[rgeiken]

I went from 98 SE to XP on several machines, and they worked OK, but have had Vista for over a year and a half, and while it has had some bad moments, as of May 2009, it is pretty stable. One of my big problems lately is when my Firefox gets to near 250 meg of usage as measured on the Task Manager, it seems to freeze Vista, and then I have to do a reboot. of the System. Somehow Vista Task Manager will not end processes. Most of the time Vista is working great and better than either XP or 98 SE.

[kennethpletz]

If you have the horsepower, Vista was fine. Very stable and almost trouble free on my Compac 7000 desktop w/3 Gig of RAM. ME on the other hand was just plain buggy, it crashed all the time, etc. I've seen ME on many machines being in the IT department and they all had problems. I am now running Win 7 RC1 and love it.

[KStrawn]

I can't see why Microsoft doesn't consider creating a Windows that takes a cue from the OS X concept: making Windows UNIX-ish as far as infrastructure. Face it, Microsoft, that might be your only hope. Try making friends with the Linux community instead of fighting it! You can go a lot farther that way!

[Evildave]

One thing you could say about Win98se or WinME, in a virtual machine, they launch in seconds and don't eat much once they do. It's actually pretty funny to watch. If you have some really old legacy software, this works great. Give it 64MB and it doesn't even know what to do with all of that memory. All of the Windoze apps written for that time frame are quick and small compared to their 'modern', bloatware variants. Firefox ran under it, but I don't think 3.0 does.

Of course, the same can almost be said for NT4 or Windoze 2000. Give it 128MB in a VM, and it runs like a champ. One small caveat with NT4 is to download a functioning web browser, since the Internet Exploder browser that comes with NT4 doesn't work with anything at all.

I have all of those from my past MSDN subscriptions.

[KStrawn]

You know, why aren't we talking about the plus side: Win7 seems to be a relief from mishaps such as Vista or ME, since it does a great job of loading and running, as well as being compatible with older apps such as Vista ones, as the RC shows, which I am running as I speak. It also runs well and performs well on systems that also run Vista, due to similar hardware requirements. My Pentium Dual Core Processor and ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro Graphics run Windows 7 RC like a charm!

[rasmasyean]

You guys have to stop looking at the surface (pun in a minute). It’s not about Vista. It’s not about Windows 7. If Vista was so “bad” why would the US Armed Forces be deploying it as we speak to all their 744,000 desktops and using them for life and death situations. And you thought your photos and email were real important, didn’t ya???
It’s about multi-touch client operation and all the background technology that goes with it. Think about it. Microsoft Surface. N-Trig and maybe other hardware technology vendors MS has interest in. All the software technologies that go behind the interfaces. All of which MS has a hand in.
As new waves of interaction with computers emerge in this fashion, MS wants to lead it and if anything take a big part in it…whether it be development, or licensing. Why do people keep on thinking that “Windows” is the only thing Microsoft makes? The client itself is big business for them, but it’s only a small part of their overall portfolio.
Tablet PC’s are slated to be big items soon as they become more capable and cheaper. You are not only paying MS for the OS on it. You may even be paying MS for the screen technology (depending on manufacturer). You will get use to it…and you will "spread the habit"...and businesses and homes will want a Microsoft Surface table computer. You will then like is so much that you will want it in your Microsoft Sync in your automobile. And when you go to the car dealer…you will use a table computer (or derivative) kiosk to compare cars. It’s called the move toward the “Natural User Interface”. Guess who profits from this?
Don’t be so short-sighted. It’s not about the OS because they will make money selling any one to you. It’s what the future potentially brings from the OS.
The Future of Computing (Janet Galore)


Microsoft's Future Vision Series: Windows Home Concept: Microsoft's Home of the Future

[Evildave]

rasmasyean said:

You guys have to stop looking at the surface (pun in a minute). It’s not about Vista. It’s not about Windows 7. If Vista was so “bad” why would the US Armed Forces be deploying it as we speak to all their 744,000 desktops and using them for life and death situations. And you thought your photos and email were real important, didn’t ya???

I dunno. Why do the U.S. armed forces still run computers with core memory and magnetic drums in them? E3 Sentry. State of the art for 1970. If they upgraded the IBM 360 and the centralized display system they lug around to modern technology, they'd save enough fuel not lugging around the dinosaur computer (and add extra WD/AST seats with the space saved) to more than pay for realistic development costs. Of course, that's the MILITARY we're talking about, so it would cost 'billions' and clear-cut ten medium sized forests in paperwork just to touch the existing design.

Why do they spend thousands on a toilet seat or let contractors like Halliburton squander billions?

In short, the U.S. military is a poor choice to hold up as an example for wise purchases.

[rasmasyean]

Evildave wrote:
In short, the U.S. military is a poor choice to hold up as an example for wise purchases. -----
Hey, everyone is entitled to their judgements. But tell that to all the people they killed.

[KStrawn]

To make it short, I was commenting on Windows 7 from my experience with the RC and Beta. They both perform extremely well on my Pentium Dual Core home-built desktop with ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO graphics (as I mentioned earlier!) and they both are much better performers than Vista or especially ME on systems older than it. Windows 7 is a step in the right direction for Microsoft, and sets a trend for the future of Windows: It will steadily improve (I hope!)

[scrocker1946]

If we are taking candidates for the worst ever Microsoft OS I'd like to nominate DOS 4. This late unlamented piece of buggy bloatware surely belongs on anybody's short list.



-Steve

[WinTard]

KStrawn said:

I can't see why Microsoft doesn't consider creating a Windows that takes a cue from the OS X concept: making Windows UNIX-ish as far as infrastructure. Face it, Microsoft, that might be your only hope. Try making friends with the Linux community instead of fighting it! You can go a lot farther that way!

Excuse me, but it's the other way around. Linux fanatics are dumping all over Windows. Not the opposite. I am living proof. I am a Linux and Windows aficionado. Not a fanatic of any OS. don't fight either. I try to stay open-minded, and judge by the results, not hearsay. As a matter of fact, I believe Windows doesn't care about Linux or Unix. I feel it is better to have both, than switch one way or the other... Anyway, Linux is free, so it is a no-brainer. Of course I'll adopt and use it.

You should also know that Windows supports Unix, with Microsoft's SFU Services For Unix (not free) or Cygwin (open-source and free). Thus Windows is a superset of Unix. Also I run my Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 Advanced under Windows 2008 Enterprise Server and Hyper-V (free). Linux is rock stable.. Under Windows which makes Windows at least as stable as Linux. Oh the delicious irony.

Also note it is Linux which copied all the goodies from Microsoft Xenix. Microsoft Xenix is a full high-performance port of AT&T Unix from Bell Labs to the 8086 architecture. As a matter of fact, Microsoft's first operating system was Xenix. Before DOS!

Please see for substantiation:

http://www.softpanor...orvalds/Finlandperiod/xenixmicrosoftshortlivedloveaffairwith_unix.shtml
"Microsoft announces Microsoft Xenix OS, a portable operating system for 16-bit microprocessors. It is an interactive, multiuser, multitasking system that will run on Intel 8086, Zilog Z8000, Motorola M68000, and DEC PDP-11 series. All of Microsoft's existing system software (Cobol, Pascal, Basic, and DBMS) will be adapted to run under the Xenix system, and all existing software written for Unix OS will be compatible as well. "
--from a Microsoft press release, 1980

Long before Linus Torvalds was able to write anything useful in C, there was a version of Unix from Microsoft called XENIX that was based on the seventh edition and BSD 4.1 with some interesting enhancements (multiple virtual consoles -- later inherited by Linux, record-locking facilities for database programming, etc) and an amazing level of PC friendliness that Linus will try emulate much later by essentially replicating all major design decisions that Microsoft put into XENIX for PC but using an independent codebase.

Microsoft licensed UNIX from AT&T in 1979. That was an interesting year. At the June 1979 USENIX meeting in Toronto, AT&T announced an big price hike: from $1000 to $7500 for educational institutions; from $5000 to $40,000 for full commercial open source (per CPU). Essentially AT&T decided to commercialize Unix. That created an opening for third party distributors and Bill Gates instantly jumped on this opportunity. The same year SCO was founded and Microsoft XENIX development was outsourced to SCO (which at a time was a two man operation):

{Snipped}

Which implies, that Microsoft had all the full source-code to the real Unix since day one... And Microsoft can read, and obtain anything and everything good in open-source, including all the technological advancements in Linux...

So saying Windows should this or that is ... Ill informed to say the least.

[Evildave]

Unfortunately, they chose to 'reinvent' BSD Sockets with their own Windows HANDLE contraptions, which was a terrible sin and at a gruesome performance cost, IMHO. DO NOT use 'select' in WinSock.

Microsoft started into 'adopting' the POSIX standard around NT 3.5/NT 4, but gave up on it by Windoze 2000, and few signs those efforts remain.

It's probably for the best. The first thing they'd have done was make their POSIX implementation the de-facto 'standard' with pure numerical force, then warped it in all kinds of funky ways with software patents on top to make sure nothing that implemented their 'majority' standard could be created.

Standard Operating Procedure.

[WinTard]

Windows supported POSIX due to the requirement by the US Government that all system be POSIX compliant...

A handle in Windows API, is a mere file descriptor in Unix, and also exists in Windows, as it is a base element in the C programming language. Okay there are more data-structures in the Windows handle, but any programmer is free to architect their own data-strucures as well.

A WinSock is corresponding (somewhat) to a Unix Socket.

The point is operating systems all have similar primitives and corresponding API's.

As for POSIX, I suggest anyone interested to look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX

POSIX for Windows
Cygwin ? enables partial POSIX compliance for certain Microsoft Windows products.
Microsoft POSIX subsystem, an optional Windows subsystem.
Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 ? enables full POSIX compliance for certain Microsoft Windows products. For Windows NT-based operating systems up to Windows 2000, a POSIX layer was built in to the operating system, and UNIX Services for Windows provided a UNIX-like operating environment. For Windows XP, Windows Services for UNIX must be installed to provide POSIX compatibility. The UNIX Subsystem is built in to the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, but cannot be added separately to the other editions.
UWIN from the AT&T Research implements a POSIX layer on top of the Win32 APIs.

There is nothing (to my knowledge) that can be done Under Unix, that cannot also be done under Windows.

As far as user interfaces, the multitude of CLI shells (sh, ksh, bash, ...) or the flea-market bizarre GUI window managers under Unix is a joke! (Gnome, CDE, twm, fvwm, Window Maker, nwm, Enlightenment, olvwm) XWindow isn't as efficient of flexible as the Windows GDI. Neither is OpenGL compared to DirectX, all of which are also supported for free under Windows BTW. For ssh I use putty, and sftp, Filezilla.

For some reason, I like the simplicity of fvwm. And instead of installing and polluting 12,000 files into NTFS to support cygwin, I prefer XLiveCD mounted as an ISO (CDFS) dynamically using the free Daemon Tools, all running under Windows. And for remote processing under Windows, the open-source VNC protocol as well as the Remote Desktop protocol are available, thus ensuring interoperability with Windows, Linux, and OS X. All for free. All under Windows. And stuff I use on a daily basis under Windows.

Basically, anything and everything under Unix is also available functionally under Windows... The difference is it is closed-source, and not free in dollars...

Hey, I vaguely remember we had this discussion in January? LOL! But you are right Evildave, Microsoft is guilty of deviating from standards... And that sucks.

[XanderB]

Way to feed into the anti-Microsoft bunch there PC World. I am so damn sick of everyone trying to use this kind of crap as news. All you are doing is fanning the flames of fanboys everywhere just because you know it will attract readers. Well I have used just about every operating system that has existed, and guess what?



NONE OF THEM ARE FREAKING PERFECT!



They all have their flaws, but just because Microsoft has dominated the markets for so long, you have to go after them because you know it will draw in readers. It's so damn sad. There will never be an end to this argument, just as there will never be the "Perfect OS". Seriously, just drop it. It's pathetic.

[KStrawn]

I don't get why Microsoft doesn't make the Windows Kernel POSIX Compliant. Microsoft should know by now that just creating a seperate emulator isn't going to help any. If they actually integrated the Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications as a Windows service, or possibly Virtual PC the same way, they would be better off.

[KStrawn]

I was hoping for a "Windows PS" that is composed entirely of Powershell scripts. Ultimately, if Windows was based entirely on Powershell using Powershell to write the entire system (including the kernel), it would dramatically reinvent the way Windows works, as well as improving performance. And don't think a scripting language can't work for an OS. There are such systems already.

[KStrawn]

Also, a Windows Reboot using Powershell would be great relief from such systems as Windows (Hasta La) Vista Or Windows Me Me Me Me Me.... I personally think Microsoft is in great need of creating Windows using new code (Powershell code, I'm talking about.)

[WinTard]

Has anyone looked at those free Windows resources?

Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 2,600,000 for windows powershell. (0.21 seconds)
Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 298,000 for windows resource kit. (0.14 seconds)

You will be surprised at the depth and power of utilities and found in there... For free!

How about xampp, python, perl, cygwin, and basically all the goodies available under other OSes, including 99% of open-source projects?

Oh, how about cross development using open source tools? Symbolic debuggers, in-circuit-emulators, ARM compilers, JTAG controllers, you name it...

All free? All running under Windows? An eye opener isn't it?

And who said emulator? A POSIX subsystem is what it is. PERIOD. Windows supports POSIX. PERIOD. Windows can be optionally made POSIX compliant. That's it and that's all.

[KStrawn]

Windows Powershell is, by the way, built into Windows 7 as an alternative to the C-prompt (though not replacing it) but what I want to see is a version of Windows that is composed entirely of Powershell scripts, from the user level all the way down to the kernel.

[WinTard]

Windows PowerShell
Copyright © 2006 Microsoft Corporation.

Also automatically loaded onto my XP-SP3, during an update. I simply let it do its stuff... I trust Microsoft.

A shell by definition is an interpreter. Interpreters are slow. No efficient operating system would run as an interpreter. The WinAPI takes care of that. To interface to programs, not users...