Win 8 and what's happening at MS 6

[2ffat]

Windows Secrets has an interesting article about Windows 8, the shake-up at Microsoft, and the fall-out for us users.


James P. Cottingham
I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229!

 

[ChrisHirst]

They [M$] are just continuing the pattern that started with Win95 -> Win98' -> Win98 SE -> Windows 'ME' -> Win 2k -> XP -> Vista ... ...

The M$ path has had more than it's fair share ups and downs.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[goombawaho]

I’m hopeful that Windows 9 will have one flavor that looks like a better Windows 7 and another flavor that works great on phones and tablets.

This is what I would hope for to.

Bear in mind that Woody is a surly old computer curmudgeon if there ever was one.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[johnherman]

Continuing the trend that every other major release of Windows is a mess.
Windows 1 - groundbreaking
Windows 2 - anyone remember?
Windows 3 - superb, esp 3.1 and 3.11
Windows 95 - fair
Windows 98 - ugh, what a resource hog
Windows 4, aka NT - good after patching
Windows me - millenium what?
Windows XP - a goodie
Windows Vista - we'd rather forget
Windows 7 - pretty good
Windows 8 - crappy, advertising in the OS? really?


==================================
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was - Steven Wright

 

[ChrisHirst]

You missed out Windows 2000, which was THE most stable OS that M$ had released up to that point (and probably since )

And I'm sure that we all would like to forget DOS Shell, the poor imitation of Atari's GEM that sat over DOS 5 and DOS 6 / 6.2

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[strongm]

>Windows 1 - groundbreaking

You are joking. It was appalling, and certainly not an OS. It was little more than a graphical application launcher, and barely ran on the hardware that was available at that time.

>Windows 2 - anyone remember?

This was where they figured out the main problems with Windows 1.x and fixed them. It was still really just an application launcher, though it did provide a more robust graphics shell in which applications could run. It was mostly seen bundled with apps, rather than as a standalone environment, (i.e. starting the app actually bootstrapped the Windows 2 environment, which would in turn launch the app itself. When the app closed it also closed Windows 2. Perhaps the best known of these (and the program that probably introduced the most people to Windows 2.0 at the time was PageMaker 3; earlier versions had been available with runtime versions of Windows 1.x, but were far from desirable). I always thought at the time that GEM was a superior graphical environment (and was much more honest about not being an OS)

>Windows 3 - superb, esp 3.1 and 3.11

Windows 3 and Windows 3.1x are considered different versions of Windows and, frankly, whilst a big improvement on Windows 2.x (and the first time we could really begin to consider it an operating system) neither were all that great - although they were responsible for the start of the switch away from the DOS command prompt. Windows for Workgroups 3.11, on the other hand, was a great product.

>Windows 95 - fair

I'd suggest it was giant step forward (although the original release did somewhat miss the fact that the Internet existed ...)

>Windows 98 - ugh, what a resource hog

Hmm - not sure I recall it being so. And Windows 98 SE was probably the best version of Windows prior to XP

>Windows 4, aka NT - good after patching

Now you are confusing the issue. Windows 4 was the original name for Windows 95. And NT4, which carries the W95 shell (although not the first version of NT to do so; NT3.51 got it as part of a shell update program), dates from that era, not from after Windows 98 (the NT release after Windows 98 was Windows 2000, and was never at any stage considered to be 'Windows 4', not surprisingly being known internally as NT5).

>Windows me - millenium what?

Yep. Certainly a horrendous mistake - and not what Microsoft had originally planned ...

>Windows XP - a goodie

Indeed

>Windows Vista - we'd rather forget

Most of the problems with Vista were ironed out within about 6 months. But of course it was too late. Public opinion had reached its conclusion, and no amount of demonstrating that all the documented shortcomings had been fixed would help (you may remember Microsoft's Project Mojave marketing exercise). What they really needed to do was take all the fixes, tweak it bit more, revamp the UI slightly and release ...

>Windows 7 - pretty good

... Vista SE ;-)

>Windows 8 - crappy, advertising in the OS? really?

Well, certainly schizophrenic - and that's not good in an OS. But the advertising - such as it is - is in some apps (not the OS), and even then only a few apps, and is pretty unobtrusive (although I guess that might be subjective)

 

[edfair]

I avoided everything prior to 3.1 as just not right for prime time.

Avoided 95 as 3.1 did eveything I needed at 3 or 4 times the speed. But I did get invoved with it later.

Agree 98 was a pain but SE resolved most of it . Still using SE on 3 bootable partitions on an older Gateway. Does what I need and gives me dual boot with DOS on the primary partition.


2K was good out around SP4.

ME & Vista, disaster for the users I support.

XP good after SP3.

7 has some networking issues remaining. DHCP in particular so everything gets fixed IP.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[dilettante]

Personally I think Vista was pretty decent, and even prefer it now to Windows 7's "gloomy day" washed-out look. What a lot of the bobble-head echo chamber doesn't know is that Vista was heavily targeted by Apple with a negative information campaign. So they're unwitting (witless?) agents of FUD originating with the Apple Machine.


No mention of Microsoft's plans about tightly coupling Windows 8.1 plus another update (Windows 8.1 Update 1, a.k.a. Windows 8.1.1) even further with the much-unloved Bing? The rumored result would be called called "Windows 8.1 with Bing." So far it sounds like "Bing Bars" in Explorer, IE, and just about anywhere else they can shoehorn it in.

 

[xit]

I have enjoyed them all, even the ones that were more challenging & by the time the service packs were installed most were good. Now with Windows 8 & 8.1 with all the cloud items like MS Office, I don't know how I feel about all this being put out there, use good judgment on what goes where these days.
It has been a pretty good ride over the years & has afforded me a good living but the studying is becoming harder the older I get, but it is still amazing how technology has grown.

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

for f**k sake MS just give the punters what they want.

If it means splitting the OS into different parts, then so be it.

Desktop OS for the power users and a fluffy OS for the next gen touch screen kids.

Done.

My analogy would be like a car. So the format of the car hasn't changed too much since is starting spooking horses way back when. There were some new stuffs, like steering wheels, but thats a bit like adding a mouse to the PC.

so, in 150 years, not much has changed right? Engine, four wheels, and a way to make it all go forwards. (and back). No one really thinks too much about changing this. Im sure car makers do on a regular basis, but boy they would most likely go out of business quickly if they changed their entire range of cars to a radical way of driving right?

This is what MS have done to windows. The platform was sound, and the way we use it was good. Its been in circulation like this for so long now, its a natural part of life (almost.) So with that, people like a new car, its smell, look and feel, but, we all get in the drivers seat and once we have learnt to drive, we instinctively know how to drive a new car, because things are all in their place and the principles are all very similar from car to car.

I really don't think the person at MS who said "We have to change or we will soon fail! " really new what they were talking about. Diversify yes, but don't alienate your customers in the process.

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[goombawaho]

Please take one Ativan and see if you feel more mellow.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[strongm]

for f**k sake MS just give the punters what they want.

If it means splitting the OS into different parts, then so be it.

Desktop OS for the power users and a fluffy OS for the next gen touch screen kids.

Done.

Rewind 30 years ...

for f**k sake MS just give the punters what they want.

If it means splitting the OS into different parts, then so be it.

DOS for the power users and a fluffy OS for the next gen WIMP kids.

Done

 

[ChrisHirst]

If it means splitting the OS into different parts, then so be it.

DOS for the power users and a fluffy OS for the next gen WIMP kids.

Done

So Linux is the Way Forward then (slight nod to Douglas Adams for that one)

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Time flies like an arrow, however, fruit flies like a banana.
Webmaster Forum

 

[johnherman]

Agree with the hairless comments and the car analogy. But if you're going to put a TV in my car, make it an option, and not something that drains power from my engine when I'm not using it (terminate and stay resident applications), or if I don't even want ti. And don't plop a "black box" (like On Star) into my car without me being able to disable it for privacy (and power consumption) concerns.

Unfortunately, I don't have an analogy for the dozens of Windows programs that Microsoft lets run in the OS. Some of which can't be disabled as they are not controlled by Services or Task Scheduler, but interface directly with the OS.

Give me the ability to have full control over the OS. If you want to void my support because my vehicle doesn't "pass inspection", then so be it. That's a more reasonable purpose for "Windows Authentic", aka "Windows Audit".

Maybe, just maybe, MS will change now that Balmer is part of history.

==================================
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was - Steven Wright

 

[1DMF]

Agree with Mike on the OS history lesson apart from Windows 2000 sucked!

2000 server may have been OK, it was the NT replacement (kind of), but as a desktop OS, I had nothing but crashes and problems and was glad when I could replace it with XP. Windows ME, sort of the Windows 98 rebadge to look like Windows 2000 was just as bad! This was when there was a distinction between 'Business Use Windows' and 'Home Use Windows', before they started calling them the same name with just a version twist (Home / Business / Pro / Ultimate)

< Windows 3.11 - not an OS just a shitty GUI when we all still did DOS, I ran 'X-Tree Pro' over 'File Manager' every day of the week, you do know that DOS still had GUI applications right, unlike the way Unix bods still marry their CLI!

3.11 for workgroups - Finally a windows OS that worked and was enjoyable to use!
95 - Unstable pile of poo
98 - Awesome
2000 (ME) - Sucky
XP - Awesome
Vista - Sucky
Win 7 - Awesome
Win 8 - Sucky

... I see a pattern, boy am I looking forward to Windows 9 - but only if they fix it properly!


"In complete darkness we are all the same, it is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!"
Free Electronic Dance Music

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

Windows 2000 and ME WERE NOT the same OS.

ME was Windows 98 Second Edition re-hashed

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[strongm]

I don't think 1DMF was trying to say that Windows 2000 and windows ME were the same OS (indeed, he clearly makes the distinction in the first part of his post), just that they were both 'sucky'

 

[vacunita]

ME was Windows 98 Second Edition re-hashed

You mean bashed to the ground. It was unstable, flaky, and resource hungry. They took everything that made 98SE good, and destroyed it.

Windows 2000 on the other hand worked well, and is the direct predecessor to XP. If you liked XP, many of the things it did right came from 2000. And 2000 took many of the concepts that made 3.11 for Workgroups appealing and more functional that 3.1 and improved on them.

However 8,8.1 is nowhere near ME or Vista. Its functional, its stable, and under the Metro Start Screen is pretty much the often praised and lauded Windows 7.









----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

 

[1DMF]

Windows 2000 and ME WERE NOT the same OS.

I know, I never said they were, I said.. and I quote...

...Windows 98 rebadge to look like Windows 2000 ...

it was 98 rebadged to look a bit like Win 2000, such as the OS icons for recycle bin, my computer etc..

As I understand it, ME was meant for home users while 2000 was meant for business. ME based on 98, while 2000 was based on NT as a specific desktop corporate OS to go with Windows servers. Of course... any minute now Mike is going to jump in with his size 9's and give us all a kicking!

Though if you look at Wiki regarding XP :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

, it implies the same where for the first time home and business users got a version of NT as a single desktop OS... XP!

To be honest, I have no idea the point or purpose of Windows ME, 98 SE was the best they had produced at that time and as XP was on the horizon... 2001!, what was the point in releasing a broken, sucky, poor imitation Win 2000 home user OS to replace Win 98 SE? - I think they got carried away with the success of Windows 98 and took their eye off the ball!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, it is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!"
Free Electronic Dance Music

 

[1DMF]

OH look, between me typing and posting, Mike already joined the affray!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, it is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!"
Free Electronic Dance Music