“The next major release of Windows won’t be ready for a couple of years, but it’s already taking shape. We checked out a leaked pre-beta version of the successor to Windows XP, code-named Longhorn, that we found on the Internet. Though Microsoft declined to comment for this story, company bigwigs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have given some broad hints about Longhorn. In numerous speeches and published reports, they’ve promised a totally revamped OS built on a new file system that gives users a single route to data, regardless of how that data is created or where on a PC or network it’s stored “. Read the article at PCWorld.
Sneak Peek: Windows XP’s Successor
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
long live microsoft. And may the brilliant minds working for microsoft continue to innovate!
WOW Multiple desktops! Who would have ever thought of such a thing! What would we do without such origonal thinkers at Microsoft?
Goes to show that nothing is “invented” untill Lord Bill invents it.
Didn’t microsoft announce a few months ago that Longhorn was shelved in favour of certain other things, namely Windows 2003/2004?
Nevermind … I see that they are saying “late 2004”. I guess it was another website that announced the canning of Longhorn after the alpha leaked.
I just hope it doesn’t start to resemble X-Windows (eww!)
(And yes, I know that X-Windows doesn’t really have anything to be resembled, per se. I just think that the default gtk/etc widgets are butt-ugly, and window managers help not a wink with that, for the most part.)
Oh, cut the sarcastic cr@p. The article wasn’t about virtual desktops only.
Microsoft already offers virtual desktops via a utility from their site if you want to know. For years now.
At least from the screen shot it looks like thay are going away from the sickining color scheme in XP. That almost looks like KDE now
Looks butt ugly IMHO. But there isn’t a full resolution screenshot available…
The sidebar looks like QNX’s Photon doesn’t it? If it works half as good as Photon this should be a fantastic addition to the Windows desktop, any desktop for that matter. I wouldn’t mind seeing something like that in OSS either.
were around long before Linux. I was running a window manager on top of Win3.1 in 1993 that had a sidebar with clock and virtual desktops. Nothing new here. Of course, the article was practically devoid of information.
Except that it is on the side and it is a bar, I couldn’t see how it *looks* similar to QNX’s Photon. Of course, to know that is to use Longhorn, something legally impossible right now.
Well said RajanR. That bar on Longhorn _has nothing_ to do with the QNX one. The QNX one is an extension shelf with launchers and some info panels. Longhorn’s is much more (I have used it a few months ago).
The fact that is on the side doesn’t mean it is a rip off of QNX. Vertical space is valueble because our monitors are 4:3, so it makes sense to put it on the side, when that has a lot of things on it.
I wish people could be able to DISCUSS instead of trolling over here. The fact that this is Windows, doesn’t mean that people should behave like jerks. OSNews is about _all_ OSes and I would like you to respect that, otherwise, just don’t come back here.
Omer, hope you guys on rox.linux don’t forget about keyboard users who don’t like the mouse.
Haven’t seen any mention of the keyboard in the ui discussions.
Shades of Mac OSX, isn’t the sidebar a takeoff on the dock. I wonder if it can be resizable and aligned to left, right, top or bottom? Do you think MS really innovates? It seems that MS continues in its grand tradition of reducing a user’s workspace with toolbars, menubars etc.
I wonder if the sidebar will flash every so often with messages “You haven’t gotten a Passport account, this is extremely unAmerican”, “Sign up for MSN now!”, “Time to pay your weekly $50 licensing fee, Sucka!”, “I see you have another browser then IE as the default, please revert to IE or this computer will shutdown in 5 minutes”, “The file XXX.mp3 appears to violate DRM, it will be deleted now”
Is long|horn a copy of KDE interface? Seems in some way it is.
Multiple desktops in long|horn is a copy idea from linux community.
New file system is necessary. Yes, FAT and NFTS are bad file systems. I expect that m|crosoft don’t copy linux file system.
>Is long|horn a copy of KDE interface? Seems in some way it is.
And are you a troll who can’t think? Seems in some way you are. MS has a huge UI design team, they have no incentive to “steal” ideas from anywhere. They just do whatever makes sense for their users and for their specs.
>Multiple desktops in long|horn is a copy idea from linux community.
Please stop this. Multiple desktops were a reality way before Linux.
>Yes, FAT and NFTS are bad file systems
NTFS 5 is a very nice filesystem Mr, get your facts right. Their update to the fs is just to add a database on it for specific tasks.
Speaking of virtual desktop managers for Windows, can someone recommend an elegant one? There are so many and I can’t find a good comparative review. (virtualdesktop.info is a blatant advertisement for CoolDesk.)
Thanks!
Except the one offered by MS for years now, there are at least 5-6 more that I found on http://www.download.com
” I wonder if the sidebar will flash every so often with messages “You haven’t gotten a Passport account, this is extremely unAmerican”, “Sign up for MSN now!”, “Time to pay your weekly $50 licensing fee, Sucka!”, “I see you have another browser then IE as the default, please revert to IE or this computer will shutdown in 5 minutes”, “The file XXX.mp3 appears to violate DRM, it will be deleted now””
LOL for a long while. Good one. :o)
Eugenia: “NTFS 5 is a very nice filesystem Mr, get your facts right. Their update to the fs is just to add a database on it for specific tasks.”
Exactly. They change so you can no longer mount Windoze drives under Linux. Just like they “improved” SMB protocol just so Samba would
not work with XP, and the same thing with the “newer NTFS”. (fortunately
they were fixed later on)
The success of Longhorn won’t be based on how good is their UI, their new filesystem or the new wathever. The really important points to see it’s future are.
– The anti-piracy measures bundled
– The marketshare of Linux the day it’s released
I could care less about other spects. IMO the OS’s war in the next two years won’t be based on features (sad anyway). If MS goes to a 50% marketshare then I will change my mind.
Virtual Desktops are not a reality with Windows. In order to achieve it you must download a utility on Linux it has always been around so in a sense yes Linux was the first OS to incorporate virtual desktops as a standard. As for the new filesystem, its a journaling FS, similar but not a complete copy of ext2 or Reiser. Who knows tho maybe MS will issue a press release saying they are using Linux as the base for its OS. All MS is trying to do is keep up with Linux….
Linux it has always been around so in a sense yes Linux was the first OS to incorporate virtual desktops as a standard.
———
Uh, no, HP, SGI, Sun, etc. have had it for many many years before Linux ever saw the light of day.
>They change so you can no longer mount Windoze drives under Linux
Please stop the stupid speculation. They wouldn’t care less if this 1% of the market can’t mount their NTFS drives. If I was MS, I wouldn’t give a flying monkey either. It has nothing to do with Linux and mounting. It has to do with evolution of their product. They want to add database on it and change the NTFS to perform even better. What is wrong with that? Everyone wants his/her product to be better. This is what MS does as well. Linux has nothing to do with that.
Does anyone else find the Sidebar and Start Menu EXTREMELY redundant?
I understand they are in someway geared towards different purposes–the sidebar is much more customizable, can feature an app UI interface, is updatable, is entirely optional, etc… But all in all, MS seems to be creating more and more redundancies. Don’t get me wrong–mulitple options are nice, but at some point counter-intuitive. (You can actually relocate the Start Menu INTO the Sidebar, for example–which means you could go to the sidebar to get to the Start Menu to reveal 90% of the functionality in the Sidebar… Dumb.)
btw, the Sidebar can only be positioned left/right because it foolishly has icons and text headers incorporated–this would be hard to position top or bottom. (I say foolish because the last beta I played with as you resized the bar, the icons would overrun the text and the text would simply disappear off the edge of the screen–I imagine this will be worked out, but still–wrapping text to multiple lines because you want the Sidebar to be an inch wide rather than three is inelegant, ugly, and consumes even more space.)
Gates and others have said they want to simplify interfaces, that the same commands and tasks are performed on all files even if they are different media (audio, video, images, word docs, databases). Do people agree? I personally prefer more distinct UIs per use… as begun by Eazel or as treated somewhat differently by Apple by the distinct iApps.
Do people really think a flat/relational filesystem is MORE INTUITIVE than a hierarchical system? Do people think mom and pop will understand attaching meta data to files? Is it really easier to query for a file by– searching for Invoices related to such and such a project created by this employee between this and that date — rather than going to a project directory, then going to an invoice directory, then going to 1st qtr 2002 directory, for example?
Do people anticipate file system speeds to improve or degrade? I imagine this can potentially degrade performance substantially–that is, on one machine, it might be nice and searching/indexing may improve, but what about maintaining large networked file systems–seems nightmarish to me.
What 3D/multimedia enhancements can MS deliver that aren’t present in OS X or other systems? I imagine that it will still be limited as in OS X, but suspect MS may do more to push WMA/V by doing some juicy things with video integration.
Despite the lack of solid information, Please Discuss in a realistic and sensible manner.
Bear in mind, this is a very very early leaked alpha…the sidebar, etc. are likely quite experimental and may not even be present in the final rev. Win95 ended up looking quite different from the early Chicago betas as well.
What is a troll?
is that ugly animal… I don’t think so… 
>And are you a troll who can’t think?
Did you want to see? Brrrrr…
>Seems in some way you are
In some points you are right, that’s the reason that m|crosoft have lots of patents
A question who invented multi-desktop?
>MS has a huge UI design team, they have no incentive to “steal” ideas from anywhere. They just do whatever makes sense for their users and for their specs.
Are you saying that NTFS 5 is better than Linux actual filesystem?
))
>NTFS 5 is a very nice filesystem Mr, get your facts right. Their update to the fs is just to add a database on it for specific tasks.
“Please stop the stupid speculation. They wouldn’t care less if this 1% of the market can’t mount their NTFS drives. If I was MS, I wouldn’t give a flying monkey either.”
If YOU were Microsoft, then Windoze would have a better UI design,
and a bankrupcy filing. MS DOES care about leaving Linux behind. So
please stop the naive “they only want evolution” speculation :o)
Monopoly, if they change their NTFS to be incompatible to other alternative operating systems.
Like you say 1% of market of linux could die, 1% of mac could die, like for example BEOS that have 0.1% died…
> Please stop the stupid speculation. They wouldn’t care less if this 1% of the market can’t mount their NTFS drives. If I was MS, I wouldn’t give a flying monkey either. It has nothing to do with Linux and mounting. It has to do with evolution of their product. They want to add database on it and change the NTFS to perform even better. What is wrong with that? Everyone wants his/her product to be better. This is what MS does as well. Linux has nothing to do with that.
It is on their best interest to KEEP Linux and Mac in the picture. Yes, down to 1% or 2%. But because they have been declared a monopoly, it is on their best interest to keep these OSes around.
This is one more reason why the new filesystem has _nothing_ to do with “let’s lock out Linux”. That’s just stupid. Filesystems change in new releases. There is _nothing_ weird with NTFS 6 being incompatible.
The more I look at the sidebar thingie, I think it’s actually a copy of my left nut
Look what they say in the article at pcplus:
“One of Sidebar’s optional elements, or “tiles,” lets you switch between multiple virtual desktops–a standard feature of the graphical interfaces that ship with Linux”
Yes, multiple virtual desktops are a standard at linux.
Thay say also that w|ndows have a new theme… Yes, w|ndows XP and Long|horn are w|ndows NT with a skin with new features.
Read the article “rounded w|ndows style like apple osX aqua interface”.
>Read the article “rounded w|ndows style like apple osX aqua interface”.
If the guy who wrote the article is someone who have no clue, doesn’t mean that you can quote him and say “wow, look”.
We are in 2003 and this OS is supposed to come out in 2004. Round windows are a must today. They are modern. It would have been stupid from MS not to use them! Heck, even Be used them in the Dano version that never shipped and the biggest Linux distro, Red Hat, also uses them with BlueCurve.
There is nothing weird with using a sidebar, virtual desktops, rounded windows and an updated filesystem. NOTHING. They are all to be expected. Each product release is BOUND to be better and more modern. If MS wouldn’t make them more modern, they would have to answer to their shareholders!
I really don’t understand you people. -> Think <-
“It is on their best interest to KEEP Linux and Mac in the picture. Yes, down to 1% or 2%. But because they have been declared a monopoly, it is on their best interest to keep these OSes around.”
OK, you are right about this, and the Price cut that MS products are
supposedly going to get are proof of this. It’s the “OOOOH Linux is
BRUTAL competition! We had to cut prices to keep being competitive!” and
they’ll probably use it the next time they are called a monopoly.
“This is one more reason why the new filesystem has _nothing_ to do with “let’s lock out Linux”. That’s just stupid. Filesystems change in new releases. There is _nothing_ weird with NTFS 6 being incompatible.”
OK, this is your speculation on the issue, I think you may be right
about an evolution on the FS being only natural. But denying other
possibilities is simply naive. This might be a simple matter of improvement
AS WELL AS another 3-4 years of reverse-engineering work to the Linux
hackers.
Now that OO.o can open word, excell, and ppt files with ~85% accuracy
it might be a “natural moment” to “improve” the Office, formats too,
don’t you think?
people, stop with the | for i’s and worse the random insertions of them. I can’t spell or type for crap but i don’t do that.
Linux people, Shut up, linux did not invent everything, infact I doubt there is anything it can claim to invent aside from the super cluster F&*k.
Many OS’s have multi desktops, MS has a download to give them to you. Like was said by others, MS has tons of people on UI, they probably had everything that has been thought of to date for UI written down or sketched out years ago. Just because it get’s thought of doesn’t mean it’s good. The windows UI is very good. There is little things that could be tweaked but for the most part it’s the best around. It’s ment for the normal person to be able to use their computer best. Look as OS’s like BeOS, it came later and the UI from a user stand point was nearly identical. if you could use windows you could use it. They could have gone completely differant but didn’t. There is only one UI that truely has some differant designs than the windows/beos/lot’s of X’s design and that’s Mac. Now it’s really showing that it design is old and needs changed. When you used one app at a time and full screen it was good, now with big screens and many apps not at full size, the ideas behind it’s design fail. But Apple is unlikly to change.
Far as longhorn, wait till it comes out, anything you see now is just very hacked together for initial idea tests. The final product probably won’t be know till a few months before release. Until then probably everything you see is wrong. What you see is probably there to just use to test underlying code. When MS does something with a UI they do it for reasons, and their not evil reasons, they do it cause for the majority they are the right direction. But of course some will always like the oppositte of the majority.
Of course and office formats will change. They keep changing them with EVERY release, since 1990. There is no reason why Office 11 won’t have modified and even better formats.
Speculating that they would do that because OOo can read that 85%, is just that: speculation.
were first invented on the Unix platform, not Linux (which didn’t even exist at the time).
They were copied by Windows 3.1 users in the early 1990s. Unix window managers were the first to have them, however.
I’m not going to comment on the innovation and elegance of the new Windows GUI until I’ve actually used it. MS haven’t got a good history of innovative or well thought out UI design IMO. But as I’ll probably have to use Longhorn at some point in the future, I’m hoping that they can make a GUI that’s refined and nice to use, even if it doesn’t have any genuinely new features.
I just hope that the sidebar is optional. I use my PC to run apps, so I want to be able to use all the screen space for the apps themselves. Windows taskbar style autohide is a poor solution IMO, I don’t want the sidebar popping up when I’m trying to click a control near the side of the screen. The taskbar and a few system tray utilities give me everything I want, I don’t need a sidebar eating a big chunk of screen space.
Let’s get one last thing straight, Eugenia:
You do not need to label my opinions as “speculation”. OF COURSE they are.
Because i’m not best friends with Bill, nor can i read his mind.
For exactly the same reasons, i should not need to remind you
that your vision of this issue is SPECULATION, TOO. So there’s no need
to be labelling each other’s posts any more, ok? thanks.
If i’m a troll then I can not think, right?
People? Didn’t you call me a troll?
)) Hrrrr [:-)
>I really don’t understand you people. -> Think <-
I will go try to think about the subject:
M|crosoft will be using ideas that already exist (round windows, multidesktops, aqua interface, etc…) because redhat, gentoo, suse, almost all linux distributions, mac, be (dano version) use it today and in the past, and m|crosoft now think this ideas could decrease their 96% of monopoly, so they want to INCREASE their monopoly using that ideas to grow up…
>We are in 2003 and this OS is supposed to come out in 2004. Round windows are a must today. They are modern. It would have been stupid from MS not to use them! Heck, even Be used them in the Dano version that never shipped and the biggest Linux distro, Red Hat, also uses them with BlueCurve.
“When you used one app at a time and full screen it was good, now with big screens and many apps not at full size, the ideas behind it’s design fail. But Apple is unlikly to change.”
I would strongely disagree. It’s one of those extremely subtle UI features that are hard to argue the merits of, but I have always hated the application window metaphor.
It has no purpose–it restricts docs within the window, why? For no good reason, which is why a lot of WIndows apps violate the design now and open a new app window per document or have enabled doc windows to not be bound by the app window.
With a large screen on a Mac I can see palettes and other app UIs and docs from mulitple applications–on Windows or Linux, I frequently have empty or rather grey-filled app windows obscuring my view of doc windows.
What is the problem with not having an app window? Can you think of a single function were you access the application menues of TWO apps SIMULTANEOUSLY? I can’t.
This is one of the things that goes unappreciated because the dominant OS (Windows) and every single other one (Nixes) uses application windows… but rather than saying that the Apple UI is old and poorly designed, I think there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary (i.e. more and more Windows apps violate the app window metaphor, the inconsistencies continue to increase–in fact, what’s up with generating 5,6, or more task bar units for portions of Access when you cannot bring each one to the foreground individually?–I think the app window metaphor is getting old and showing plenty of signs of wear and tear.)
“There is only one UI that truely has some differant designs than the windows/beos/lot’s of X’s design and that’s Mac. Now it’s really showing that it design is old and needs changed. When you used one app at a time and full screen it was good, now with big screens and many apps not at full size, the ideas behind it’s design fail.”
If Anything I find Mac OS X more elegant on large/multiple monitors than Windows. In what way do you feel that the Mac GUI doesn’t work well and should be changed?
Also, to me Mac OS isn’t really that different to Windows/BeOS/etc. Most of the differences are details rather than major design decisions IMO. That doesn’t mean that they’re unimportant or don’t effect the user, but I don’t feel Mac OS stands on it’s own as a radically different design.
RISC OS is probably the most unique GUI I’ve used, the window management, menu system and use of drag and drop are significantly different to any other OS I can think of. Even so, it’s still similar to other WIMP GUIs in most ways.
Did you want to know more about Long|Horn???
http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/longhorn.asp
Here you can also find some screen-shots:
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/longhorn_alpha.asp
it depends. If Windows customers do not receive Cairo/WinFS well or if it creates problems for existing customers or if customers except it but primarily use the traditional features of NTFS, and MS keeps plugging away at it while breaking Samba without quickly releasing API and other information,I would say it could be a problem.
In fact, don’t larger screen sizes show the weakness of the Maximize functionality. (And people who use Photoshop on the Mac and PC will really understand where I’m going here…) On the Mac, it’s really “Zoom” although I’m not sure if that’s how they refer to it. This can create multiple behaviors, but mostly it produces two effects–resizes window to the last bigger size and/or resizes to the ideal extent appropriate for that file. The second behavior being the most important–for example, a word processor doc, if you have it at 100% Zoom/View, there should never be a reason to maximize that window; at the most you would want the window to be the width of the page at 100%, right? Otherwise, you just have lots of white space. As for the first behavior, this is important because it sounds to me like you would never need an app or a doc to take up the whole screen, but this is exactly the behavior produced by one of the main and most common controls in Windows and Nix windows… completely useless with large screen real estate.
As for my allusion to Photoshop, shoppers will know that very frequently you will have a small window, but then you need to zoom, you then want to resize the window to display all of the image or as much as possible. On a Mac, click “Maximize/Zoom” and the window size snaps to the full extent of the window. This is important because you are usually working with multiple images/documents in photoshop that you need to see. On a PC, click “Maximize” and the window blows to full screen displaying tons fo grey space and completely obscuring all other images/docs. There is no possibility to: “Maximize Window to Full Extent of Doc” in Windows and Nix… That’s a limitation if you’ve got extra real estate. Exactly contrary to your rationale.
Eugenia mod me down if you don’t think this is appropriate, but I can’t believe the amount of morons that have just posted.
Windows is a copy of …
Humans are copy cats by nature, with a little innovation. People think we are alot smarter than the people that came before us, that is BS, we have the benefit of building upon ideas that has been passed down.
You take good ideas and you run with it, why is that so hard to understand.
Can someone stop whinging and put a thought to how these small additions could help them in their computer usage? If not say why, that is what OSNews is about.
The only thing I really care about in their next interface is what technology they would use to render things on the screen, everything else is just looks, which in some cases is needed.
Between the resident MS apologist and the blind MS attacks, we have so far three pages of completely useless posts.
Congratulations.
If you do need to work on multiple documents across different apps, it means that you want to have these windows in close proximity… you probably have them overlap slightly.
However, if you actually hold to the app window metphor (that is–keep doc windows bound by an app window), the best you can do is situation the app windows closely together… You cannot overlap because app windows are opaque. And even if tranparencies were used, you still have a border in the way and you still wouldn’t be able to click “through” the app window to another app window.
Also, what if you are working on one doc from one app and one doc from another app and that’s it. Having application windows bound the documents means that you can place apps side by side, but you bring with it all of the other doc windows bound by the application. Maybe that’s not clear–I frequently have multiple docs open in one app and the same for other apps on the Mac, but I am actually just working on two apps in two different applications. I can have many other docs open but in the background (even hidden) while having the two doc windows in the foreground. If you stick with the app window metaphor, you can’t just have the two desired doc windows in the foreground, you also have to have the full application and any other associated doc windows that are open are brought with it.
That’s crude and clearly ancient as many, many apps break this old school convention.
Another note–since so many apps use their own metaphor–try comparing Dreamweaver, Access, and IE for starters to see what I mean by inconsistency, it is now entirely unpredictable where the application menu is. And note–it is the application menu. Is it in the app window? Is it in the doc window? If it’s in the doc window, that means it might be 40 different places for forty different docs depending on how I have the doc sized and placed. It is unpredictable. And as I noted–it is valuable to SEE multiple apps and docs, but there is not a single instance where you would or even COULD access to application menus at the same time… So why shouldn’t it be as Apple does it–the application menu is always the same place… after all, you only access the application menus when the application is in focus/ in the foreground–you never need to have multiple application menus accessible at once.
Yet, Microsoft seems to know that most people think that different = better anyway. Move things into different categories. Bury them deeper into categorical structures and make them look different. You then have a new version of windows.
From that screenshot, I see that display preferences will be buried and split up into deeper categories much as they did with the “new” control panel in Win XP. They’re making things take more clicks to get to, adding clutter and declaring that they are improving end-user ease of use.
Maybe if the whole OS was designed for simplicity, and had been for some time, I would believe this was a good “user-centric” change, but experiences with WinXP lead me to believe otherwise.
And, I’m not just bashing MS, I’m making commentary about what this article is showing us 😉 Linux developers copying Microsoft designs need to pay special attention here…
To me, and from what I’ve gleaned from statements from Microsoft, the big thing they’re trying to do is make the UI task oriented. In many ways, it is difficult to do that well. I think, with the sidebar, they are trying to see if that can be the key to this.
Microsoft has made attempts to do this in the past…I remember a couple of years ago at least, they had set up Microsoft Works to be task oriented rather than application oriented. In that case, the implementation was not good at all. However, it is certainly a philosophy that can be very distinct from what we know as the norm. In this case, it seems to me that Microsoft is trying innovate and, in fact, change the user’s entire orientation as to how they understand and use their computers. In a way, they are taking a big chance by doing this. So, it will be interesting to see if they see this through or, as could happen, they may scrap the whole idea if they can’t get it so it is intuitive and transparent to the user.
they will get bored and stop bugging the rest of the computer population… and move on to the appliance people.
I for one would have much more fun reading Stallman’s rhetoric if it was about freeing your Whirlpool or how everyone should use Linux on their Maytag.
I’m curious because I cannot see any real advantages, and I see few disadvantages with the Apple design (many should an app quit when a doc closes–this I disagree with, but I see as more subjective, different per app, and personal rather than objective), but when I post my arguments, people either just clam up or say that’s my opinion. My arguments personally seem well though out (despite a few typos and brainfarts, I think my points are clear) but you never know what you may personally be missing. At the same time, I never see so-called “UI Experts” criticize this broken metaphor.
I’d particularly be interested in hearing from Brian (I think) who said that the Apple UI is old and dated. Brian, don’t you see how almost every single new Windows app breaks the metaphor that you think is superior?
>Please stop the stupid speculation. They wouldn’t care less >if this 1% of the market can’t mount their NTFS drives
This is not not 1% of the market – we are not talking about dekstops. We are talking about the ever increasing corporate adoption of Linux Samba print and file servers to replace Windows servers. It is happening like wildfire – The one good thing is that if the current rate of growth continues, by the time Longhorn is released M$ will not be able to sell any desktops unless SMB CIFS compatability with Samba is maintained. Anyway by then Linux should have made significant inroads into the corporate desktop.
Responding to other comments
Why are we slamming on Linux users – how dare they attempt to not sell out to Microsoft. We have to support the United States of Microsoft or we’ll get censored. I guess homeland security is censored this site too. Linux gets slammed because their interfaces are not unique when people are actually demanding that it copy Windows where Microsoft gets told they are innovative when they add a feature they should have copied 10 years ago.
The zoom feature on the Mac doesn’t work for web deign on the Mac or even web page viewing as you want the screen maximized for designers that don’t live in prehistory.
Responding to Article
I use Windows ME and I don’t have any problem with it – It works much faster than Windows 98 and doesn’t crash all the time like Windows 85 did. Although of course I don’t use any Microsoft software on my system that doesn’t ship with Windows.
“The zoom feature on the Mac doesn’t work for web deign on the Mac or even web page viewing as you want the screen maximized for designers that don’t live in prehistory.”
Incorrect… at least depending on the browser. The proper browser behavior on the Mac is to expand to the smallest size necessary to view all of the elements that should be visible. Exactly what you want. If the site is designed to be wholly proportional and expand to any size, then this is also fine. (As I stated, different apps diverge from the intention–some fully maximize potentially because of Windows roots, some expand to the last/largest size, and some expand to the extent necessary to display what is in the doc window.)
I am not currently on a Mac, but I beleive most of them actually behave as you desire–by expanding to the extent necessary to display the visible elements.
Besides, that’s the best you got? I described about 5 flaws in the app window metaphor, and maximize behaves incorrectly for all image editting apps and all word processors–on the other hand, I know about 2 web sites that use a resolution of greater than 1024 px wide, and most are fixed width.
“And are you a troll who can’t think? Seems in some way you are. MS has a huge UI design team, they have no incentive to “steal” ideas from anywhere. They just do whatever makes sense for their users and for their specs. ”
Yeah, they haven’t ever done anything wrong. Ask IBM, APPLE, SUN, RedHat, BE, Mom, Dad, Compaq, HP..
LOL Quit trolling Eugenia :-P, you know that they have based ALL of their OS designs on other OS’s, look at the background in that filesystem window LOL. Windows 3 looks like CDE, Windows 95 looks like OS/2 and MacOS. Windows XP looks like GNOME, KDE, and OS/X. The theme in the image looks like whistler’s theme did, I’m sure they are just still looking for an elementary school to hire for their final GUI design. 😉
@Eugenia: First of all, you seem to be the no1 troll around here, sorry…
Longhorn has to be the most stupid addition to the Windows fimily since Tchernobyl – ahem, Chicago.
Sidebar? – Cute, but inefficient. I’ve seen Longhorn, and from what I’ve seen, you will need a minimum resolution of 1600×1280, otherwise you will have as much space on the desktop as on a pocket calculator. Look at the Explorer ‘enhancements’, more than 40% of the canvas are used for title, deco, statistics, useless crap – but cute.
New FS – OK, I don’t think it will be done to lock out Linux – not in the first place, that is. A new FS is something I would expect to see as a free update, ’cause most consumers couldn’t care less about anything else – no consumer realized the switch from FAT32 to NTFS…
Also, MS needs something to compete with reiser4 etc.
Multiple Desktops – As it was mentioned before, you can get those for free as an update – so, this does not rectify paying another 200 Euros for a ‘new’ OS.
All in all, Longhorn is not about invention (besides DRM and Palladium, and no consumer want’s this, anyway), it’s about milking the cash – cow. MS’s lack of inventions could very well be the end of a monopoly. Couldn’t care less… 😉
I’m not sure why all of these users feel the need to take a crap on the comments section of this story. Virtual windows were not invented for Linux (it’s just a kernel, remember?), or invented in the X-windowing system either.
I suggest all of you read this article:
http://www.softpanorama.org/OSS/bad_linux_advocacy_faq.shtml
Did you know that Gnome 2.2 just added proper support for a “loading icon”? A feature that has properly implemented since at least as early as Windows 3.1? Yet I didn’t troll your story. So please, grow up.
Since linux zealot spout that their filesystem is “oh so great”, why would you care in mounting NTFS drives? Do you go an abuse OSS developers when they break compatiblity with an older version of a library? NO.. Sense a double standard here?
One of the things OS X smashes windoze on is Quartz. From the looks of it, Longhorn has the same old bitmappy, crappier looking graphics system as XP, which is dolled up to kinda, sorta look more OS X like than windoze 98 like.
So if Longhorn comes in ’05, when does windows get upgraded graphics – 2015? just wondering
The other big feature is Palladium (aka another reason to go Linux or Mac).
As for the file system, HA HA, good luck MS. Sure, they will try to break Samba. It’s too late.
I don’t know enough, or care enough about gui history to debate the things being said on here regarding innovation on the desktop, so I’ll say this: who has the largest market share? Obviously that person is doing something right, because that’s what people are buying into. I’m sure other factors come into play as well. People want innovation? You won’t find it in the mainstream because no one wants to alienate their userbase.
Other then this sql file system I hope there’s more to this Longhorn, because the desktop looks weak. I don’t know why anyone would want a 3″ side bar taking about 15% of the desktop with a clock and a couple shortcuts. I’d also like to see MS drop the use of certified drivers as having to keep disconnecting from the internet whenever I install something is annoying.
I agree with stupidnoobie.
Personally, I like the Windows XP desktop/U to be the best from Microsoft – not that its much of a change from Windows 95. Which brings me to my point, I feel desktops should have a minimal amount of “Stuff” ( icons, etc ) on the screen to be most effective. I like OS X for that. In fact, I’ve installed a dock like app on my XP desktop to do away w/ the Startmenu and taskbar. It’s much more convienient to use.
I find the Longhorn desktop is too cluttered for the average user. The icons are too big and the taskbar (with the clock on left in the screenshot) takes up too much screen “real-estate” ). Obviously there will be ways to configure the UI to minimize what’s displayed. I feel that this interface will intimidate users.
I have to fully disagree with you about browsers and doc window behavior. Initially, I thought it was subjective, but I’m now on a Mac and did a quick test of IE and Safari… They performed as I would expect.
I am thinking that you are referring to proportional layouts, layouts designed to use the entire space of a doc window. If this is so (and forgive me if I presume wrong), you are saying that the “right” way to “zoom/maximize” a window is to display it at the largest possible size.
That makes no sense to me. A document designed to display properly no matter what size the user prefers is appropriate at ANY size. If you are particularly designing content this way, I presum it’s because you recognize the value of user preferences–so how can you say that the “right” way is for it to be “as big as possible” (?)
On the other hand, most document windows have content that is fixed with. The only reason to maximize fixed-width content is if the “canvas” is useable. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be allowed to resize bigger than the content size–just that there is no reason to maximize a window that contents fixed size content unless it has a useable cnvas area (like Illustrator for example).
I’m still interested in debate though and love hashing out these ideas. I’d be happy to discuss further, but I think I have to say that I disagree with your earlier post if I am following correctly.)
actually theres a powertoy for multiple desktops available on microsoft.com
i’m not reading the article. that screenshot is the same as from a long-ago slashdot article, in which several full-screen pictures were available. search for the article if you like. long discussion … screenshots faked. one of the others that came with this involved text stretching outside a window on one line in a textbox. welcome to picture of windows, brought to you by the gimp
I kind of doubt PC World would print a fake screenshot pic, they do their research. I must say tho if that is a genuine screenshot it is a very impressive desktop. MS will have outdone itself. In response to the englishman who wrot you need a 1600 resolution, That is pretty much whats coming out now by 2005 it will be the standard.
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df9612/df961220.jpg
In Mac OS X I couldn’t get the browser window to maximize even when I dragged it to enlarge it – I can try it again this week, but I spent some time with it already. Yes, my web page design (for cd-rom) is scalable to some extent and yes I do make them to display at 800×600 so my mom can see all the content, but when you want to get special effects you have to use images that don’t scale and although the content does scale, since images are used it scales at a certain ratio. All standard displays display at the proportions of 4 wide and 3 tall. Some content with complex tables may display better, but complex tables aren’t good because they eat up so much memory. Also Mac support for XML is very poor even with the latest browsers and os.
“In Mac OS X I couldn’t get the browser window to maximize even when I dragged it to enlarge it” Huh? What browser? The window is locked to a fixed position, even if you drag from the corner? This can’t possibly be the case unless the page is coded to do this, but I imagine this is not so, I am just not understanding. I’ve just checked on Safari and IE, and the behavior is the same: 1) if the window size is less than what is necessary to display all elements, it expands to its full vertical and horizontally as much as is necessary (both provide some padding and this varies a little); 2) if the window is larger than what is necessary to display all content but can grow vertically, it will grow to the full vertical extent; 3) if it accomodates all horizontal elements and covers the full vertical extent, it toggles back to the most recent smaller window… (from 3) “toggling” back goes to 1)’s result: full vertical extent, what is necessary horizontally.
XMP is coming… It is still beta. What does that have to do with UI?
I really like cleaning up after keying in text. Anyone else?
Damian: If YOU were Microsoft, then Windoze would have a better UI design,
and a bankrupcy filing.
Yes, I can just see it on the headlines “Microsoft files for bankruptcy protection because 1% of the desktop market boycotted its products”. I can also see CNN crew interviewing depressed engineers, complaining about Eugenia’s iron gripe on what goes in and out of the UI.
Damian: MS DOES care about leaving Linux behind.
Actually, that’s only what they tell the courts. The only Windows they have in danger to Linux right now is the server products. And thus me, Linux admins wouldn’t go boo hoo hoo because they can’t mount WinFS.
Blade: Like you say 1% of market of linux could die, 1% of mac could die, like for example BEOS that have 0.1% died…
Well for one, BeOS has way less marketshare than that even at its peak. For another, Mac OS never had proper support for FAT32 and certainly no planned support for NTFS. And Linux doesn’t even support NTFS even though more and more uses it. I don’t see the latter two dying off, in fact Linux market share increased significantly.
Blade: Thay say also that w|ndows have a new theme… Yes, w|ndows XP and Long|horn are w|ndows NT with a skin with new features.
Notice except for interim releases (Windows 98, Windows Me), alphas and pre-alphas never have the same look as the final product. Remember how Whistler look like in its alpha? The look was called Watercolor (I liked it quite a bit actually). And in the final product, Luna. Same with Chicago’s alphas and Windows 95.
Damian: It’s the “OOOOH Linux is
BRUTAL competition! We had to cut prices to keep being competitive!”
This is a lesson for all, never make guesses from CNET articles. Read the SEC filling, you would see they are talking about the server market. That market, Microsoft *never* had a monopoly.
Damian: Now that OO.o can open word, excell, and ppt files with ~85% accuracy
it might be a “natural moment” to “improve” the Office, formats too,
don’t you think?
Just to point out, accroading to OpenOffice.org, there is only two full time staff working on reverse engineering at OO.o. And their major gripe is that formating features available on Office is not available on OO.o, thus creating filters is imposible. Hence while you can’t read Word docs with macros, and PowerPoint files with wordArt.
Besides, to point out, since Office 97, Microsoft didn’t change the file formats sugnificantly (office 2k to office xp is 100%, except for Access, compatible with each other). They are changing it to XML with Office 11, the next version, but I think 6 years is supposed to be enough for them to reverse engineer, don’t you think?
Blade: M|crosoft will be using ideas that already exist (round windows[snip
Actually, since XP, they already have rounded windows. And as for default Gentoo, it doesn’t have rounded windows (nor does it has any window manager as the default in the first place).
TennesseeStiff: Between the resident MS apologist and the blind MS attacks, we have so far three pages of completely useless posts.
And to top it off: your’s.
Ben Huot: I use Windows ME and I don’t have any problem with it
Apparently, a lot of people did. Particularly with stuff like System Restore. I never saw Windows crash so much actually before and after Windows Me.
Aitvo: Windows 3 looks like CDE
And my grandmother looks like Jenifer Lopez.
Aitvo: I’m sure they are just still looking for an elementary school to hire for their final GUI design. 😉
Funny, they picked a Mac design house to do it. Funny you should call them a elementary school.
appleforever: From the looks of it, Longhorn has the same old bitmappy, crappier looking graphics system as XP, which is dolled up to kinda, sorta look more OS X
While Quartz have its advantages, one it doesn’t have is speed (Actually, Aqua shares most of the blame…). Windows’ graphics system is bitmap, but that isn’t the biggest problem to it. Notice how commercial X implementations (if you count 32-bit color out) or even BeOS fared better than Windows.
Longhorn, so I heard, would try to fix that. Meanwhile, it is easy for Microsoft to doll up the graphics system the way you put it. They did that with Windows XP remember?
appleforever: when does windows get upgraded graphics – 2015?
Doubt it. Shifting from bitmap to vector would either cause massive compatibility breakage or the removal of most of its advantages (namely being vector).
appleforever: As for the file system, HA HA, good luck MS.
Funny that a Apple zealot laugh as MS’s file system. Pot calling the kettle black. Wait, more like a decade old pot calling a brand new stainless steel kettle black.
Well, no one has the time. Having the editing feature would mean a lot of work. First a revamp of the current forum code. Then OSNews would have to built a login system, plus not forgeting they would need more bandwidth because of that. It’s not so simple, otherwise OSNews would have had it.
>>Aitvo: Windows 3 looks like CDE
>And my grandmother looks like Jenifer Lopez.
Geez, that was an enlightening post.
>>Aitvo: I’m sure they are just still looking for an elementary school to hire for their final GUI design. 😉
>Funny, they picked a Mac design house to do it. Funny you should call them a elementary school.
What does that have to do with anything? Microsoft approved a crayola/fisher price looking style for their OS, that’s just the way it is.
Lets see…
<>22/11/2002 22:14 555.421.696 lh_3683_betas.iso
And Winbeta had it long time before this.
“new file system that gives users a single route to data, regardless of how that data is created or where on a PC or network it’s stored”
oh, please tell me they’re dumping those bloody drive letters, thats one of the most annoying features of winNT that it simply shouldn’t have, it doesn’t use drive letters internaly after all.
the NTFS(HPFS
)itself isn’t too bad, not as versatile as many others, but still leaps and bounds ahead of FAT. i wonder if Linux/BSD will ever be able to do sensible R/W on the new M$FSs, maybe thats why they want to keep making slight changes, keep dual booters one step behind.
as for the UI, yes they do have a big design team, but that doesn’t mean they’ll come up with something original, remember, they had that same UI design team for XP, and look what happened, things in that screen shot are starting to look somewhat bluecurveish, not that it will stay that way for long mind you, Whistler had a nice clean skin, but when XP came along they created that horrible blue monstrosity. so no, it doesn’t resemble KDE, more GNOME
Multiple desktops have been a reality for a long time, but windows simply hasn’t been terribly good at them, so it is a valid arguement that X(not linux) has been copied in some senses here, in that it’s becomming a standard feature, but anyway, who the hell is really going to want to pay money for Longhorn when it finally arrives, i don’t even know who would want to pirate it, the last windows version i currently plan to use is 2k/XP unless some massive change comes to microsofts new policies reegarding WPA, DRM, etc.
it’s been interesting to hang around in the windows forum and hear various lUsers(longhorn users) telling me that i’ll need at least 1GB or RAM and a 2GHz machine, and for some reason a 7200RPM HDD(yes, i know, it’s ridiculous) i wonder what their minimum spec will turn out to be in the end.
rajan: Funny that a Apple zealot laugh as MS’s file system. Pot calling the kettle black. Wait, more like a decade old pot calling a brand new stainless steel kettle black.
I was laughing about the following: if they keep the new sys closed as far as networking protocols, customers will resist this because they have gotten used to serving up windows volumes from linux machines (samba). I think it’s too late to change this. the cat got out of the bag
>>Aitvo: Windows 3 looks like CDE
>And my grandmother looks like Jenifer Lopez.
Geez, that was an enlightening post.
It was sacarsm. In other words, without loads of money spent on cosmestic surgery, my grannie would never look like JLo. The same with Windows 3.1
What does that have to do with anything? Microsoft approved a crayola/fisher price looking style for their OS, that’s just the way it is.
For me, I much prefer the end product’s look than watercolor, especially regarding the icons. The color scheme may not suit everyone (I know a lot of people that likes it), but I personally like Silver.
Meanwhile, I rather dislike Aqua, the thing you claim Microsoft copied, especially the strips and the brush metal on some apps, and some of the widgets, and especially the amount of unnessecary animation (animation not needed and slows me down).
Actually, appleforever, their networking protocols are open (although there are some Windows-specific patents whom Microsoft gives for free with a condition that a copyleft license may not be used). And they are backwards compatible (meaning you can connect with Samba or a version of Windows older than you are using) although you can use the newest versions.
Meanwhile, if you look at the quote I took from you in my earlier post, you could see I was replying to a remark made on the changed on the file system. Here’s the quote *again*;
“As for the file system, HA HA, good luck MS.”, so don’t go hiding back of the Samba excuse.
And on the server, for file servers particularly, Microsoft is still the top. Linux is mostly gaining share from UNIX, and if Microsoft never cared about them, trust me they don’t care about Linux in this context too.
I would like to point out that DRM don’t fucking affect you unless you are downloading DRM-protected material. And these material aren’t available on other OS, especially not on Linux, so pretty much you don’t avoid DRM on other OS, you avoid DRM media. So you can still play that MP3 without fear.
I have to disagree with you on that. To make DRM effective, your use of programs that allowed non-DRM files may be restricted (don’t forget the Palladium objective).
A example: In the last company I was in, the computers in the company had policies that prevented installing software that hadn’t been approved. As a software developer I didn’t have this restriction. Our older version of a process control program stored run data in binary. This data had to be converted to ascii tab-delimited form for importation into MS Excel for analysis.
Occasionally, a customer would send in data to get help in refining process control parameters. The research group would have to forward the data to me for translation as they could not install our very own software on their machines because Windows would prevented it.
Ugly defaukt theme MS, well it might hide the fact that longhorn is a trojan horse. Windows TH (trojan horse), no need for a free will. Pelideum will be in lonhorn right?
# Longhorn will optionally include the Palladium security technology Microsoft is developing with Intel and AMD (see the next question for details).
Optionally, I don’t think so.
Look, if MS doesn’t break or try to break samba with their new file system, good for them. I guess my first post was unclear. I don’t know whether the new MS file system will be any good or not. I haven’t seen it, and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m just saying if the price of “improvement” is, “umm by the way, you need to always have a windows server at our $$$$$$,” I don’t think customers will like it.
Even the ones running windows file servers won’t like it. Because right now when they serve up files from a windows server to a desktop windows machine, they aren’t locked in. that’s a choice. they could use a linux box with samba. that gives them leverage in pricing (althoug not much, but it’s better than zero)
Peterr: I have to disagree with you on that. To make DRM effective, your use of programs that allowed non-DRM files may be restricted (don’t forget the Palladium objective).
What’s Palladium’s objective? Accroading to Microsoft, it is hardware-based encryption. Most of their talk on it has to do with sending files to remote computers securely. What’s Palladium objective accroading to paranoias? Oh, besides killing Linux, watching your grandmother naked, and deleting all your MP3s, nothing much.
You can still play MP3s on Windows. The minute it blocks me from doing that I’m defecting too.
Peterr: Occasionally, a customer would send in data to get help in refining process control parameters. The research group would have to forward the data to me for translation as they could not install our very own software on their machines because Windows would prevented it.
Like you said, it wasn’t the fault of Windows, but your companies policies. If your company don’t have these, trust me, the sysadmins would have much more problems than they already have today. But I don’t see how this applies to the conversation, Palladium only blocks software that communicate directly to the hardware or kernel (e.g. ultilities… and viruses). Not WinAMP.
Besides, Palladium itself being optional at least in Longhorn (except if you want to run Palladium-only apps), I don’t see the big problem.
appleforever: Look, if MS doesn’t break or try to break samba with their new file system, good for them.
You have NO idea how they are both connected, do you? It doesn’t matter what file system Microsoft use, unless they get rid of the same networking protocol Samba uses, Samba can be used.
Guys who really gives two craps. I dont. If MS Breaks the filesystem to where I cant mount them under Linux then 2 bad I wont use MS Windows anymore. I mean cmon dudes give it a break and chill out.
Hey, I was assuming that the protocol had something to do with the file system, i.e, that if you change the file system drastically (which I thought they might be doing), the old protocol might not work. If that’s not the case, then great.
Just found this over at a site discussing MS’s supposed plans to run PC to Mac switcher ads:
“I got tired of waiting for the G5 Mac and bought a Dell 2.4 Ghz PC with XP. It’s been a nightmare.
I get error messages all the time about missing DLLs or missing files. I have to hack the registry to fix these problems, and that’s not fun at all. This is what XP has a feature where you can jump back in time. It needs it!
XP restarts instead of giving you a BSOD. It restarts a lot.
XP doesn’t allow me to play games at a higher refresh rate than 75 Hz, even though my monitor can handle it. For whatever reason, they got rid of the “Optimal Refresh Rate” setting.
I can’t stand all the ads that pop up, even when I’m not even running applications.
I can’t stand the Windows UI. The Start Menu is aweful, trying to guess what I want and shoving apps I don’t want into my face. The task bar still gets crowded and task buttons get truncated so you can’t read the tasks. The mouse settings are under “Printers and Other Hardware”. Isn’t that intuitive?
I installed a 3rd party PCI card on my Dell and immediately got errors, with yellow exclamation marks in the Device Manager. I had to move the card over to another slot. This had to do with IRQ conflicts, I’m told.
Uninstallers in XP are a joke. They don’t uninstall everything, and why am I suppose to make the decisions about deleting a DLL when I want to uninstall something? “Do you want to delete DLL X or Y even though it might hose Windows?” Heck no! I swear, after just a few months, my XP system is slower than when I first bought it.
I have to defrag all the time.
I have to check for viruses all the time.
I have to check for adware and spyware all the time.
I tried to do multiple monitors on this Dell, like I’ve done on my Mac for years, and it was a huge hassle to get it to work. Once I got it to work I found many applications that don’t support it.
I can’t stand IE for Windows. Pop-up ads and no tabs, no spell checker. . . .”
Are they gonna fix this stuff?
Nice.
XP restarts instead of giving you a BSOD. It restarts a lot.
Funny, that never happen to me, even though I stress the system a lot. Not one such reboot.
XP doesn’t allow me to play games at a higher refresh rate than 75 Hz, even though my monitor can handle it. For whatever reason, they got rid of the “Optimal Refresh Rate” setting.
Extremely wierd. I would like to know what graphics card that guy is using. Most of the time, you can get higher refresh rates than Macs (only most monitors don’t support them :-).
I can’t stand all the ads that pop up, even when I’m not even running applications.
Get rid of Gator and Kazaa. Should do the trick.
I can’t stand the Windows UI.
Like most Mac users. Most of them expect everything to work the same as on the Mac (therefore you always find Mac apps with Windows-like UIs failing).
The Start Menu is aweful, trying to guess what I want and shoving apps I don’t want into my face.
Funny. I much prefer the taskbar and Start menu to the Dock.
The mouse settings are under “Printers and Other Hardware“. Isn’t that intuitive?
Isn’t that stupid? Mouse settings are where they should be; in the Hardware section. Notice the “Other Hardware” plus the mouse on the icon?
The reason why it is name Printer and Other Hardware is because most of the stuff in it are for printers and scanners. Most of the mouse configuration for example are in Accessibility.
This had to do with IRQ conflicts, I’m told.
This is to blame on Dell. Not PCs in general. I never had a IRQ conflict. Never did. Meanwhile such a problem can happen on Macs too, but such a chance for that happening is next to none.
Heck no! I swear, after just a few months, my XP system is slower than when I first bought it.
Actually, it has to do with pre-fetching and the registry. Most of the problems I notice are from legacy applications (apps not built for XP meaning without the XP sticker). But I much prefer this senario than having large slow .app folders on OS X.
I have to defrag all the time.
Well, you just need to do it once a week or two weeks. Then again, HFS+ fragments much faster than NTFS… it is tantanum as a Mac user crying that he is forced to do everything by GUI.
I have to check for viruses all the time.
I have Panda AV on my system right now, and I don’t notice it at all (besides checking out the system tray). downloading definations is also rather fast, even on slow Malaysian dial-up.
I tried to do multiple monitors on this Dell, like I’ve done on my Mac for years, and it was a huge hassle to get it to work.
I took me 2 minutes to set up my church’s system with 3 monitors and one LCD projector with no prior experience (it is for my church projection system, plus I used a Radeon). Wasn’t a huge hassle for me.
Once I got it to work I found many applications that don’t support it.
All the apps I wanted dual monitors, including Photoshop, Office, some bible software, etc. worked.
I can’t stand IE for Windows. Pop-up ads and no tabs, no spell checker. . . .
There are many browsers for Windows, some even better than OS X’s best. Mozilla, BTW, is available on Windows (and ironically faster than Mozilla and Chimera on the Mac).
Besides, what does this have to do with the discussion?
>>XP restarts instead of giving you a BSOD. It restarts a lot.
>Funny, that never happen to me, even though I stress the system a lot. Not one such reboot.
Good for you, since it doesn’t happen to you it must not happen at all to anyone!
>>I can’t stand all the ads that pop up, even when I’m not even running applications.
>Get rid of Gator and Kazaa. Should do the trick.
Yes, please describe how an average computer user gets rid of gator.
>>I can’t stand the Windows UI.
>Like most Mac users. Most of them expect everything to work the same as on the Mac (therefore you always find Mac apps with Windows-like UIs failing).
Awww, this sounds like you complaining about Linux. “Like most Windows users. Most of them expect everything to work the same as on Windows”.
>>The Start Menu is aweful, trying to guess what I want and shoving apps I don’t want into my face.
>Funny. I much prefer the taskbar and Start menu to the Dock.
The start menu is a joke, it was GREAT until XP screwed it up.
>>The mouse settings are under “Printers and Other Hardware”. Isn’t that intuitive?
>Isn’t that stupid? Mouse settings are where they should be; in the Hardware section. Notice the “Other Hardware” plus the mouse on the icon?
Riight, Mouse and Printer I can see the relationship. OHH Other HARDWARE! Why isn’t my network configuration there then?
>>This had to do with IRQ conflicts, I’m told.
>This is to blame on Dell. Not PCs in general. I never had a IRQ conflict. Never did. Meanwhile such a problem can happen on Macs too, but such a chance for that happening is next to none.
This is a common end user experience, good for you that you haven’t ever had an IRQ conflict. It says LOADS about your computer experience. Unless you have never used non PNP hardware or a 9x series OS you have seen one.
>>Heck no! I swear, after just a few months, my XP system is slower than when I first bought it.
>Actually, it has to do with pre-fetching and the registry. Most of the problems I notice are from legacy applications (apps not built for XP meaning without the XP sticker). But I much prefer this senario than having large slow .app folders on OS X.
Riight, now you are admitting that Windows is slow.
>>I have to check for viruses all the time.
>I have Panda AV on my system right now, and I don’t notice it at all (besides checking out the system tray). downloading definations is also rather fast, even on slow Malaysian dial-up.
Until it misses one.
>>I tried to do multiple monitors on this Dell, like I’ve done on my Mac for years, and it was a huge hassle to get it to work.
>I took me 2 minutes to set up my church’s system with 3 monitors and one LCD projector with no prior experience (it is for my church projection system, plus I used a Radeon). Wasn’t a huge hassle for me.
Really, did that include hooking everything up? You must be the flash or something.
>>I can’t stand IE for Windows. Pop-up ads and no tabs, no spell checker. . . .
>There are many browsers for Windows, some even better than OS X’s best. Mozilla, BTW, is available on Windows (and ironically faster than Mozilla and Chimera on the Mac).
Mozilla is also more secure than IE.
>Besides, what does this have to do with the discussion?
Everything.
Good for you, since it doesn’t happen to you it must not happen at all to anyone!
No, it means, Mr Troll, that this is a isolated case. Meaning certain hardware or software is causing this.
Yes, please describe how an average computer user gets rid of gator.
Start > Control Panel > add/ remove programs > Gator > “Change/Remove” button.
Now, that wasn’t so hard, wasn’t it?
Awww, this sounds like you complaining about Linux. “Like most Windows users. Most of them expect everything to work the same as on Windows”.
Nice troll. I didn’t even mention Linux. Besides, mind you, prior to Linux, I didn’t use any OS for more than a hour a week. Mandrake 7.1 was pretty much my “first” OS. And until 1.5 years ago, I was using Linux almost exclusively.
The start menu is a joke, it was GREAT until XP screwed it up.
Funny. I started using both Windows XP and Windows 2000 at the same time, and I prefer Windows Xp’s start menu. A whole lot more.
Why isn’t my network configuration there then?
Well, because there is another applet named after it, idiot.
Unless you have never used non PNP hardware or a 9x series OS you have seen one.
No, actually I never used a 9x series OS for more than an hour a week. And I have two machines I built myself, never had a IRQ problem, and I installed Windows Me on my Duron (though was never used) again no IRQ problem.
Riight, now you are admitting that Windows is slow.
Now, I said it gets slower with time due to lack of maintainence. If you don’t send your car for maintainence after some while, bye bye Mr. Car.
Besides, almost the same thing happens on OS X.
Until it misses one.
Actually, it never caught one.
Really, did that include hooking everything up?
Yes, actually. What’s so hard and long about pluging wires into their ports?
Mozilla is also more secure than IE.
Never denied that, in fact in the other thread, it was one of my points.
>Besides, what does this have to do with the discussion?
Everything.
Yes. After loosing in a debate with me about file systems, we jumps around and copies and pastes a message from god-knows-where and that’s revelant to the topic? Whoa.
some people seem to go WAY too broad with the troll label. According to some on this board, trolls are:
— anyone who maintains a consistent position for or against something. In other words, you are a troll if you plug mac and criticize windows.
— say anything that’s not 100 percent polite and keeps people’s feelings in mind (like claiming that anything is better than anything else – you see, someone’s feelings might get hurt if they own the thing that’s not “as good”, so we should just be real nice and smile all the time about how it’s all relative and just personal preference. otherwise you are troll.
right
I am using Windows XP right now with 45 apps open at one time no stress and its actually working quite well. Quit trolling Appleforever XP has never restarted on me and even tho my use is limited when I do use it I tend to push the system quite a bit. As for MS running switcher ads what do you expect, Dont tell me you believe all of Apples switch ads, Apples switch ads I hold in the same regard as pro wrestling, 10 percent truth 90 percent crap. Its marketing. Macs are slowly dying get used to it dude.
here’s the deal – apple can’t stay alive without being better. It’s still alive. Because it’s better. Why is OS X winning all these awards and rave reviews and nobody loves windows? not the press, nobody. All you guys like are your hardware. the os, you never say anything like, “wow, this is the best OS ever!!!” Instead, it’s “look I can buy 3 gighertz for 699!!!” whoop de doo
apple can’t stay alive without being better.
And that’s the reason why many doesn’t be businessmen. Apple can stay alive with inferior products, remember OS 9? The amount of problems it gave. The crappy virtual memory. They manage to stay afloat and made a profit.
Marketing is the key. Microsoft has no sane reason to market Windows like Apple. PC makers has no sane reason to market PCs like Apple. Therefore, you only think Apple is the very best only because of their marketing.
Why is OS X winning all these awards and rave reviews and nobody loves windows?
What awards exactly did Apple win? And as for the rave reviews, all reviews I would call reviews aren’t all that positive, particularly with OS X 10.0 and 10.1. Yes, there is some good reviews, but you are living in the dream world where there is none for Windows XP.
Take ZDnet for example, which has farely gave MS a good review http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2809517,00.htm…
Plus, that review is fare more exhausted than any of OS X’s review outside of Ars Technica (who didn’t give such a rosy review after all).
Even OSNews had a fairly positive review: http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=451.
you never say anything like, “wow, this is the best OS ever!!!”
Because on this site, there are way less Windows fanatics than Mac zealots. Heck, there is no regular that is a Windows zealot ala you. But for me, Windows XP is one of the best OS ever.
Infoworld’s 2002 Technology of the Year: Apple platform
http://infoworld.com/article/03/01/24/2002TOYmac_1.html
Apple’s Mac OS X team was named Software Designer of the year in the 2002 Wired Rave Awards, which celebrate “innovation and the individuals transforming commerce and culture.” The winners are chosen by the editors of Wired magazine.
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0301/17.rave.php
it ain’t marketing pal. I know good shit when I see it. good music, good wine, good whatever. macs are damn good computers, mainly because of the software which is beautiful. do you know what that is? i doubt it
I never really had high views on Wired, so don’t push t :-).
Reading that InfoWorld article, I can only laugh…
InfoWorld: We’ll highlight one aspect of the platform that’s evolving particularly well: the Unix layer.
The Unix layer, IMHO, is the worst part of OS X. It is slow. No, that’s an understatement. And the design itself isn’t all that clean in the first place (the worst designed microkernel-like thing I saw in my entire life). By comparison, FreeBSD and Linux is tonnes faster *and* more stable (go to Apple’s knowlegde base website, a lot of complains about kernel panics).
And don’t let me start on HFS+ – it is ugly. Using UFS only makes OS X significantly slower, and unlike FreeBSD and Linux, somehow using a journalized file system on OS X Server actually makes it slower. Funny.
InfoWorld: Apple spent a lot of effort to make OS X source-code compatible with BSD.
You are calling OS X innovative merely because they spend sometime in making sure it is source compatible with FreeBSD?
Solaris is source compatible with Linux, I see no award going to them.
InfoWorld: OS X is now a supported build target for the most visible open-source projects, meaning the latest cut of Apache or Mozilla is likely to hit the Mac at the same time it hits Linux, BSD, and Solaris.
Funny, as most of the work actually was done on Apache’s and Mozilla’s (especially) part. Mozilla has a OS X version released at the same time as Linux and Windows because of their developers, and this was the case before 2002 (they started, IIRC, doing so when OS X 10.1 was release)
InfoWorld: On January 7, Apple released its beta of the first hardware-accelerated X Window server for OS X.
Check again, it isn’t hardware-accelerated. Unless by writing drivers you mean hardware-accelerated. What difference between stock X implementations and Apple’s version is that Apple’s version communicate with Quartz, and practically uses it as its window manager.
Then on Wired Rave Award..
The award was won over Tablet PC guys merely because Wired editors found OS X far more “important” than Tablet PC. Tablet PC is pretty much Windows XP Professional with Windows Journal and handwriting recogniction. Most of the work on Tablet PC went towards the hardware, but you can’t win “Software Designer” award for your hardware work.
And Ogg Vorbis was no competition to OS X.
But the funny thing is that Apple lost on iMac to Danger. Personally I would have picked iMac, while I think it is a useless piece of crap, it is pretty innovative (the semi-sphere shape gives better air ventilation, and the “stick” sticking out of iMac is rather innovative).
it ain’t marketing pal.
You just proved it to me. Why is OS X far more successful than NeXT even though NeXT was a better product in comparison with competitors back in the day? Marketing, my friend. It makes the world go round. I’m very into marketing, and personally, I’m rather impressed by Apple’s marketing.
It is not a insult to Apple. It was a praise. man you guys can’t take a compliment when you see one. Besides, I didn’t say Mac OS X is all bad. Personally, I like Quartz, but hate most of Aqua (I way prefer Platinum) and Darwin. I like the new Finder, but don’t like the idea of the toolbar (much prefer OS 9’s idea).
you can find things wrong with anything. OS X is still a work in progress, like any software. Sure, compromises are made, maybe even some bad choice.
but that’s the little, micro stuff. the big picture is a the ease of use of the mac on top of a powerful unix base. that they’ve pulled this off is why they won these awards, I think. You’re just sour grapes.
I’m sure beos or whatever had or has some technical advantages over BSD unix. After all unix is very old and I would assume there’s some more advanced stuff out there not incorporated yet into BSD unix. But whatever technical deficiences there might be, they are not having a major effect on usability or functioning. The key thing is apple is effectively more in the mainstream. With beos or whatever, apple would have remained an island, with insufficient connection to the rest of the computing world. All that changed with OS X because of the unix base.
by the way,kernel panics stopped on my Frankenstein upgraded B&W G3 with 10.2.something. I haven’t yet a kernel panic on my new 12 powerbook (that’s right baby – 4.6 lbs and a slot loading DVD burner!!).
OS X is still a work in progress, like any software.
And why doesn’t that apply on any PC vendor? Your objectivity astounds me.
Sure, compromises are made, maybe even some bad choice.
Most of my gripes were not good compromise. Take for example Darwin. It is much faster for Apple to fork FreeBSD or Linux and use that instead of hacking around OpenStep’s BSD.
Or that of Aqua – why can’t they just use Platinum. Reduce the clutter, like merging all the preference into one central location. Give it a new *look*, while not excessive on the eye candy (esp. animation). That would have been a easier compromise, don’t you think?
that they’ve pulled this off is why they won these awards, I think.
There are many companies that done this before. All of them are either bought over, discontinued or bankrupted. But what Apple did wasn’t something unique. Heck, it was a continuation of OpenStep.
I’m sure beos or whatever had or has some technical advantages over BSD unix.
In some areas, maybe. But most of the time, BSD is much better than BeOS. Esp. in the speed department. BeOS has some interesting ideas, but I’m not such a big fan of them.
VMS on the other hand is an entirely different story.
After all unix is very old and I would assume there’s some more advanced stuff out there not incorporated yet into BSD unix.
So what if UNIX is old? If it works best, use it. It is not like UNIX is remotely the same today as it was 30 years ago.
With beos or whatever, apple would have remained an island, with insufficient connection to the rest of the computing world.
That, my friend, I doubt. I don’t see how BeOS would make Apple more isolated than UNIX. Applications? How many applications do YOU use that is originally from UNIX?
by the way,kernel panics stopped on my Frankenstein upgraded B&W G3 with 10.2.something.
Funny, I never got a kernel panic with Linux even with the amount of stress I place on it (except once when I mis-installed it, long story). Besides, on Apple’s support site itself, a astonding amount of people still complain about certain cases of kernel panic. Except for alphas and betas, I never heard such a thing for other Unices.
I haven’t yet a kernel panic on my new 12 powerbook (that’s right baby – 4.6 lbs and a slot loading DVD burner!!).
I wrote a post about that: http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=2770&offset=30&rows=37#72066
I’m very picky about sizes, esp when keyboards are affected by them. Hence the reason why I won’t buy a 12.1″ laptop anytime in the near future.
If I was to buy a 12.1″ laptop, it probably be that Compaq Tablet PC. (But I doubt I would buy a Tablet PC anytime soon, at least until its handwriting recogniction is better).