A more advanced test version of Windows XP’s successor has leaked onto the Web, and analysts say it indicates that Microsoft has stepped up work to deliver the new operating system. Read it story at CNet.
Microsoft Makes Strides on New Windows
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Eugenia Loli
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This new Microsoft OS looks very bloated and corporate. And one has to be skeptical of Microsoft’s disingenuous use of the word ‘library’ as Microsoft’s ‘libraries’ will all have Orwellian DRM systems managing them.
The new OS just feels heavy… no wonder Intel has been tasked with figuring out how to make Itanium 10 times faster in the next couple years.
That I’ll continue using W2K for the unforeseen future.
The new OS just feels heavy… no wonder Intel has been tasked with figuring out how to make Itanium 10 times faster in the next couple years.
I dunno … asumming that you’ll have the ability to tweak it and turn off all of the crap (minus IE integration) as you can with WinXP, you’ll probably be able to run it on a high-end Pentium II
I think longhorn looks a lot classier than XP. XP looks like it was made by fisher price.
I do think the sidebar is going to be big…everyone will end up with wide screen monitors to go with all of their hdtvs.
It does not feel corporate. IMO “corporate” stands for “not flashy, simple enough, yet nice”. KDE’s Light 3rd edition fits this description quite nice. Blue Everything OS doesn’t.
WinFS probably will not even have any open protocols. I’ll stick to XP and Linux.
This is one thing I’m looking forward to with Windows. Something SERIOUSLY lacking that all the third party apps I’ve tried haven’t been able to easily accomplish. Microsoft should have built this feature into the OS long ago. Why they didn’t is anyones guess.
You turn the themes off, or install one attractive to you. Disable all the effects such as persoanlized menus, tool tips, menu shading, fade effects, menu effects, go to classic start menu, etc…
You disable the side bar, clear out the taskbar, gut the start up services and all the other programs that load by default. Organize the start menu, edit the right click menu.
All of this takes about 15 minutes if you know what to do. Doesn’t make Windows any smaller, but it becomes much more responsive.
If it was linux, and someone said “it’s called configuration” flames would follow!
…or is the new window contents design a HUGE waste of space? There’s like a 100 pixels of nothing…maybe they’ll sell even more mice with scroll wheels now…
It looks better than XP…but god, do some design work.
I have been a Windows 98SE user for many years but have been considering the move to Longhorn when its released. I was tempted to upgrade to XP when Microsoft did the ‘Version 2’ release but given the changes planned for Longhorn it does not seem to be worth the money and effort to go to XP.
However in the interim, I have been dabbling with Linux. Red Hat (RH) 7.3 did not look like a real Windows replacement. RH 8 was better but still not polished. Lycoris Desktop is starting to look pretty close. But! I have just installed Mandrake 9.1; this is really starting to look good. Very stable and everything seems to work without any ‘geeky’ input.
I purchased a version that a local shop had burnt to 3 CD’s (I don’t have broadband Internet access). For $AUD20 I purchased a Windows XP equivalent and a choice of two Office XP equivalents – a saving of close to $AUD1000. Mandrake also came with Python 2.2.2 (very nice).
Linux still does not have equivalents to TextPad (editor) MyInfo (two pane writing tool) or Pretty Good Solitaire (from Goodsol). If these were available on Linux, it would be no contest.
Regards,
Peter
> …or is the new window contents design a HUGE waste of space? There’s like a 100 pixels of nothing…maybe they’ll sell even more mice with scroll wheels now…
I downloaded this thing called Smartbar XP just to get a taste of the sidebar thing in longhorn. Yes, it does waste a bit of space, but can integrate things like MSN messenger, My computer, etc within it, so thats fewer window open.
I did, however end up setting my resolution to 1280*768 with panning so that the thing was out of the view most of the time, and was available with a simple mouse movement to the right instead of some kind of scrolling
Finally, after using it for a day or two, I uninstalled the thing, and I’m sure if MS shoves this ‘feature’ down our throat, most of us will end up disabling it just like most of the annoying GUI effects in XP.
You turn the themes off, or install one attractive to you. Disable all the effects such as persoanlized menus, tool tips, menu shading, fade effects, menu effects, go to classic start menu, etc…
So why don’t they just do what RedHat did and make the default theme appealing to the corporate user?
IMO a room full of PCs with desktops made up of a low amount of unobtrusive colours (take one shade of grey and a few shades of blue, like RH or Win2K) looks a lot nicer than a room full of screens containing white and every shade of blue under the sun. I think managers will see it that way too.
I wish Microsoft would make all of Windows look like the dotNET style by default – that’s their cleanest UI I’ve seen so far. It’s what I’m currently running on KDE too.
W2k is still very functional and it does not carry the bloat of XP or more then likely the future bloat and restrictions of LongHorn and it’s DRM crap infested future. I will stick with it for a loooong time untill they drop suppport completely. I really don’t see a need for going past W2K for my needs. After that I’ll go full on with Linux and I won’t dual boot anymore. With constant improvements in KDE and stuff like slicker and karamba, along with improvements in Gnome I should be happy with Linux when the time comes to go Linux only on my rigs.
I wish people who go on about bloat could qualify their argument. I can’t think of a single thing I consider bloat in XP as I make use of a lot of it’s features. It just seems to be one of those things that is taken as fact.
The thing is that Microsoft’s market is as many people as possible, therefore, Windows needs as many cool features as possible – there has to be some visible selling point otherwise people don’t feel that they’ve upgraded. Now if these features are just cool for the sake of cool without being useful to anybody, then that is what I would consider bloat.
I actually welcome more features in the OS and look forward to seeing what Longhorn becomes.
another MS-leak!? They obviously do need a good plumber …
Anybody out there who could do da job?
You might be able to get those programs to work in Wine. Be sure to get the lastest version from WineHQ.
If it was linux, and someone said “it’s called configuration” flames would follow!
That’s a good point. The list of configuration options mentioned in the post was really long. Plus some of them require using the registry (removing startups that aren’t in the Start Up folder). I think you make a good point. If windows needs as much config as linux… why run windows?
Ms does have a virtual desktop manager that you can download, but it really sucks.
Linux still does not have equivalents to TextPad (editor) MyInfo (two pane writing tool) or Pretty Good Solitaire (from Goodsol). If these were available on Linux, it would be no contest.
What do you mean with no TextPad equivalent ???? there are hundreds of text editors ???? Like Nedit Kedit Kate Gedit and the classic Vi or Emacs which are a bit more than a text editor…. I use Nedit which is the one that has all the cool stuff i need. Pretty Good Solitaire ???? i wont even bother to check this… I mean is this a Game ?????
I mean just get any know distro and youll see that all that you mention is already installed.
😀
TextPad runs in Wine, it works VERY well too.
I wish people who go on about bloat could qualify their argument.
For a desktop operating system, XP doesn’t offer much more tha things like QNX do. It does offer some things that aren’t needed in a strictly desktop operating system (e.g. IIS). XP is how many hundred megabytes for the minimum installation? QNX fits on a floppy. There’s your bloat. Yes, most modern Linux distros are bloated too.
Bloat is having less than or equal functionality to something else and requiring a LOT more space then the other thing.
If people start using things like directfb (www.directfb.org) and building GTK2 apps to run on it, then the average Linux distro might be less bloated than XP.
Right now I’m not giving longhorn a chance. Its requirements are way too high for me and I would have to invest in new software just to make this thing compatible. XP didn’t like my new hardware at all so I stuck to Windows 2000. For me, Linux is going to be the OS I stick to. Windows 2000 is my last version of Windows I’ll use.
I just wonder if they’re going to have some sort of compatibility layer for older apps thatuse FAT32 / NTFS. If not, it will be a forced upgrade a lot of people will not want to make.
Personally, I use Linux for all of my everyday needs. The only time I boot to Windows 2000 is when I feel like taking out some agression in Return to Castle Wolfenstein or something of the like. Win2K works fine for my gaming habit. For everything else, there’s Linux.
I dunno what kind of XP home or pro install your doing, but the default install does not install IIS by default. Wake up. Stop running Win2kAS and pretending you know XP installs by assuming its similar.
I dunno what kind of XP home or pro install your doing, but the default install does not install IIS by default. Wake up
I’m evidently more awake than you, since I read and understood what I wrote. I didn’t say that IIS was in the default install. I said XP offers IIS. The default install of XP is significantly more bloated than things like QNX.
> or Pretty Good Solitaire (from Goodsol)
I’ve never used (or heard of, until now) that specific program, but why don’t you look at this one:
http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/pysol/#abstract
Bill always does this to get feedback to make their windows better. One of his puppets does this everytime there is a new beta, it gets released to the public and then it’s said to have been leaked. What a lie.
Their brand new innovative user interface reminds me a lot of QNX with it’s quick launch/configuration/application sidebar…. it has fast links to the major configuration for your system, a bunch of quick launch ability for frequently used applications, and it intergrates things like a CD-Player and System Resource Monitor…. is it me or has Microsoft stolen this idea and made it blue with some other pretty colors?
What truly amazes me about Longhorn is that they have both an analogue and digital clock… Truly amazing! I wish some other OS had figured this out, cause not everyone knows how to read digital clocks! So it’s good to have the other one there at the same time taking up about 10 times as much space. Surely you can turn it off, but there’s a reason Windows is considered bloated by “default” — /me runs xclock and xclock -d (I’ll bet they don’t have one application that does both
)
They’re gonna have to get rid of blunders such as the registry before their attempts at creating a decent OS will ever be taken seriously.
If you are so big on efficiency and lack of bloat. Then don’t you think your statement, “– /me runs xclock and xlcock -d,” would have been more efficently stated as, “– I run xclock and xclock -d” ?
No only does it save you a whole two letters its more grammatically correct, i.e. standards compliance
Ten people ask for ten new features each. Some new features overlap, some don’t, but most of them get incorporated. Bloat is the part you didn’t ask for.
Everyone’s bloat is different. Everyone’s bloat is useful to someone else.
The problem is not that the software has too many features that you don’t know of or use. The problem instead is that there’s no practical way to trim the software down to just what you want, will use, and understand.
Unless it’s Open Source.
GMFTatsujin
I agree. The registry has to go. The one on my XP system right now is 6.5 Megs with very little installed. MS should also be more open to customer feedback for improvements. I did beta testing for XP last year (I bought it for $10) and I didn’t feel as though if I gave them feedback they would acknowledge let alone reply to it.
Why do you need a file system with a database tied into it. If you have that many documents, there are much better ways to organise them.
There’s a lot more work that has to be done to improve Windows. By the time the next OS comes out I’ll likely be using something else for my desktop. I might not be happy with it but the changes in the new OS seem rather unappealing.
The problem isn’t features, or even too many features, it is when features are introduced at the sake of speed, stability and clean code. The problem with Windows is that they create a feature, but they don’t get it right, and instead of going back to the drawing board, they tack on more features to try and compensate. That is my definition.
My example, all those stupid wizards that XP uses. They call them great easy to use features, I call them bloat. The Network Wizard is bloat to compensate for poor ease of changing network settings. Look at OS X, you have just as many options and choices, but it is implemented in a far better way than a seperate configuration program.
I think that Windows is just not evolving fast enough. Years of spagetti code are catching up with them. 40 months is just too long of a time between releases. Again look at OS X, the jumps for 10.0 to 10.1 took six months. The jump from 10.1 to 10.2 took a year, and it looks like 10.2 to 10.3 is going to take about a year too. And those milestone releases were just as comprehensive as Windows 98 to Me, or Windows 2000 to XP. (Or Me to XP, but I don’t want to get in the changing kernels argument). Apple has just made a relatively fresh start, and that allows a much faster evolution. The parts of OS X that people critize are the ones that are carried over from OS 9, such as Finder.
I’m not sure who made these comments so I’ll just reply generally.
To edit the start up services and programs in winXp, you go the start, run, and type “msconfig”. System configuration application appears, the 2 far right tabs are “services” and “start up” that show all the programs running/starting up at windows load.
Regarding the whole “If it was Linux flames would follow”, not from me. I was under the impression that one of the benefits of Linux was that it was so configurable. The idea that you wouldn’t configure it doesn’t make sense.
Lastly, why run windows if I still have to do all this configuring? Because I enjoy being able to run all my hardware and like having an extremely large selection of software to choose from. I don’t see why having to to configure an OS is a bad thing, as it simply means you have the option of customizing it to your needs.
An ie gutted Windows95b takes up 40 megabytes.
an ie gutted Win98se takes up 85 megabytes.,
XP can’t be gutted of IE so it takes up 1000 megabytes.
Longhorn will be how many ?
That sounds like bloat to me.
All these comments are pathetic. Anybody having a real look at what MS is trying to do will realise this is a step in the right direction.
1. Registry, hopefully with the new file system Windows will be liberated from it.
2. All data will be able to be stored in common file formats making program sharing and searching infinately easier.
3. By the looks of Server 2003, MS are making strides in performance optimisation.
4. Completely new file storage structure for Windows.
This is the underlying improvements MS is bringing to the table. This is what BeOS users have enjoyed for years now, well that and true plug and play. The UI is irrelevant because we all know we change it to our own requirements or do we?
Stop being superficial and look at the core of what’s happening here. If I have control over DRM and UI and am not locked out of what I currently do with my system but also have the new file system and its benefits. I would consider going from XP to it. Although, before MS releases Longhorn I will have Zeta running doing all the above minus the choice of apps that Windows allows but I hope the Developer community gets behind YellowTab and OpenBeOS and we get some great apps for Audio and Video/Graphics creation.
I say again: why does Micrsoft think the only thing they can do to change the UI is complicate it by breaking things into more and more categories and burying things deeper than they were before?
I welcome any new file system that improves the state of the OS, but the OS architecture itself is where the most changes are needed. They need to sever the tie with the old stuff and I do not mean 16-bit apps. I mean the Win32 API. They need all new everything and a clean, clear new approach.
All they’re doing now is piling on top, and shuffling.
“They need to sever the tie with the old stuff and I do not mean 16-bit apps. I mean the Win32 API. They need all new everything and a clean, clear new approach.”
Hello? They’re using .NET and moving away from Win32 for Longhorn.
It’s like people are inventing things to complain about without researching them.
What a load of rubbish. Longhorn is still based on the same crappy kernel with the same crappy api and the same crappy CLI/Shell.
Everything needs to be gutted out of Windows, build new operating system based on FreeBSD 5.x plus the completition of SMP, then migrate the driver sources they have to FreeBSD as well as include some of the positive aspects of Windows.
Want to know one problem with Windows XP? the bugs in the ACPI module. Just search the Microsoft knowledge base of all the possible BSOD senarios relating to ACPI, and every one of them suggest, “oh, just reinstall Windows, that should fix it”. Had Microsoft used the Intel approved ACPI implementation instead of going off on a tangent, they would never have had those issues with Windows XP and ACPI in the first place.
I could go on and on, but wait, the pain doesn’t stop there, Microsoft wants people to use .NET and C#, yet, they offer no incentive to establised companies to moved to their “Next Generationg Framework”.
How about YOU do some research. This is the same bullcrap, different words. Anyone remember the stuffing around from win16 to win32. They should have given companies one release to migrate and simply killed win16 off. They should have given one release and kill DOS off. They didn’t in both cases because they were too worried about Joe and Jane Cheapskate no being able to run their 20 year old DOS application on the latest version of Windows.
Why in god’s name do I need MSN Messenger if I am going to run a web server ? Or any other of the crap that MS put in XP ? I see how some of the features might relate to the home market but not in a server or corporate environment. Hell even in a home environment some of the stuff they added in and the way they put them in are pretty damn annoying IMHO. I like W2K in the fact that you got very little useless crap as compared to XP.