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- combatchuck, on 06/29/2008, -5/+187
"Vista is the equivalent, at a minimum, of Windows version 12 — preceded by 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, NT, 95, NT 4.0, 98, 2000, ME, XP. "
Inaccurate. Windows Vista is NT version 6.0. Windows XP is Windows NT version 5.1. Windows 2000 is Windows NT version 5.0. Windows ME, 98, and 95 were built on the aging, archaic design of Windows 3. Windows NT is actually based on OS/2, a fairly advanced architecture with very real advantages. Believe it or not, the NT core system is quite competent
"Some software engineers within Microsoft seem to be in full agreement, talking in public of work that began in 2003 to design a new operating system from scratch. They believe that problems like security vulnerabilities and system crashes can be fixed only by abandoning system design orthodoxy, formed in the 1960s and ’70s, that was built into Windows."
The CP/M basis for DOS was indeed designed in the 70's, and has been fully abandoned by Microsoft with the transition of their entire product line to the more-capable NT design. Seven years ago. As a comparison, the UNIX-based designs of today are still based on a system that has its roots very firmly in the 60's. Neither is superior in all ways.
"A MONOLITHIC operating system like Windows perpetuates an obsolete design."
The NT kernel is a hybrid of both Micro and Monolithic designs. Linux is fully monolithic. XNU, or Mach, is also a hybrid design. All of these kernels feature memory protection, which is the main feature that contributes to overall system stability. Obviously, there is some gray area, and XNU leans more toward the Microkernel architecture, and NT leans more toward the Monolithic kernel architecture.
To my knowledge, this article is misinformed. - HappyScrappy, on 06/29/2008, -18/+198The NYTimes is now giving advice on software development?
The OS portion of Windows seems to be in pretty good shape. The services (like UI, system libraries, etc.) are not keeping up with the competition though.
Also, it's NeXT, not Next. And although Apple says they use a Mach microkernel (developed by Avie), the actual implementation Apple uses is not a microkernel, it integrates many BSD functions into the kernel, even some functions which were put in to make Classic (Mac OS 9) work on the Mac. If you ask me, the Linux kernel is in better shape than Apple's kernel, and the Linux kernel isn't a microkernel architecture.
In a way, MS is in the same hole Apple was 10 years ago. They aren't getting maximum effect from their efforts since they are not pulling in one direction. Additionally, the press is writing a lot of articles that emphasize the negative about Windows and the company, because it seems that's what people want to hear. This is just PR, and can be reversed, if MS just gets their house in order first. - devzor, on 06/29/2008, -36/+176i'm digging this so Microsoft takes a hint and ups the ante!
- pdileepa, on 06/29/2008, -72/+200"Painfully visible are the inherent design deficiencies of a foundation that was never intended to support such weight. Windows seems to move an inch for every time that Mac OS X or Linux laps it."
Windows Vista is not what it should have been... agreed. But that above is the stupidest statement ever. - jakem1, on 06/29/2008, -19/+134One point in the article is slightly inaccurate. Vista is not 16-bit compatible and doesn't maintain compatibility with anything pre-Windows 95. The article also assumes that it is as easy for Microsoft to redo Windows with billions of customers as it was for Apple with their tiny rump of a customer base. It's not and it's ridiculous to suggest that it is.
There's no way that this would be possible to do in the next two years and, as the article pointed out, years of development went into OS X before it was even released. Even then, the first couple of versions of OS X weren't worth the CDs they were burned on.
Perhaps the New York Times should concentrate on developing proper, quality, independent journalism rather than telling others how to develop their products. - estvir, on 06/29/2008, -17/+88No, they do not need to completely 'restart' and making comments that there is/would be any similarity to Apples 'start over' is ridiculous, it's comparing apples to oranges.
What happened in 2003 was the Reset. It was when a bunch of people at MS woke up and stood up to Bill Gates and others and told them they have to change, there's an old, good article about it somewhere. With Vista there is a new codebase (Server '03), almost every subsystem has been rewritten (Network, audio, printing, etc), it has a new driver model, etc. Microsoft has also introduced SDL (Despite Vista having much, much more code than XP there is greater than 50% bug reduction in comparison), 'bug jail' and other things.
Yet another article about Microsoft written by someone with next to no knowledge outside of flashy, sensationalist stories pushed on petty sites like PCWorld. - Craga89, on 06/29/2008, -31/+92When I look at Vista, I don't see Windows 12. I see a bastardized version of what they promised us after 6 years of development. WinFS and just about every cool feature they planned was withdrawn so they could push out the operating system on time. Honestly Microsoft, I think I speak on behalf of most of us when I say, we would have waited if It meant having those features.
- ErrorLoading, on 06/29/2008, -24/+67As an administrator at a university I can safely say this article is a bunch of *****. Microsoft has a ton of tools for administration that definitely do not exist for mac and may or may not exist for linux based setups, but are a pain in the ass to learn and setup.
We do have a handful of apple machines, but we have been trickling them out of the labs because no one ever uses them. - Gndoab, on 06/29/2008, -5/+41On the latest version of Ubuntu My sound card isn't fully supported. It only has 2 channels out of the 5. So I spend 5 hours editing obscure configuration files with the help of the ubuntu.com forums. The result of my hard work? Now I have no sound whatosever.
My Wireless networking card has the same problem. Only it doesn't work at all (it never did, and never has, on any linux distribution. Not Ubuntu, not Opensuse, and not another one which I can't remember the name of now). Oh yeah, and X crashes nearly every time I try and use the 2nd monitor option with my laptops analog out.
All gadgets aren't recognized automatically, although they are in windows.
Linux definitely has some benefits: Compiz is amazing, the security is top notch, and who can argue with all the programs one can need automatically installed.
I wasn't trying to start a fanboy war, so you can attacking me now. - Gndoab, on 06/29/2008, -26/+61Um...
Microsoft is worth around 40 billion dollars. Billion. With a "B"
revive? They own 90% of the market.
I use both windows and linux, and I will say that while windows may have its share of problems, the hardware support is almost infinitely better.
When my gadgets work perfectly in windows, without having to edit some arcane configuration files, It makes me more willing to oversee some of it's flaws.
(I don't talk about macs here, because it's the one operating system I don't use. I hate the lack of configuration, and the lack of control one has when something (and yes, this does happen!) goes wrong) - jakem1, on 06/29/2008, -7/+41As I recall, at this stage two years ago the general consensus in these and other forums was that XP was rubbish that had to go and that Microsoft should just release Vista as soon as possible. As you can see, one of the problems with mob mentality is that it lacks consistency.
- HappyScrappy, on 06/29/2008, -1/+34Yeah, I'm with Typhoon here.
I see what you mean, but saying OS X is like a service pack ignores the fact that Apple makes a lot of feature and UI advances in each release of OS X, whereas Windows service packs don't usually do this.
For the most part, Apple has hardly touched their kernel at all. Which is honestly probably pretty smart, since users don't pay for kernels, they pay for user-visible features. Rarely does a feature of a kernel make an advertiseable different to a customer. - pixeldust, on 06/29/2008, -1/+32Comparing the transition from 10.2 to 10.5 to the transition from XP SP1 to XP SP3 is nonsense.
- TheShad0w, on 06/29/2008, -11/+34I didn't see it like that. I didn't see them saying "Go use Apple/Linux". They told the truth. The Windows OS is trapped and bogged down by years of backwards compatibility and poor design choices that they refuse to remove. A complete rewrite of the OS isn't a bad thing. Its a good thing. Almost any engineer who's had to futz with the Windows API can tell you its a bloody mess. I'm sick and tired of every one who says "Vista is good". I will admit that Vista is a move in the right direction. I will however not condone the fact that what the engineers at MS wanted to create and what the Management types wanted to create were two completely different products and what came out was a joke. (Go back and look at some of the early prototypes and presentations.)
- maximatron, on 06/29/2008, -11/+33"So in my opinion, it's not Windows that has the catching up to do."
You are making this statement based on the fact there is no games/software on either Linux or Mac? We are talking about operating systems here, not what developers makes for them; thus your statement fail, miserably. If you had a bit of logic, you'd see Windows HAS catching-up to do with OS X and Linux speaking on how the system actually works internally. - pixeldust, on 06/29/2008, -2/+23You did not read the article...
- inactive, on 06/29/2008, -1/+21"The internal code name for the next version is “Windows 7.” The “7” refers to nothing in particular, a company spokeswoman says. This version is supposed to arrive in or around early 2010."
Article is complete BS. The 7 refers to the fact that it's Windows NT 7.x - DreamSynthesis, on 06/29/2008, -3/+22The article is worse then that though. They criticize Windows for having a monolithic kernel (which it doesn't, it has a hybrid kernel) and that they need to have a microkernel like OS X. However OS X actually has a hybrid kernel. Also Linux uses a monolithic kernel as well and isn't having a problem with it. Yes Windows has some design flaws but the entire point the article is trying to make, that Windows needs to switch to a micro kernel, is incorrect. The entire article is just poor.
- nextse7en, on 06/29/2008, -2/+21Windows 7 means nothing in particular? The spokeswoman from MS said that?
Windows 1.X was 1
2.X was 2
3.X was 3
9X (95, 98,) was 4
2000, XP were 5
Vista is 6
I wonder why they are calling it windows 7?
The code name for all those releases, before they got code names, was always the version number of the architecture. I remeber a pc magazine with the cover shouting about the announcement of windows 4 - combatchuck, on 06/29/2008, -0/+18I would say that no matter what OS you're using, a bad driver can bring it down to its knees. To my knowledge, hardware drivers, by necessity, have to run in kernel space.
I was going to point out the improved permissions in NT, but I want this comment to actually be read. You know how Diggers are when people say anything in Windows is superior to their Loonix. Also, I wasn't entirely sure about the superiority of the NT permissions design. It's been a long time since that class. - fas2, on 06/29/2008, -21/+39No, the statement is actually quite good. Read that:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft- ... - pcpimpster, on 06/29/2008, -4/+22Referencing the Macs install base, application library and business penetration compared to Microsoft’s is necessary when trying to tell Windows to break backwards compatibility --- or it will die.
This author does not see the big picture, if Windows broke all legacy ties it would be alienating a massive part of install base who have spent billions to work on the Windows platform.
Vista’s biggest problem was that it ejected many old legacy models (security being the main one) which in turn broke applications and hardware drivers.
I guess until OS X and Linux have a comparable install base they won’t see this big problem of telling a large part of your users to ***** off and go spend more money or your software can’t run on the next version of Windows.
/Ludicrous and not what the end user or the developers really want. - gsnedders, on 06/29/2008, -11/+28I still think comparing Vista to Apple's Copland is a fair comparison: the difference is MS just ploughed ahead with it, while Apple gave up and decided to buy another company to get their OS (eventually buying NeXT).
- jakem1, on 06/29/2008, -1/+17Unless you're agreeing with me you obviously didn't read the article. I didn't say that I want 16-bit compatibility. I was pointing out that the article was wrong to suggest that Vista maintains compatibility with Windows 1.0 to 3.1.
- jakem1, on 06/29/2008, -2/+18That's not really true. Microsot was getting hammered about Windows security and SP2 was such an essential upgrade that it ended up taking precedence over Vista which contributed to the latter's delay. Prior to SP2 there was a good chance that your PC would be infected as soon as you connected it to the web regardless of whether you were halfway decent with computers.
- HappyScrappy, on 06/29/2008, -1/+16I thought the main source of system crashes was due to running certain drivers inside the kernel? Vista changed this (largely), and that cut the crashes. This, BTW, IS system orthodoxy from the 60s and 70s, it was core to Multics.
I agree the UNIX-based systems have their own problems. Particularly problems with security. UNIX' boolean security (either you're superuser and can do anything or you're just a regular user) is far inferior to other designs' security (like NT) where you can give a process certain capabilities (like to kill a process) and not give it ability to do other things (like make new user accounts). - pumacub, on 06/29/2008, -6/+21I will counter one of these and say the the graphic architecture in Vista is pretty slick, it's a shame they didn't showcase it better.
- HoratioHellpop, on 06/29/2008, -6/+21I sit behind my wonderfully current yet stable Vista Ultimate SP1 on my PC built of the finest parts available in the PC enthusiast market and I smile at the simpliest wifi confituration frustrations of the Gentoo GNU/Linux luser or at the absurd amounts of money Mac users throw at their limited systems.
And I love to post about it, to prove the level of my *****. - zwaldowski, on 06/29/2008, -1/+16How odd. Hardy came out in mid April. Three months makes that... oh, mid-July. Nice.
- gcnaddict, on 06/29/2008, -0/+15The reset happened in August 2004, mostly because the codebase was in shambles thanks to developer disorganization and fatigue.
figured I'd point that out. - Asidic, on 06/29/2008, -40/+54FTA: "After six years of development, the longest interval between versions in the previous 22-year history of Windows, and long enough to permit Apple to bring out three new versions of Mac OS X, Vista was introduced to consumers in January 2007."
Three new versions of Mac OS X is pretty much the equivalent of three service packs of Windows XP. It's the same OS, but there were patches and such. Oh, except they charged their users for each one. They also made OSX look prettier with each "Service pack" although it still basically looks the same.
As for scrapping all the apps currently available for windows as they supposedly did from Mac OS9 to OSX, there is no way that will happen unless there's a compatibility mode. There are simply too many programs out there that people paid for once and are probably not willing to pay for again just because they had to get the new operating system. Also, supposing they make the current hardware obsolete, that's not going to go over well at all with anyone. Sure, it'd eventually get done within a decade or two, but knowing there are still businesses out there running Win2k, it won't happen any time soon.
On another note, I hope Windows 7 will be to Vista as Win2k was to ME - ParticleMan420, on 06/29/2008, -11/+25i dont know if i would call 5% OS market share a 'comeback'
they're a portable audio device company, not a computer company.
windows has to work w/ many many different hardware configs, apple only have to work with the hardware they force you to get.
if anyone's playing catchup its poor little apple.
but thats not to say that windows doesnt need some work, but they're limited because they like to allow people to choose their own hardware.
Microsoft = freedom
apple = dictatorship - bleutuna, on 06/29/2008, -4/+17I remember that, Estvir. When they decided to scrap the old "longhorn" codebase and start anew.
I think the problem isn't so much that the code needs to be restarted, but more that they need to dump support for anything pre-Windows XP. Or, honestly, go even further than that, and release an OS that is *only* compatible with itself and has to 'emulate' older software from Vista or XP.
That's what this author is trying to say, I think. But failing in doing so.
Truth be told, I think Microsoft has the future of computing, and it's called Surface, and if they have enough foresight to move forward with it. They can keep XP or Vista support for awhile to those who don't/can't/won't upgrade at first, but for the rest of humanity, moving to a new paradigm of operating and interaction with the computer is going to change things. - netneutrality, on 06/29/2008, -7/+20***** article. My PC running Win2003 isn't crashing. I've got no reasons to complain about how a kernel I can't see might work.
- birchsafari, on 06/29/2008, -6/+19first off, this whole modular system is retarded. what you're saying is that instead of buying windows professional you buy windows and then go home and download the module that turns your version of windows to windows professional. you end up with the same things, you just have download a module instead of buying what you want out of the box. why not have a single sku that has everything but isn't bloated (like say, osx)?
your comment infers you didn't read the article. they say the problem is not in how many versions of windows there are, but the legacy code that they insist on leaving in in an attempt to support code written over a decade ago. the problems this causes far outweigh the benefits. starting from scratch would allow them to expedite advances in the os. if they wanted to maintain some kind of support for legacy code (which they would) they could incorporate an emulation system (as apple did when they released osx).
also, what makes you so sure windows 8 will be a full rewrite? and i looked in the whole modular thing and not only is it a bad idea, but it's apparently not going to happen either. - hexydes, on 06/29/2008, -3/+16@Estivir: You just revealed the problem with Microsoft within your own argument. You said that in order to get the new OS, you have to go grab a special version of Windows (the 64-bit flavor), and then disable all of the legacy support architecture, and what you're left with is a (mostly) new-age OS.
Well guess what, you just made a configuration that maybe .5% of Windows users will use. The rest are using the clunky piece of garbage that is being complained about in this article.
Microsoft needs to cut the cord. End legacy support. Move everyone over to 64-bit. Don't just support multi-core, assume it is present. If some older computers don't work, tough. Throw out the Windows UI, start from scratch. Hire or buy an outside design group that has proven in the past they can make amazing whole-system UIs. Implement that. If people aren't used to it, tough.
And for God's sake, start a beta program that anyone can join. Start testing new technologies there. The people that use the betas will become champions for these new technologies, shopping them around to those that they support. It will make the implementation of new technologies in the future much less painful. - Albumen, on 06/29/2008, -7/+20"Windows has and never will be snappier, in appearance or performance."
I love the scientific objectivity displayed in this statement. Did Nostradumbass tell you this? - estvir, on 06/29/2008, -1/+13Uh, typing too quickly and it's too early in the morning, thanks. :)
- JasonCox, on 06/29/2008, -1/+13Actually x86 versions of Vista continue to support 16-bit apps. Only Vista x64 doesn't support it.
- gasoline, on 06/29/2008, -4/+15It was rather balanced, actually.
- abhiroop, on 06/29/2008, -4/+15This is not true and you know it niczar. I have a bunch of hardware (webcams to name a few) that doesn't "automagically" work!
- carpespasm, on 06/29/2008, -3/+14Well, there is one difference between the two. At the time that Apple was in bad shape (MacOS 8-9), their install base was small and used to the idea of hardware platform changes and weren't really enamored or heavily tied to Mac OS as it was. Microsoft on the other hand can't just drop the current windows platform since they've worked so hard to get people used to how it works as it is, so many gamers rely on it, and so much hardware has been made to run on windows and windows only. A majory re-write of windows would in the long term be best for MS, but they'd lose steam in the way of market share since their current competition is so close on their heals already. Apple didn't have much to lose when they went to a BSD based system and gained a lot.
- alucardx, on 06/29/2008, -1/+12ditto.. don't know why people are digging you down. works great for me.
- gsnedders, on 06/29/2008, -1/+11NeXTSTEP used a kernel (which, AFIAK, had no name beyond "NeXTSTEP's kernel") which was a combination of Mach and BSD 4.3 (I think that's the version it came from, at least) — OS X is a direct derivative of NeXTSTEP uses a kernel (XNU) which updates the BSD parts to stuff from FreeBSD.
- BossKey, on 06/29/2008, -2/+12You should read the Ars Technica reviews of each major release of OS X. You'll find that many fundamental services are added or rearchitected in these releases. Like printing, the firewall, networking, major media subsystems (some, like CoreVideo, CoreAudio etc. didn't exist in the earlier versions). That sounds like a little more than a "service pack."
If you read those reviews and you have a brain, you'll never again think that the +.1 releases of OS X are just "service packs." - WilliamAdama, on 06/29/2008, -21/+31I'm so sick of the anti-windows articles that come on digg. Has this journalist even used Windows on a machine that was built in the past few years?
"But sticking with that same core architecture is the problem, not the solution."... because he's obviously a programmer and knows everything about it, he's probably passing on what someone told him and both of them don't know *****. Ppl just bitch and complain so much, if windows didn't support all of the old hardware from 20 years ago then people would bitch and complain saying it isn't compatible with anything. Also to refer that microsoft should take a hint from apple when it released OS X and forced all it's users to upgrade and get new software is complete BS. Microsoft could never do that because 90% of the market is running Microsoft, so to say "hey 2/3 of the world, we're switching over and not supporting your billions of dollars invested in software anymore, you have to upgrade" to say/do something like that is not a solution.
I’ve used Vista for well over a year now and it’s been nothing but nice to me. I play games such as Age of Conan and Eve Online with my 8800 GTS Sli, 2GB dual channel ocz platinum ram, and e6400 conroe cpu. I also do some video editing, run office applications, and pretty much give vista a run for its money all around. And guess what, it turned out to be worth it.
To say “that’s it?” is ignorance, what did you expect? There’s nothing else that can even be done right now until Windows 7 comes out with all the touch surface stuff. Windows is at its pinnacle with the current hardware today and until next gen of monitors (touch screen) is released for the average user, there’s not much else that can be improved. If you were looking for a windows version of the mac dock at the bottom of ur screen, guess what? You can download it and have been able to do so for years now. That’s the great thing about windows, so many people have created applications to make the windows environment feel like mac os x, linux, and any other OS.
But anyways, now with Vista I find networking to be extremely easy, it is very easy to find files or programs, I just click start and type in the first few letters and “boom” it’s there right away. They also have UAC for all the people out there that tend to break things by accident. DirectX 10 is nice and I do notice a difference in graphics, everything seems to be smoother.
So ffs stop beating on Windows. - gn0stik, on 06/29/2008, -18/+28They already have. Windows 7 is going to be based on a cleaned up version of the vista Kernel. It will be modular.
There will be no "business," "media center," "professional," "ultimate" versions. There will be no versions at all.
Take media center for example. You will buy the core windows 7, then you will buy the media center module. If you want whatever added functionality previous "business" versions offered, you buy the module. You don't use what you don't need. This model allows windows to be as light or as heavy as you want it to be. No massive fees for whole different versions of windows. If you have 50 licenses of windows, you literally have 50 licenses of windows. Not licenses of pro, or ultimate, or business, or media center.
Windows 8 WILL be a complete rewrite. I'm not sure what it will be based on but let's hope its singularity. Singularity is ***** badass.
Oh, and this article was ignorant, misinformed, and inaccurate. Is NY Times now hiring directly off of digg?
So lame. I hate op-ed pieces. - Typhoon2009, on 06/29/2008, -11/+20They gave a lot of features in each OS X update. XP SP2 was a security center which nobody really needed if they were halfway decent with computers.
- verevi, on 06/29/2008, -2/+11I think they purposely make Windows "good enough" so that they can sell you the next "improvement" down the road.
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