from slashdot.org "When Windows first shipped, 20 years ago this month, it was considered nothing more than a slow operating environment that had arrived late to the party, well behind the industry leaders, Apple and Xerox PARC. Now, it's the operating system used on nearly 95 percent of all the desktops and notebooks sold worldwide. Take a look at Window's past and present, and what lies ahead in the future, including an interview with Mr. Bill Gates himself." http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1868435,00.asp
If that were true, Bill wouldn't be the richest bloke ever. MS only gave IBM a license. Bit of a crap article, couldn't they find a few screenshots?
I still prefer the program group layout of Win3.1xx to the Start Menu any day of the week. And I could have at least five open at 640x480 (or possibly 320x240 was the standard at the time), I'm thinking my current 1600x1200 could handle at least six, only two of which I'd ever use. Maybe I'll do some tweaking for a more retro look/feel. Then again, I rather like having >8bit color. Maybe just organizationally then; windowsblinds is kinda pretty. HB2U! Around for twenty, screwing up my computing for the last twelve or so. Never realized it was older than I am...
It may be twenty, but it acts like eighty. Think about it: -I find the serach function useless. It can't find anything when you need it. -It bogs down to a crawl with the page file and history crap turned on, and needs extreme patience when you want it to do something. -Something is always broken, and things are never like they were. -blue screen of death = heart attack. -Even with all the precautions, it still gets a ton of viruses and then norton freaks out becuase it's going to die. -There are somedays it can't see new hardware or even work with it to that fact. -Sometimes all the marbles are in place and it runs smooth, and sometimes it's just a scatter-brained chav with wingnut ears Did I miss anything?
Personally, I think XP is a good operating system. The reason why programs fail is because they are not made by MS and are badly designed. If you have XP running with no third party software on it, I am confident that you will not get that many problems. From my point of view, it is people's fault they get viruses. I have not got a SINGLE virus since last may, because I look after my computer and don't download crap and configure my firewall properly! Basically, if you look after your computer, it will look after you! But, XP is not perfect, I doubt any OS ever will be.
Hmmm, while I won't claim windows is the worst OS in existance, I will say that XP does not work flawlessly using only MS products. First off, that would be a silly way to run a computer, only using products from one vendor? Kind of limiting, from a business perspective. (turns your computer into a machine that performs a specific set of functions rather than a machine that does whatever you need it to, but that's opinion and speculation, and that isn't part of my argument really.) The main thing I have issues with are when I get random errors in MS Access, I find a knowledgebase article, and the solution is to decrease the size of data contained in a text field. And Microsoft admits that was not in their specification, but that they are not going to fix it. Or how about when I double-click a .mdb file and Access tells me it cannot find the file that I just browsed to and double-clicked. (It does this every time I try to open this database.) However, if I open access and use File>Open and navigate to it, it opens fine. (proving it was wrong, and the file did exist, and it could find it, it just didn't operate properly.) Considering this product costs $500 to install per computer, this type of glitch shouldn't happen. (then again, having a database on someone's computer with the intent of giving users direct access to data instead of a report based on data seems silly to me as well.) That is just scratching the surface. I fell that MS Office and even Windows as a whole are all good pieces of software. I just don't think that Office is far above OpenOffice.org 2, and considering the $500 price difference, the cost to value ratio of MS Office is irresponsibly high. (see also: divide by zero overflow) Linux 1.0 was released in 94, about 11 years ago, so of course Windows is still on top, Linux is almost half the age of Windows. Yet the Linux crowd is growing, and not because it is buggy. I would put Linux on par with Windows in the field of buggyness. The difference is the Linux community works harder to get the bugs worked out, while the hardware community still does not support Linux. (Hardware support is the thing that divides Linux and Windows, and it's not because Microsoft writes great drivers for hardware, it's because hardware manufacturers need to make them to survive in the market, and if MS makes drivers, its because they are given access to the information required to do so. This has nothing to do with talent, skill, ability, nor maturity of the operating system. It comes from market shares and more of a first-come-first-serve basis.) I think Windows is a decent OS that gets the job done, but after 20 years they should have done something innovating by now. (hell, AOL will probably do something innovating before they do!) So, happy birthday Windows, thanks for the functionality and reliability throughout the years. Maybe by your 25th you'll finally wow me.
Too many people demand far too much from the product. You expect your car to keep running if you fill it up with crap, never change the oil or check the tyres, drive it at 100mph all day? If you know a better OS, go use it instead of moaning. No games for your new OS? Work out why. Now, Win2 was crap on a 1Mb 286. But it's improved leaps & bounds since. HB, MS.
I don't really think its crap. Honestly, I think its become more of a trend to bash and hate windows. Even when some thing good happens, people still bash them. Windows does what any OS is suppose to do. Just as good as linux or OSX. I get why people are saying "Vista is just XP with better graphics", because thats what everyone has been saying since Windows 95 came out! It was the same for 98, and ME. People said why upgrade when they first came out? But i'm sure most people did. I don't get what some people want there OS to do... its like they want it to wake them up in the morning, dress them, take them to work, do there work, take them home, and then play games for them. Honestly I can't think of too many features I'd like windows to have that it doesn't already. Just more stable and betting security... I highly doubt Vista will 'wow' me. I'm sure it will have its bugs, and still crash. But i'll still use it.
I've worked out why: More people use Windows than Linux. It reaches a further audience to program for Windows than Linux. Notice the lack of words such as quality, ease of programming, better, worse, etc. Microsoft, as usual, created their own 3d API/engine/whatever (directX) instead of perfecting an existing globally available piece of open source software that does the same thing (OpenGL). While some manufacturers still use OpenGL and are thus able to easily create linux binaries (ID software: Doom3, Quake III, Quake Arena, etc.), other manufacturers are jumping on the Microsoft bandwagon using their proprietary DirectX. Microsoft's proprietary lock-ins are the only reason most businesses stick with Windows. While it isn't a horrible OS, and I won't talk about poor quality on Microsoft's part, I will say their business tactics are matched only by the major US Oil Companies and tobacco industry. I have no respect for how they do business, nor for how they make decisions on backwards compatability, standards compliance, and corporate tie-ins via proprietary document formats. Microsoft is the leading developer of dead-end software, but since it dead-ends at Microsoft's sales office, everyone seems to be okay with it. (sorry, the "Work out why." made it sound like games were available for Windows because it was a better gaming platform, but my coworker's Doom3 benchmarks show it running at a much higher framerate in Linux than Windows. That may also be because 64-bit linux seems to have better hardware support than 64-bit Windows, at least that's the case for my laptop.)
Well here's the sad truth of the matter. I personally am not a fan of Microsoft just for their (honestly brilliant) marketing schemes that budge out competition, but to their own credit, that's what a good business does, so they did what THEY were trying to do. XP has brought windows a long way. If you don't believe me, partition a small space on your HD and run win98se for a week or two. Bottom line: yeah it has problems, but that's because it's trying to market to a lot of different demographics, like: noobs, hardcore gamers, the elderly, kids, film editors, musicians, programmers, developers, etc. whereas Linux's market is the computer freak. That's why linux doesn't mess up, because it's intent is for people who are looking for what it is. So do I wish windows was better? Yes. I wish it had more security support. But i'm not about to say it's this ungodly mess that makes the universe worse for existing. It allows me to play video games and escape from my family. May Bill be blessed. - serial_
What's new? It's still considered exactly the same, especially on Slashdot. Amen to that! It might get some ribbing for being Microsoft, but it's not *that* bad if you know your head from your arse.
Anybody expect their house windows to withstand an attack by an idiot with a house-brick? Or a determined criminal? PC security could be fixed easily with the right effort. I'd suggest castration for the first offence and a full-body microwave for the second. Modern society goes too far in making life difficult for the criminal. We should make life unpleasant for them instead.
