Should Microsoft do an Apple?
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David Kentley wrote:
- Not enough RAM. You can still get PC's with only 256MB of RAM that have XP installed. That's silly, especially considering how cheap RAM is.
If you strip down Windows XP a fair bit, it runs fine for casual tasks (email client, a few MS Word documents, a few browser windows, and a couple of other small apps open at the same time on two different user accounts) with only 128MB of RAM. I was impressed when I saw how well it works on a low-end PC (500MHZ Celeron, 128MB RAM, 6 GB HD).
Two of the biggest problems I see with the fundamental structure of the current versions of Windows (2000/XP/2003) are the "aging" slowdown that occurs as a Windows installation is used for a long period of time, and the massive conglomerate that is the registry. The former is probably related to the latter, and the latter is a problem that is no longer in MS's hands in many ways, because of how many 3rd-party apps store information in the registry - but MS can move away from the registry for their own applications where it won't break 3rd-party apps. Well, that last part reminds me: the registry issue *is* a backwards compatibility issue, and a tough one at that. Maybe it's an example of what the article author is talking about (I only skimmed the article).
What is Vista doing about the registry? regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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"Microsoft feels it can't get away with breaking compatibility," said Mendel Rosenblum, a Stanford University computer scientist. "All of their applications must continue to run, and from an architectural point of view that's a very painful thing."
Windows Is So Slow, but Why?[^] from the New York Times. It would be a contentious move for sure and I don't think Microsoft are even considering it but what do you think about a future generation of Windows dropping most of its legacy support? Effectively what Apple did with Mac OS a few years back. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doPaul Watson wrote:
It would be a contentious move for sure and I don't think Microsoft are even considering it but what do you think about a future generation of Windows dropping most of its legacy support?
I agree. In fact, I made this comment about 10 years ago when the company I was working for had both Windows NT and NetWare file servers. Folks could not figure out why Windows NT was so slow as a file server compared to NetWare. I said it was because Microsoft crammed both an OS and a file server into one package, whereas NetWare was not really an OS but just an effective file server. They are doing Windows an injustice by continuing to be so backwards compatible.
"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed." - Mark Twain
"There is no death, only a change of worlds." - Native American Proverb
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I've recently had the experience of having OS/X installed on an OS-9 system. The following conversation ensued: Tech: Do you want to install this as a dual boot configuration? Me: Why would I want to do that? Tech: Because all these old OS-9 apps don't work under OS-X Me: You're kidding. Microsoft never had that problem The conversation didn't proceed very constructively from that point, but I was left with an immense appreciation for what the guys at Microsoft actually have to struggle with. The actual Mac in question takes several minutes to fire up OS-9 compatibility mode. I saw a guy reboot his PowerBook G4 into OS-9. Actually, I never really did see it finish. After 10 minutes, we both walked into the kitchen and made some tea. Whatever the allure to Mac's is, from my experience, simple productivity is more primitive than when Commodore 64's were all the rage. Yes, it's that bad. It's an incredibly unintuitive OS, dialogs are klunky and after 5 or so nestings, it's hard to remember "how did I get here". I remember those problems 20 years ago. But OS-X still has them. Blech. Maybe others have more positive experiences. Maybe I'm biased by using Windows. Maybe I just miss the idea of right-clicking to get the properties of something. Marc Pensieve Functional Entanglement vs. Code Entanglement Static Classes Make For Rigid Architectures Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
I think your experience is somewhat off.
Marc Clifton wrote:
Because all these old OS-9 apps don't work under OS-X
That's just an out and out fabrication. That's what the OS-9 compat layer is for that launches the 0S9 emulator. I've seen this launched on a half a dozen different systems, none of them super high end, and all were up and running in 20 seconds or less. So it sounds like something weird was going on. That said not everybody likes OSX. It's different. It's not Windows. Personally I think that's just fine, as I think Windows, from a UI point of view, does a lot of stupid things, and I think that for a virgin newbie user, OS X is more consistent* and easier to use. However, it's by no means perfect and there are plenty of weird things about it as well. Don't get me started about the text control, it's extremely annoying. And we'll stay away from bringing up the subject of XCode :) *I would also point out that this may be changing, with Apples move towards "Metal" apps, and various other UI changes, it may be that OS X becomes as byzantine as Windows is now. ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
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The conversation didn't proceed very constructively from that point, but I was left with an immense appreciation for what the guys at Microsoft actually have to struggle with.
No kidding, Raymond Chen's blog is particularly enlightening on that subject. That and the leaked service pack source code that I couldn't help having a nose around in - many comments on the line of "stupid blue chip company x is doing y, so we need to do this". Ryan
"Michael Moore and Mel Gibson are the same person, except for a few sit-ups. Moore thought his cheesy political blooper reel was going to tell people how to vote. Mel thought that his little gay SM movie about his imaginary friend was going to help him get to heaven." - Penn Jillette
Ryan Roberts wrote:
No kidding, Raymond Chen's blog is particularly enlightening on that subject. That and the leaked service pack source code that I couldn't help having a nose around in - many comments on the line of "stupid blue chip company x is doing y, so we need to do this".
No link handy, but I've read some blogged horror stories about the stuff MS has had to code around for compatability with older apps. The most horrific was that to make the original SimCity work they had to keep memory around for several seconds *after* the app deleted the object because it would still try and use it. Along with masses of company X reverse engineered trhough N layers of unpublished API to get an offset for a value that moved, so feed them the old version just to keep them working.
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David Kentley wrote:
- Not enough RAM. You can still get PC's with only 256MB of RAM that have XP installed. That's silly, especially considering how cheap RAM is.
If you strip down Windows XP a fair bit, it runs fine for casual tasks (email client, a few MS Word documents, a few browser windows, and a couple of other small apps open at the same time on two different user accounts) with only 128MB of RAM. I was impressed when I saw how well it works on a low-end PC (500MHZ Celeron, 128MB RAM, 6 GB HD).
Two of the biggest problems I see with the fundamental structure of the current versions of Windows (2000/XP/2003) are the "aging" slowdown that occurs as a Windows installation is used for a long period of time, and the massive conglomerate that is the registry. The former is probably related to the latter, and the latter is a problem that is no longer in MS's hands in many ways, because of how many 3rd-party apps store information in the registry - but MS can move away from the registry for their own applications where it won't break 3rd-party apps. Well, that last part reminds me: the registry issue *is* a backwards compatibility issue, and a tough one at that. Maybe it's an example of what the article author is talking about (I only skimmed the article).
J. Dunlap wrote:
and the massive conglomerate that is the registry.
You know, I see people bitch about this *all* the time, and *never* once have I seen anybody actually provide any proof that the registry is the problem other than "I-heard-it-from-someone-else". Do you have any evidence that actually indicates this? What is it that people dislike about the registry (other than it has a lot fo key that are poorly or not documented at all)? ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
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"Microsoft feels it can't get away with breaking compatibility," said Mendel Rosenblum, a Stanford University computer scientist. "All of their applications must continue to run, and from an architectural point of view that's a very painful thing."
Windows Is So Slow, but Why?[^] from the New York Times. It would be a contentious move for sure and I don't think Microsoft are even considering it but what do you think about a future generation of Windows dropping most of its legacy support? Effectively what Apple did with Mac OS a few years back. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doThere are basically two levels of compatibility: binary and source. If you break binary compatibility, you lose the ability to run everything that's already been compiled, but you can recompile from source and, in theory, it should then run. The amount of work for third-party developers is still fairly high, but not excessive - if the source is still available. Far too many corporate projects no longer have working source available, or any source code at all, or source in a language/environment that's still being maintained. If you break source compatibility, as I believe Apple did (Carbon is similar to OS 9 but not identical, IIRC) the programmer has to do a lot more work to run on the new platform. I don't think there's all that much wrong with the Win32/x86 ABI. It might help to pass a couple of parameters in registers, and the exception handling is a mess (it costs a fair chunk to set up an exception handler even if no exception is ever thrown). These changes have been made for Win32/x64. The Windows x64 platform does do away with a little legacy support - 16-bit applications no longer work since the processor does not support the virtual-8086 submode in the 64-bit major mode. Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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One has to say that beyond the flashiness Windows XP is more stable than Windows 95 and that that is a good reason for your customers to use it. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doabsolutely - but tell that to people who need to use an ISA card to support a legacy DOS application :( (we try to convince them we are better - but replacing a particular app that has grown over 12 years isn't an easy job :rolleyes: )
Some of us walk the memory lane, others plummet into a rabbit hole
Tree in C# || Fold With Us! || sighist -
"Microsoft feels it can't get away with breaking compatibility," said Mendel Rosenblum, a Stanford University computer scientist. "All of their applications must continue to run, and from an architectural point of view that's a very painful thing."
Windows Is So Slow, but Why?[^] from the New York Times. It would be a contentious move for sure and I don't think Microsoft are even considering it but what do you think about a future generation of Windows dropping most of its legacy support? Effectively what Apple did with Mac OS a few years back. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doPaul Watson wrote:
Effectively what Apple did with Mac OS a few years back.
FUD. You can run any app in classic OS emulation. It's no different than WOW in the MS world. Jeremy Falcon
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I've recently had the experience of having OS/X installed on an OS-9 system. The following conversation ensued: Tech: Do you want to install this as a dual boot configuration? Me: Why would I want to do that? Tech: Because all these old OS-9 apps don't work under OS-X Me: You're kidding. Microsoft never had that problem The conversation didn't proceed very constructively from that point, but I was left with an immense appreciation for what the guys at Microsoft actually have to struggle with. The actual Mac in question takes several minutes to fire up OS-9 compatibility mode. I saw a guy reboot his PowerBook G4 into OS-9. Actually, I never really did see it finish. After 10 minutes, we both walked into the kitchen and made some tea. Whatever the allure to Mac's is, from my experience, simple productivity is more primitive than when Commodore 64's were all the rage. Yes, it's that bad. It's an incredibly unintuitive OS, dialogs are klunky and after 5 or so nestings, it's hard to remember "how did I get here". I remember those problems 20 years ago. But OS-X still has them. Blech. Maybe others have more positive experiences. Maybe I'm biased by using Windows. Maybe I just miss the idea of right-clicking to get the properties of something. Marc Pensieve Functional Entanglement vs. Code Entanglement Static Classes Make For Rigid Architectures Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
I am astonished because the OS9 compatibility layer works perfectly and is very fast. The first starting of an OS9 application starts the OS9 compatibility layer in approximately 15 seconds on an average Mac. But perhaps that this Tech guy used a very old version of OSX ?
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Paul Watson wrote:
Effectively what Apple did with Mac OS a few years back.
FUD. You can run any app in classic OS emulation. It's no different than WOW in the MS world. Jeremy Falcon
It certainly is not ideal though. Slower for one. Just like the Rosetta story with the Intel Macs now. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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It certainly is not ideal though. Slower for one. Just like the Rosetta story with the Intel Macs now. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doPaul Watson wrote:
It certainly is not ideal though. Slower for one.
Not it's not. Don't let the word emulation throw you off. It actually uses MacOS 9 to run the old apps inside of X, so it's not emulation as you would normally think of it - it's using native code to run native code. Jeremy Falcon
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It certainly is not ideal though. Slower for one. Just like the Rosetta story with the Intel Macs now. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doCompatibility would probably have been a better word for me to use than emulation btw. Jeremy Falcon
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Super Lloyd wrote:
rude
Needlesly so I'd say since legacy support is a real issue and we would be better off without it to some degree. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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Why can't they just keep on using Windows 95/2k while the next Windows drops legacy support? regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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Yes, the next version of windows should not run anything before .net. Let some 3rd party (or themselves) build something to emulate an older version of windows. how vital enterprise application are for proactive organizations leveraging collective synergy to think outside the box and formulate their key objectives into a win-win game plan with a quality-driven approach that focuses on empowering key players to drive-up their core competencies and increase expectations with an all-around initiative to drive up the bottom-line. But of course, that's all a "high level" overview of things --thedailywtf 3/21/06
That's a really good way to piss off 95% of your entire customer and developer base. Got any other excellent ideas?
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Why not drop the legacy support, But add an internal emulator that could run the legacy stuff. Kind of a Wine for Windows. It could internally run a version of XP so if you Really needed teh old programs you could run them but it wouldn't clunk down the new inovative stuff. Just my 2cents, I've long wished M$ would release a version of Windows that didn't do so much hand holding, for the people in the know who don't need all the extra padding. My parents for example NEED Windows to do Everything for them but I end up disabling a lot of the cushion stuff...
RtroActiv wrote:
I've long wished M$ would release a version of Windows
I'm sorry to inject an off topic comment here, but I find the freakish use of the M-dollar sign so annoying childish I want to hurl. ok, thanks for letting me get that off my chest guys and gals. My Programming Library /* You are not expected to understand this */
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David Kentley wrote:
Backwards compatibility is waaaaaaaaay down the list.
Couldn't a lighter, more efficient Windows XP have been made that works well in 256MB RAM if it didn't have to support legacy software and hardware? regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doPaul Watson wrote:
Couldn't a lighter, more efficient Windows XP have been made that works well in 256MB RAM if it didn't have to support legacy software and hardware?
There's no doubt that a lighter XP could be run in 256MB of RAM, but I have a hard time believing that its legacy support is causing the slowdown. I think the biggest culprit for the bloat is inefficient graphical eye candy (which is why I fear Vista).
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"Microsoft feels it can't get away with breaking compatibility," said Mendel Rosenblum, a Stanford University computer scientist. "All of their applications must continue to run, and from an architectural point of view that's a very painful thing."
Windows Is So Slow, but Why?[^] from the New York Times. It would be a contentious move for sure and I don't think Microsoft are even considering it but what do you think about a future generation of Windows dropping most of its legacy support? Effectively what Apple did with Mac OS a few years back. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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That's a really good way to piss off 95% of your entire customer and developer base. Got any other excellent ideas?
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Paul Watson wrote:
Couldn't a lighter, more efficient Windows XP have been made that works well in 256MB RAM if it didn't have to support legacy software and hardware?
There's no doubt that a lighter XP could be run in 256MB of RAM, but I have a hard time believing that its legacy support is causing the slowdown. I think the biggest culprit for the bloat is inefficient graphical eye candy (which is why I fear Vista).
David Kentley wrote:
I think the biggest culprit for the bloat is inefficient graphical eye candy (which is why I fear Vista).
Time to go back to the old mainframe terminal days:) ------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.