"Windows", which was DOS based, died with Windows 98. OS/2 was Windows 2.0 (as we now know Windows) NT 3.0 and NT 3.5.1 were Windows 3 NT 4.0 was Windows 4 XP was Windows 5 (NT 5) Vista was Windows 6 (NT 6) Windows 7 is internally Windows NT 6.1, as a convenience, so the rumor goes. So, really, we are all running OS/2's great-grandkids. My first experience with OS/2 was at IBM in Boca Raton running Plantworks on a 286 back in the mid-80's. It wasn't a pleasant experience. It took about 20 minutes to boot, particularly painful because it would crash constantly. Lots of coffee and smoke breaks. Not much got done. Thanks.

Luc Pattyn wrote:

We all know there are hundreds or even thousands of bugs in an Operating System as complex as Windows XP or Vista.

... and thus, I guess, when an operating system cannot properly and reliably handle the lowly mouse click, it should not be used for business, and certainly not for Mission Critical Applications (the point of my whining rant question). Adoption by business is limited. Is Microsoft in essence abandoning end-user business systems, exclusively targeting users that just send baby pictures to grandma?

Luc Pattyn wrote:

Of course decent applications would refuse to close a dirty window without confirmation... That is what the Closing event is for after all.

Few applications are "decent" and even MSFT's own IE7 will just close. These days many people are using browsers for order entry, process control interfaces, etc. If I were to hit the X button in the upper right just now, either this comment would be lost, or, if the defect was on my side at the moment, nothing would happen. This suggests that applications must account for operating system defects. How can one build reliable applications if the operating system itself is defective?

Vista has some other nasty issues. This time let's talk about missed clicks. Given two brands of laptops, HP and Toshiba, both with Vista Home Premium, with identical symptoms which suggests it is Vista itself... Scenario 1: You click. Nothing happens. Scenario 2: You click to close an app... nothing seems to happen, and, because of Scenario 1, you click again... then "blink", "blink",... two apps closed. Depending on the nature of the apps, there can be significant impact and loss of business (user was taking an order, an engineer was making a process change, ...). Not real great for supporting business critical applications.

Luc Pattyn wrote:

PS2: I trust the official answer will be all critical points have an "Are you sure? Yes/No/Cancel" confirmation dialog...

Yes, I'm sure you are right. I just used a silly example to make a point and such a dialog does not deal with the spectrum of issues/problems with assuming top Z order. Thanks!

This is a Rant Question. Let's say you are a Nuclear Launch Officer in an underground bunker in South Dakota, and for safe keeping, you are emailing the current launch codes to your grandmother. You have your email open and decide to click the icon to start the "Ballistic Ordinance Operations Managment" (BOOM) application, which takes a moment... so you go back to the email and start typing to grandma. Just as you start typing the launch codes, the BOOM application jumps in front and your typing goes into THAT application instead. You don't notice until you hit enter... Is there a way to control this serious Z-Order problem in Windows? (Vista, in particular, I guess). It is one of the most serious barriers for use in applications where unexpected consequences can be severe. Thanks!

If you want to look and/or play with a simple, free data visualization app that uses ComponentOne you can: http://www.intellidynamics.net/products/dataexplorer/[^] It does trend, histogram, scatter and 3D scatter plots. You have to supply the data in pretty common row/column formats.

We use ComponentOne for technical visualization (2D / 3D Scatters, surfaces, trends). Have since about 1995. I like it. Not sure you can do a heat map, though. http://www.componentone.com/[^]

Cool. Keep it and pass it down to your grandkids. Mine is actually one my father bought in the 1950's, I think, and he passed down to me so I could use in school. I'll pass it down as well as more of a "techno-heirloom". Using it reminds us that the greatest bridges and buildings were built only to 3 significant digits. Who needs 64 or 128 bit precision? .

I have a slide rule that I used when taking Physics "back in the day" and the TI-SR 50a calculator that replaced it, in it's original zipper case. Also, a Radio Shack VOM meter that I assembled from a kit in 1974, I think. Still works!

I have few boxes of 8" floppies. I have one machine spared from salvage because it has a Colorado tape drive to go with some very old source archives, but I really don't know the life of mag media. The tapes are probably unreadable. I have an Apple ][+ in the original box, with cassette tapes of programs I typed in from Nibble Magazine. Heck, I still have the Nibble magazines too. I have Microsoft "Typing Tutor" from 1976, I think it was. Maybe 1978.

Ftp Flat

I thought it was spilled coffee on the keyboard that led to the false detection... oh wait, that's the sequel when the Chinese will almost launch...