle down to its current state now which is lack of activity: biasness.
“Microsoft would have you believe that its latest OS, Windows XP , has been widely accepted in the marketplace. ” –> Well, as Gil Bates pointed out, it is. At least a thousand times more successful, percentage wise, than Mac OS X.
Or out about this one –> “For the most part, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) doesn’t seem to have this problem. Sure, there are some OS 9 holdouts” Uhm, the “some” isn’t “some”. It is a lot. So much so that in the last stock holder’s meeting it was revealed that users overwhelmingly used Mac OS 9 on new Macs than Mac OS X.
*sigh*
Gil Bates: Microsoft may dump Mac if OS X sales don’t pick up (and Corel is not too happy either)
Uhmmm, just some conspiracy theories (since so Always-Bashing-Microsoft (ABM) trolls left that out). Notice Microsoft makes Windows and Corel depends on Microsoft financial aid? Hmmmm….
appleforever: Gil Bates, you may not like osopinion, but isn’t it true that windows has not changed much for 6 or 7 years, like the article says?
If Windows haven’t changed in the past 6-7 years, the same would go to Mac OS. For example, the leap from Windows NT 4 to 2000 was significant. And the leap from Windows ME to Windows XP was very significant. Feature-wise that it. Plus, Windows changed a lot. Windows 95 can be said to be the closest thing Microsoft made to look like Mac OS. Windows 98 has the file manage to take on the look of a web browser…
Gil Bates: Win2K does not have this and a lot of older Win32 software breaks on it, but will run just fine under XP.
Actually, since SP1, Win2k has this, but it isn’t as good, as of SP3, than Windows XP.
Evil_Genemanipulator: There are a lot of programs that work with this new feature but sertainly not all, and I think that’s the point.
It is impossible to make everything work, and Gil Bates didn’t say the compatiblity mode is perfect. Besides, compatiblity mode manage to run my dad’s own Win16 games properly, like Pipe Dream. Interesting feat, no?