When are they going to learn? From what happened with Windows 8, we know that people always expect the worst. With Windows 8, Microsoft was in a position to let rumors fly without saying much of anything because of Windows' dominant position. But this is a clear case where the rumors need to be nipped in the bud. They're going to derail any success that Lumia 900 has had by keeping quiet about it. 

If they actually have learned, and they're still keeping quiet about it, one can only speculate that WP8 is going to represent such overhaul of the hardware specs that it will be too difficult to support the existing devices. Maybe there's some truth to the rumor about WP8 sharing the same kernel as Windows 8.

edit: read the article. I have huge doubts that MS would not have an update path from WP7 to WP8. Especially with the Lumia 900 just released. Now, whether or not carriers release that update remains to be seen.

If you look back over the past 3 years, it seems like Zune HD was a beta test for Windows Phone 7, and Windows Phone 7 was a beta test for WinRT/Metro. But if Microsoft wants to unify all devices under one platform, I think Window Phone 8 will seem like a beta test again. Unless WinRT/Metro can mature rapidly enough feature-wise in the next few months, I think WP8 may still have to endure another period of seeming half-baked since it will have its wagon hitched to W8.

If WinRT/Metro is a fail then I'm sure they'll invent another beta technology to take its place rather than fixing WinRT/Metro. Maybe it's part of the "not invented here" mentality that affects so many developers.

as it stands right now i think in about one year from now i may have an iPhone and a Mac book air.

esp, if Apple does a new model with a display like the iPad with 260 ppi screen specs at the same size as the current macbook air.

windows phone and windows 8 on the desktop - nope.   my desktop machine will stay on windows 7 for now and if windows 9 / 10 have a better desktop user story i will look at them.

windows 8 on arm:  i will wait and see how it goes.  if it does not go well i will get an iPad.

if windows 9 / 10 do not look good then i will get a mac desktop system.

Microsoft:  you are losing a 25-30 year customer due to your crappy handling of things.

20 hours ago, cbae wrote

Link

*snip*

If they actually have learned, and they're still keeping quiet about it, one can only speculate that WP8 is going to represent such overhaul of the hardware specs that it will be too difficult to support the existing devices. Maybe there's some truth to the rumor about WP8 sharing the same kernel as Windows 8.

Referring to Hardware Specifications for Windows Phone it seems like the hardware is already ahead of Windows "modularized".  Additional hints ... Microsoft wanted no-native on the WP7.  I'd imagine so they could bring the WP7 market and the new WinRT market together at some point in the future.  Remember the goal is Windows Everywhere.  Given that hardware today (even on the smallest devices) can run general purpose OSes it seems the goal of applying the Windows OS across all devices is achievable.  Combine what we know about Ballmer's statement of Windows everywhere and what we have heard about Windows being more modular and the plan seems pretty clear.

Since there are no Windows Phone 8 hardware specs publicly available yet, we can't verify how far along the merge paths Windows Phone 8 sits.  Is it the final merge point before Windows everywhere or is there some more to go?  Too soon to tell.  In addition the merge paths will more than likely have to be amended because there are other competitive market forces in play and they are some big boys too.

Ultimately there may be no transition from WP7 to WP8 not because of the OS changes but because of the wireless carriers insistence on controlling the software on the devices.  Maybe leaking to the market there is a new Windows 8 for phone in the works is designed to put pressure on the wireless carriers to allow OS vendors access to their OS customers and by extension allow software vendors access to their customers.

That stinks. Even Apple lets users run iOS5 on the iPhone 3Gs.

6 minutes ago, spivonious wrote

Paul Thurrott says his sources tell him that WP8 will not be available for WP7 devices.

That stinks. Even Apple lets users run iOS5 on the iPhone 3Gs.

People keep complaining, and some Fanbois keep stating that Microsoft have taken the right decision long term, but they have been unable to commit to anything on the desktop for the last decade, and the phone is also following suit.

I lost my faith in Microsoft a little while back, and anticipated that Windows Phone would be chopped and changed like they have done so well before.

Apple have gone from iOS 1 to iOS 5, and I am awaiting Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to upgrade my 2.3 version.

Only a fool would buy a Lumia 900 phone now. If you have one, take it back.

16 hours ago, vesuvius wrote

*snip*

People keep complaining, and some Fanbois keep stating that Microsoft have taken the right decision long term, but they have been unable to commit to anything on the desktop for the last decade, and the phone is also following suit.

I lost my faith in Microsoft a little while back, and anticipated that Windows Phone would be chopped and changed like they have done so well before.

Apple have gone from iOS 1 to iOS 5, and I am awaiting Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to upgrade my 2.3 version.

Only a fool would buy a Lumia 900 phone now. If you have one, take it back.

It would seem that so-called "tech savvy" folk that post to this forum can't even tell the difference between incremental upgrades of the same OS (eg. iOS1 thru iOS 5) and a transition from one OS to an entirely different OS (WP7 to Apollo).  Comparing a WP7 to Apollo transition to the incremental upgrades from iOS1 to iOS5 is totally meaningless. 

And you bring up the fact that you are wating to upgrade your Android to ICS.  Yeah, you, along wiht 97% of Android users.  ICS was released ~6 months ago, yet only 3% of Android uses have been able to upgrade to it.  That upgrade path may as well not exist at all.  Most will be onto a new phone by the time they get to upgrade their current Androids.  Yet you cite that as an example of how things shoudl work. lol

This Coffeehouse forum has gone in the toilet ever since Rory left.  Mostly what we get now are malcontents and Microsoft-bashers.  There use to be lots of tech talk on this forum and actual insight, but those days are looooong gone.  And that's why the userbase of this forum has dropped down to fewer than a dozen regulars.  The ones remaining are mostly the malcontents that can sit around and pat themselves on the back at how brilliant they are (they equate cynicism with brilliance).  The rest that remain are those few individuals that have the stomache to put up with the nonsense constantly spewed by the malcontents.

4 hours ago, Escamillo wrote

@vesuvius:

*snip*

It would seem that so-called "tech savvy" folk that post to this forum can't even tell the difference between incremental upgrades of the same OS (eg. iOS1 thru iOS 5) and a transition from one OS to an entirely different OS (WP7 to Apollo).  Comparing a WP7 to Apollo transition to the incremental upgrades from iOS1 to iOS5 is totally meaningless. 

You have missed my point entirely, in that Apple and Google have chosen a technology, and stuck with it. As applications are written, they are backwards compatible, and their customers get a consistent experience from phone to phone. Apple especially have been able to optimise their software so it is incredibly fast and responsive.

And you bring up the fact that you are wating to upgrade your Android to ICS.  Yeah, you, along wiht 97% of Android users.  ICS was released ~6 months ago, yet only 3% of Android uses have been able to upgrade to it.  That upgrade path may as well not exist at all.  Most will be onto a new phone by the time they get to upgrade their current Androids.  Yet you cite that as an example of how things shoudl work. lol

The issue here is that most third party companies like Samsung and HTC have customised versions of the OS, and Phone providers like Vodaphone/O2/Three (AT&T or Verizon stateside) and so on are very slow to roll the updates out. This is set to change in the future.

This Coffeehouse forum has gone in the toilet ever since Rory left.  Mostly what we get now are malcontents and Microsoft-bashers.  There use to be lots of tech talk on this forum and actual insight, but those days are looooong gone.  And that's why the userbase of this forum has dropped down to fewer than a dozen regulars.  The ones remaining are mostly the malcontents that can sit around and pat themselves on the back at how brilliant they are (they equate cynicism with brilliance).  The rest that remain are those few individuals that have the stomache to put up with the nonsense constantly spewed by the malcontents.

The truth of the matter is that Content Delivery is now what Channel9 is mostly about (It falls under Evangelism, and this forum has nothing to do with that), and the forums are seldom promoted. I know that the minute I post something against Windows Phone, someone from Microsoft creeps out of the woodwork to completely rubbish what I have written because people are very sensitive to any bad press to do with the product. I will however continue to warn friends and colleagues against Windows Phone and Windows Metro because Microsoft have never stuck to any technology for more than a few iterations - that is not bashing Microsoft, but the truth.

20 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

LMAO in this issue. Another thread to diss the problem that caused by switching to w8 core too early. This topic is rather months old from my perspective.

What does whatever kernel underlies the phone have to do with anything? Current gen WP7 devices would be perfectly capable of running an NT based phone OS, the hardware is easily powerful enough. And WP8 will run all WP7 apps, so again that's a non-issue too. The software side of things is clearly not the issue here.

I suspect the reasons behind Microsoft staying quiet on this one ultimately comes down to the carriers. They don't want to update people's existing devices because it makes it much harder to sell them new shiny ones. As has been evidenced by the WP7 update story, Microsoft wanting a clear consistent update pattern has been well and truly slammed by the carriers decisions.

7 hours ago, Escamillo wrote

 

This Coffeehouse forum has gone in the toilet ever since Rory left.  Mostly what we get now are malcontents and Microsoft-bashers.  There use to be lots of tech talk on this forum and actual insight, but those days are looooong gone.  And that's why the userbase of this forum has dropped down to fewer than a dozen regulars.  The ones remaining are mostly the malcontents that can sit around and pat themselves on the back at how brilliant they are (they equate cynicism with brilliance).  The rest that remain are those few individuals that have the stomache to put up with the nonsense constantly spewed by the malcontents.

 

Rory ?  he has nothing to do with the way things are....

perhaps you fail to understand that some of the folks who are not happy (like me for example) are the same folks who have been here for a *very long time* and used to be part of the other discussions you refer to.  but things have changed; I have every right to say what i think as long as i am not attacking people and as long as i am "within bounds" so to speak.

some of us have been very pro microsoft for a long time and we see things that we feel are going the wrong way.   by posting our thoughts here there is a small chance some folks at microsoft will see the post and act on it.

No that's not for sure but it's a thing we can do before we go to the next step.

in the end i and the companies i work with will vote with our money and that in the end will get microsoft to listen, if sales drop they will get the message for sure.

and none of that will stop me for beeing a part of a good topic when i see one.  I still have code to maintain that uses .Net and WPF and WIndows Forms and so on....

But what is the point? Is switching to NT going to make anything better for end users? Developers? I fail to see how. The only thing it _might_ do is make Microsoft's software more maintainable in the future, but it also _might_ introduce new complexities and bugs.

If Microsoft never made WinCE, it would be a different story. In that case it would be perfect sense to extend WinNT to support phones. But they already invested decades of engineering to make a kernel optimized for embedded devices and phones, and throwing that away just seems... like a bad idea?

27 minutes ago, Bass wrote

@AndyC:

But what is the point? Is switching to NT going to make anything better for end users? Developers? I fail to see how. The only thing it _might_ do is make Microsoft's software more maintainable in the future, but it also _might_ introduce new complexities and bugs.

If Microsoft never made WinCE, it would be a different story. In that case it would be perfect sense to extend WinNT to support phones. But they already invested decades of engineering to make a kernel optimized for embedded devices and phones, and throwing that away just seems... like a bad idea?

what i wonder about is how they got to where they are?

for example when planning the windows phone 7 did they look at where windows v next was going and did they look at what the future of windows CE might look like?

on the surface it seems like windows phone 7 is almost a "practice run" and tossing it after really only one version seems like poor planing when the first version was created.

but perhaps this was a result of things that were changing while WP7 was beeing created.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

@AndyC:

If Microsoft never made WinCE, it would be a different story. In that case it would be perfect sense to extend WinNT to support phones. But they already invested decades of engineering to make a kernel optimized for embedded devices and phones, and throwing that away just seems... like a bad idea?

The overall amount of investment in WinCE is nowhere near that which has gone into NT. Not to mention that they've now essentially got two kernels, targetting effectively similar spec hardware, one of which is significantly less full featured and optimised and it just doesn't make a huge amount of sense to keep duplicating effort like that.

There was once a time when keeping NT and CE separate made sense, just as there was a time when it made sense to have parallel streams for 9x and NT. That day has past and unifying the codebase just makes far more sense.

47 minutes ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

 Not to mention that they've now essentially got two kernels, targetting effectively similar spec hardware, one of which is significantly less full featured and optimised and it just doesn't make a huge amount of sense to keep duplicating effort like that.

Targeting a CISC processor vs. a RISC processor even in today's modern times with quad core ARM processors are two vastly different things. Staying just on the CISC side of the house, W7 even stripped down performs like crap on atom processors (i.e., netbooks). Can you imagine that as your phone running on an even more meager ARM processor?

No doubt WinDiv will do their best to toss out the "fat" in the W8 kernel but that's going to create effectively WinCE all over again because WP8 will be a far cry from the real W8 kernel if they have any chance in hell of getting enough performance out of it.

WP8 will be Longhorn all over again; this time it will be WinDiv jumping the shark instead of DevDiv.

And let's not forget that key ingredient of time-to-market; Microsoft could have launched a tablet long ago with the WP7 kernel.

Linux is a far superior kernel versus both WinNT and WinCE both in features and platform support. This is a kernel that has a proven history of working well on phones, while supporting features that are only typically available in desktops (and maybe supercomputers). Why spend time and money trying to bring WinNT up to snuff?

Another huge FOSS project, Webkit, has better standards support than Trident/IE and is built with mobile in mind. Everyone, I mean everyone (except Microsoft, haha) uses Webkit on mobile. It's the mobile rendering engine. So you have better chance of mobile-oriented websites working with it.

Kernels and HTML rendering engines are huge projects. There is no reason to reproduce them if there is already free ones available.

Microsoft spends very expensive engineering resources to try to effectively reinvent the wheel while their competitors build on the Commons and focus on building stuff not already available in the Commons. Jokes on Microsoft really. No wonder WP7 is/was chronically behind. Current example: they are adding dual-core support (not simple, as I understand it) when Android and iOS got it for free (and quad-core, and 4096 core, heh).

If Microsoft is to be successful in the future, they should dump WinNT/WinCE and Trident entirely and built on top of Linux or *BSD/XNU and Webkit.

21 minutes ago, Bass wrote

*snip*

Linux is a far superior kernel versus both WinNT and WinCE both in features and platform support.

*snip*

If Microsoft is to be successful in the future, they should dump WinNT/WinCE and Trident entirely and built on top of Linux or *BSD/XNU and Webkit.

I really don't want there to be just one kernel or just one HTML engine in existence forevermore.  Nor do I suscribe to the school of thought that says that Unix (and its variants) represent the be-all and end-all of OS design.  It's absurd.

I also question your assertion at how superior Linux is.  There's a reason why Android NEEDS multiple cores to run half-decently.  There's a reason why my DVR takes forever to boot up.  Linux ain't all that.

As for "spending money to get NT up to snuff", I assume you refer to the phone space.  Microsoft is already spending money on slimming down NT anyway for Windows 8.  I've heard that Windows 8CP boots very fast and runs on very small memory footprint compared to Windows 7.  Since they're doing that work anyway, may as well apply that same work to the phone space.

Finally, check out this video and tell me how WebKit or Linux kernel is so superior, 'cause I don't see it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkifKnNmeVg

3 hours ago, figuerres wrote

*snip*

 

Rory ?  he has nothing to do with the way things are....

perhaps you fail to understand that some of the folks who are not happy (like me for example) are the same folks who have been here for a *very long time* and used to be part of the other discussions you refer to.  but things have changed; I have every right to say what i think as long as i am not attacking people and as long as i am "within bounds" so to speak.

some of us have been very pro microsoft for a long time and we see things that we feel are going the wrong way.   by posting our thoughts here there is a small chance some folks at microsoft will see the post and act on it.

No that's not for sure but it's a thing we can do before we go to the next step.

in the end i and the companies i work with will vote with our money and that in the end will get microsoft to listen, if sales drop they will get the message for sure.

and none of that will stop me for beeing a part of a good topic when i see one.  I still have code to maintain that uses .Net and WPF and WIndows Forms and so on....

I didn't mean to suggest that Rory's departure caused the deterioration of this forum.  I just used his departure as a time reference.  There is no question that this forum is a wasteland relative to what it was in the past.

As for "being part of a good topic" because you still have to maintain ".NET, WPF, and Windows Form" code, isn't the "Tech Off" forum more suitable for that?  If you ask a question on maintaining .NET/WPF/WinForms code on the Coffeehouse forum, you'll get "answers" that consist of how horrible those platforms are and how Microsoft should dump them for Objective C or some such.  hehe

That's interesting, but I don't think it has anything to do with the Linux kernel itself. Android's userspace is nearly entirely written in managed code running on a VM that for most of it's history was effectively an interpreter. You just can't get good performance from that. Google however continues to improve this (and also added a JIT'er) and I can tell you Android ICS runs a lot faster than Gingerbread. Same goes with Webkit. I'm not sure how that is implemented in Android, but if you want to see a really great Webkit implementation you should check out iOS.

Anyway is this video by Microsoft just PR or something changing in their strategy?

Look at the history of all these people posting, including the OP. They are all very, very pro-Microsoft. They are just frustrated. I've always had a more anti-Microsoft outlook than most people here and even I get frustrated. Because I learned that I actually don't want Microsoft to fail. What I want is for Microsoft to evolve into something that could work better in this new software industry.

5 hours ago, figuerres wrote

*snip*

what i wonder about is how they got to where they are?

Microsoft has been building smartphone software on the WinCE kernel for a very long time, it was the obvious choice for the Phone 7 project, especially because the MinWin project to seperate and modularise NT + the rest of Windows (which had become rather co-mingled) was still underway at the time the project would have started. 

3 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

*snip*

Targeting a CISC processor vs. a RISC processor even in today's modern times with quad core ARM processors are two vastly different things. Staying just on the CISC side of the house, W7 even stripped down performs like crap on atom processors (i.e., netbooks). Can you imagine that as your phone running on an even more meager ARM processor?

That really makes no sense. If what you were saying was true there'd be no point porting Windows to ARM at all.

3 hours ago, Bass wrote

Linux is a far superior kernel versus both WinNT and WinCE both in features and platform support. This is a kernel that has a proven history of working well on phones, while supporting features that are only typically available in desktops (and maybe supercomputers). Why spend time and money trying to bring WinNT up to snuff?

Nonsense. Linux is a reasonable implementation of a very, very dated kernel design. Even the Mach kernel in OS X is a significantly better design (which was no doubt why it formed the basis of the iPhone) and has a richer feature set. And NT is certainly more developed than either of those.

Another huge FOSS project, Webkit, has better standards support than Trident/IE and is built with mobile in mind. Everyone, I mean everyone (except Microsoft, haha) uses Webkit on mobile. It's the mobile rendering engine. So you have better chance of mobile-oriented websites working with it.

Even that isn't true anymore. It's a close call between Trident in IE9 and Webkit for who has better standards support (Webkit tends to appear to implement more, but has a far more buggy implementation of even the basics). And the IE10 engine is easily ahead. IE really only fell behind because Microsoft simply stopped doing any work on it, when they throw resources behind something it develops fast. If anything it actually shows better than anything that the open-source model, while sometimes cheap, tends to lead to a much slower pace of development (even WebKit only really improved because Apple threw money at it).

If WP8 brings along a different development platform, that might make a difference, but not in the short run: since WP8 is said to be able to run all the existing WP7 apps, I bet most developers will just stick to that, at least until the existing WP7 user base becomes irrelevant, and that might take a while to happen.

Linux is designed to be extremely modular at build time, if you ever build your own Linux kernel you literately go through a menu of options on what you want to include in it. Last time I played with this, I remember seeing weird stuff like "HAM Radio Support".

So you can build a version of Linux that plays nicely on a router with a sub-100Mhz processor and 1 MB of Flash. You don't even have to built multi-user support or networking, that's a build option. You can also build versions of Linux that run very well on big iron POWER7 supercomputers, with kernel-level support for their unique architecture. But in the end of the day, it's the same unified codebase.

Linux was just designed like this from early on. So it makes a good OS for unique applications. Obviously phone is not as unique, but Linux has been on phones for a very long time as well, definitely predating Android. So the work to get Linux to work on phones has already been done. Google got to use that engineering without having to produce their own kernel. In fact, Google engineers mostly got to play with the fairly simple Java programming language to build most of Android. The architecture of Android is the closest thing to a "managed" OS that exists in production, the holy grail of some ideas. There is a small userspace that is unmanaged but almost all the apps, the shell, etc. are all written in Java.

So they were able to put out an OS much faster than Microsoft did. And ultimately I think this is why Android is winning (or already won).

Linux implements the POSIX API to a great degree. So does Windows, at least the networking side of things which is a HUGE part of the POSIX API. I often stumble on MSDN pages when I do low level programming on Linux. These pages have helped me (ironically?).

But Linux is not an UNIX operating system, it just happens to have good compatibility with traditional UNIX (generally speaking, better than Windows).

This is a common misunderstanding about Linux. Apple Mac OS X however, is a true UNIX. I'm not sure about iOS, but I doubt it.

Also the kernel design is not what makes UNIX. UNIX is an interface at this point, that is, an API. What makes something UNIX is official conformance to this API. All Mac OS X would need to do to "not be UNIX" is move some of their files around and maybe rename a function or two. Nothing in the design makes UNIX.

The so called monolithic design used by Linux is pretty standard in many operating systems.. even Mac OS X which uses Mach actually modified it considerably and their new kernel is called XNU. I do not think XNU qualifies as a microkernel. WinNT certainly does not qualify as a microkernel. The microkernel vs monolithic design is an old debate and I don't think it's really accepted that microkernels are simply better, they have their own problems related to performance and maintainability.

I don't believe WP7 is practice run, thus, I value WP7 and its kernel a lot more than others. If it is really just a practice run, I fear I need to switch to a company that is more serious about their offerings. If MS is not serious about their product, why should I? Of course, I support WP7 right now because I refuse to believe such practice run crap. If i am indeed wrong, yeah i need to wake up and start looking for serious companies.

What i dislike about the whole thing is, W8 is not out yet. WP7 is also very very young. It would be like switching to nt at win 98 release. Not my thing.

2 hours ago, Bass wrote

The so called monolithic design used by Linux is pretty standard in many operating systems.. even Mac OS X which uses Mach actually modified it considerably and their new kernel is called XNU. I do not think XNU qualifies as a microkernel. WinNT certainly does not qualify as a microkernel. The microkernel vs monolithic design is an old debate and I don't think it's really accepted that microkernels are simply better, they have their own problems related to performance and maintainability.

The whole microkernel versus monolithic is a completely false debate though - because the terms microkernel and monolithic are not standardized, and whether something is modular fundamentally doesn't make any difference to speed, security, quality, or even extensibility (Linux and Windows both allow you to write drivers, but both are called monolithic) or anything else.

It seems to me that the only people who even use such terms are usually trying to justify why they like one thing rather than another without using real arguments, for instance "your OS isn't as good as my OS because mine is a microkernel but yours is monolithic".

It's like trying to argue the quality of the OS based on how good you think the desktop wallpaper is.

When I had my Windows7 phone, it never crashed. My Android phone, on the other hand, crashed all the time. Although I enjoy using my iPhone, the kernel really sucks at memory management. If there is anything that a kernel should be responsible for, it would be that-- And when I say sucks, I'm talking from my perspective as a developer, not as a consumer.

-Josh

45 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

Although I enjoy using my iPhone, the kernel really sucks at memory management. If there is anything that a kernel should be responsible for, it would be that-- And when I say sucks, I'm talking from my perspective as a developer, not as a consumer.

How so?

8 hours ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

That really makes no sense. If what you were saying was true there'd be no point porting Windows to ARM at all.

See you're not so dumb after all. Good job Andy.

45 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

*snip*

See you're not so dumb after all. Good job Andy.

Well that exact same argument could be used to say Linux should never have been ported to ARM, because it started on the i386. Since that is an obviously stupid thing to suggest, and since Microsoft have proved that you can run Windows on low powered ARM tablets, I'm a bit surprised that you think it's such a bad idea.

11 hours ago, Bass wrote

Fact is if Microsoft wants to reinvent the wheel that's their choice. But you can not say it is working for them. [...]

Microsoft has mostly been in "reinvent the wheel" business for years. And I would say that it has worked for them for the most part, at least until I was using their tech about 12 years ago (been strictly OSS since 2000). I'll give one example. COM. Yes, the same COM that got a bad rap. If you look at the original, CORBA, you must hand it to Microsoft. They took this monstrosity, and made it accessible for mere mortals. KUDOS. Now if they only just shared...

PS, another example is Win32 vs XWindows. Better, leaner, faster. Having said that, Win32 will be forgotten long before xlib.

9 hours ago, AndyC wrote

Nonsense. Linux is a reasonable implementation of a very, very dated kernel design. Even the Mach kernel in OS X is a significantly better design (which was no doubt why it formed the basis of the iPhone) and has a richer feature set. And NT is certainly more developed than either of those.

Let's assume this is true. Then you must feel that Linux unjustly took over the world. At least both sides of the scalability range: embedded space - routers, tivo, ... - and the supercomputer space.

The fact is that Linux, with all its shortcoming you mentioned, is just good enough.

Your argument reminds me some benchmarks i read thet IPX is faster and better designed then TCP/IP...

1 hour ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

Well that exact same argument could be used to say Linux should never have been ported to ARM, because it started on the i386. Since that is an obviously stupid thing to suggest, and since Microsoft have proved that you can run Windows on low powered ARM tablets, I'm a bit surprised that you think it's such a bad idea.

At the start of this thread and at the end of the day we're talking about phones. In order for Microsoft to get decent performance out of W8 on a phone it will have to be both a beast of a phone and such a stripped down W8 it might as well be WinCE. Last I checked phones were running ARM CPUs...

BTW, when did I say anything about Linux? I just think it was a big waist of time and a lost window on the tablet market the way that Microsoft just tossed away WP7 for the nerdy goal of "Window Everywhere -- Even It Sucks".

7 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

It seems to me that the only people who even use such terms are usually trying to justify why they like one thing rather than another without using real arguments, for instance "your OS isn't as good as my OS because mine is a microkernel but yours is monolithic".

Indeed. Which is why I never mentioned it at all, because it's a bit pointless when discussing two kernels that are "monolithic"  anyway. It doesn't change the fact that many of the decisions that are deeply baked into the Linux kernel, such as the poor support for real ACLs (the Posix standard is sadly lacking here) and the "everything looks like a block file" are horribly dated decisions that should never have been in an OS as modern as Linux. They exist purely because Linus was attempting to clone Unix without really considering what should and could be better.

1 hour ago, fanbaby wrote

*snip*

I'll give one example. COM. Yes, the same COM that got a bad rap. If you look at the original, CORBA, you must hand it to Microsoft. They took this monstrosity, and made it accessible for mere mortals. KUDOS. Now if they only just shared...

What more did you want them to share? Anybody on any platform can implement IUnknown. It's just AddRef, Release and QueryInterface. And with that you have COM.

1 hour ago, fanbaby wrote

*snip*

Let's assume this is true. Then you must feel that Linux unjustly took over the world. At least both sides of the scalability range: embedded space - routers, tivo, ... - and the supercomputer space.

I don't think anything of the sort. If you give something away for nothing and people can use it to make themselves money, they will and good for them I say. Sucks to be you if you don't end getting anything out of it, but then that's your problem.

39 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

*snip*

At the start of this thread and at the end of the day we're talking about phones. In order for Microsoft to get decent performance out of W8 on a phone it will have to be both a beast of a phone and such a stripped down W8 it might as well be WinCE. Last I checked phones were running ARM CPUs...

You're confusing "Windows" with "the NT kernel". Windows Phone 8 may used the kernel, it still won't be the full Windows as seen on tablets.

That said, however, Microsoft have already demonstrated on numerous occasions the full version of Windows 8 running on ARM hardware without any of the problems you seem to suggest would have to exist.

7 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

At the start of this thread and at the end of the day we're talking about phones. In order for Google to get decent performance out of Linux on a phone it will have to be both a beast of a phone and such a stripped down Linux it might as well be TinyLinux. Last I checked phones were running ARM CPUs...

See that when I change the names from Microsoft to Linux that the argument is clearly invalid. Linux can run on big servers and tiny phones. So either you're contesting that Linux is terrible on phones (and hence all Android phones must be terrible), or you're suggesting that Linux has some magical pixie dust that Microsoft doesn't have that somehow means that all of your arguments don't apply equally to Linux.

Windows on ARM might come from the same codebase, but it's not the same code. That's the power of #ifdefs.

Ok smart boys, what's the point of delaying getting in the tablet space by two years just so you can have the same kernel from PC to tablet to phone? The user doesn't care about the kernel. Only geeks do.

Microsoft have already demonstrated on numerous occasions the full version of Windows 8 running on ARM hardware without any of the problems you seem to suggest would have to exist.

Really? Even TI with their latest and greatest processor weren't ready to go on camera with a demo: http://ces.cnet.com/8301-33363_1-57358767/ti-offers-rare-demo-of-windows-8-explorer-on-newest-arm-chip/ 

And there's more...

http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/windows-8-arm-not-so-vaporous-after-all-185259

Is Microsoft waiting for some special event where they show the rest of the world W8 is ready for ARM? What's the big secret?

As with underpowered netbooks I'm sure W8 phones will be full of compromise (none of which will be coming from Microsoft). You'll need the latest and greatest of everything in order to get modest performance on a phone. And let's not forget about battery life; being ARM doesn't mean the OS gets a free ride to long battery life. They had all that with WP7 and kissed it and two years away just for some nerdy goal.

I predict Microsoft will go from bragging about how WP7 doesn't need a multi-core mega phone to boasting (and requiring) WP8 having multi-core mega phone creds.

And as for Linux the big difference here is two fold:

1. Linux has been running on routers, set top boxes, and phones for many, many years. This is the Windows kernel's first time. Good luck with that. Maybe they should call it "Window Phone 8 - The Virgin Edition" WP8-VE for short of course.
2. More importantly Linux doesn't care how it's being used -- it's not part of a greater strategy. For Microsoft "Windows Everywhere -- Even If It Sucks" seems to be a huge roll of the strategic dice when it really didn't have to be. (Again geeks rule the day here.)

I'm not trying to get into a pissing match on Linux vs. Windows. I'm just saying Microsoft made a big mistake not sticking with WP7, Silverlight, et al for tablets and getting to market two years earlier.

Now taking this W8 strategy down to the phone makes no sense as it doesn't buy them anything with user and it's my prediction it's going to make for a woeful phone experience to top it all off. I'm hopeful Nokia is successful in retraining retail on selling WP and getting their sales numbers up. Now along comes Microsoft with the new WP8 and tops those efforts with...wait for it... a phone that runs the same kernel as a PC. Exciting days ahead I'm sure.

4 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

Linux has been running on routers, set top boxes, and phones for many, many years. This is the Windows kernel's first time.

Windows Embedded?

More importantly Linux doesn't care how it's being used

Why do you think the Windows kernel gives a damn about how it's used?

... a phone that runs the same kernel as a PC...

Like how an Android phone runs the same kernel as an Ubuntu desktop, right?

24 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

@AndyC: @evildictaitor:

Ok smart boys, what's the point of delaying getting in the tablet space by two years just so you can have the same kernel from PC to tablet to phone? The user doesn't care about the kernel. Only geeks do.

I love the Windows Phone UI. It's great, on a phone. It really wouldn't work at all on a larger tablet device. And I say that as a massive fan of tablet computing for years (even before the iPad made it cool for everyone else).

7 minutes ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

Windows Embedded?

SPAM in a can, eh? So what's taking them some long to get W8/WP8 on ARM then? Maybe because there no Windows Embedded for ARM? Oh, looks like I'm wrong. There is Windows Embedded for ARM but it's our good ol' friend WinCE : http://www.arm.com/community/software-enablement/microsoft/windows-embedded-ce.php and http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/develop/windows-embedded-compact-for-developers.aspx

*snip*

Why do you think the Windows kernel gives a damn about how it's used?

No but apparently Microsoft does give a damn about using the Windows kernel everywhere and pissing away a ton of development dollars and good two years of time-to-market for tablets.

*snip*

Like how an Android phone runs the same kernel as an Ubuntu desktop, right?

Thanks for making my point. Most people don't buy an Android phone because it's running a Linux kernel. Microsoft seems to think this is important with there strategy. I'm suggesting it's not.

5 minutes ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

I love the Windows Phone UI. It's great, on a phone. It really wouldn't work at all on a larger tablet device. And I say that as a massive fan of tablet computing for years (even before the iPad made it cool for everyone else).

So are you saying that a Metro UI on a tablet is a fail?

My daughter still has her HP tablet/convertible PC I bought her 3 years ago when I was still a big fan of Microsoft and hoping they'd get the tablet PC right eventually. The tablet is laying in a heap in my garage -- died a month out of warrantee. I was trying to fix it but Android tablets are cheap enough that it's not worth my time.

But regardless the main point, it's just wasting time reinventing the wheel, actually reinventing the wheel internally since WinCE has been able to do ARM for quite awhile and has a history of being developed for phones and PDAs. There is the frustration from Microsoft ecosystem developers that years after the iPad and Android tablets, there is no answer from Microsoft. Timing might not be everything in this industry but it certainly helps to be timely. So you got to put products in the face of customers quickly.

If Microsoft gives their competitors too much time to build ecosystems around their products and establish a network effect, they will become irrelevant in any new technological market. This is regardless how "nerd approved" (thanks DeathByVisualStudio) their technology stack is.

35 minutes ago, Bass wrote

@evildictaitor:

But regardless the main point, it's just wasting time reinventing the wheel, actually reinventing the wheel internally since WinCE has been able to do ARM for quite awhile and has a history of being developed for phones and PDAs. There is the frustration from Microsoft ecosystem developers that years after the iPad and Android tablets, there is no answer from Microsoft. Timing might not be everything in this industry but it certainly helps to be timely. So you got to put products in the face of customers quickly.

Arguably the mistake was inventing WinCE rather than just porting the NT kernel to the phone way back when.

38 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

*snip*

So are you saying that a Metro UI on a tablet is a fail?

My daughter still has her HP tablet/convertible PC I bought her 3 years ago when I was still a big fan of Microsoft and hoping they'd get the tablet PC right eventually. The tablet is laying in a heap in my garage -- died a month out of warrantee. I was trying to fix it but Android tablets are cheap enough that it's not worth my time.

I'll take it. Can I email you my addy?

1 hour ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

Arguably the mistake was inventing WinCE rather than just porting the NT kernel to the phone way back when.

LOL. That's damn funny.

So are you saying that a Metro UI on a tablet is a fail?

I think you are trolling here, but to state the obvious, Windows Phone "Metro" != Windows 8 "Metro"

1 hour ago, evildictaitor wrote

Arguably the mistake was inventing WinCE rather than just porting the NT kernel to the phone way back when.

that's bad hindsight. Aside of any performance consideration, early mobile devices had very limited storage and what they had was usually read-only. For comparison, NT 3.51 required 90MB of HDD, and the HP Journada from roughly the same era had 16MB of ROM, which included the OS and all the applications.

Maybe a merger was overdue, but a specialized kernel made a lot of sense back then.

Things don't work that way with Metro: while you can keep its distinctive looks, most of the interface cannot be carried over and needs to be reinvented. For instance, try taking a panorama application from a small portrait screen to a large landscape screen and you end up with an ugly mess. Another example is the start screen: on a phone it shows at most 8 tiles at the same time, so the mostly monochrome look not only is acceptable, it gives a sense of reduced clutter. Try that on a much larger screen with potentially twenty or more tiles, and it becomes unusable.

4 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

No but apparently Microsoft does give a damn about using the Windows kernel everywhere and pissing away a ton of development dollars and good two years of time-to-market for tablets.

It takes Microsoft at least two years to get up in the morning.

I should probably also point out that the majority of work on Windows8 has nothing to do with tablets. The UI and WOA might be pretty obvious changes, but that doesn't make them the only changes.

Thanks for making my point. Most people don't buy an Android phone because it's running a Linux kernel. 

Are you serious!? The market for Android devices is huge!

22 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

How so?

From what I recall, you get out of memory warnings when core apps like safari eat up system resources. And, it's difficult to determine how much the system wants you to trim before it kills you.

-Josh

15 hours ago, contextfree` wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: I'm talking about the Windows Phone and Windows 8 interfaces. They are obviously related, but different in many ways in terms of function, input language, design etc. "Metro" is pretty broad given that it also applies to stuff like Zune Desktop.

Ah so there's room for interpretation here and I'm not trolling. Thanks.

14 hours ago, Blue Ink wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: It is tempting to think that a tablet is just an oversize phone, and the iPhone/iPad seems to reinforce that concept.

Things don't work that way with Metro: while you can keep its distinctive looks, most of the interface cannot be carried over and needs to be reinvented. For instance, try taking a panorama application from a small portrait screen to a large landscape screen and you end up with an ugly mess. Another example is the start screen: on a phone it shows at most 8 tiles at the same time, so the mostly monochrome look not only is acceptable, it gives a sense of reduced clutter. Try that on a much larger screen with potentially twenty or more tiles, and it becomes unusable.

I don't own a WP so other than playing with it in a store I can't comment on specific functionality. That said I think they way Microsoft is looking at it the phone vs. tablet presentations are nothing more than different views (i.e. like the snap? view for partially shown apps in W8). You still end up with the same basic layout of tiles, titling, and hints of scrollability. The view either adapts to the portrait or landscape presentation or is replaced with one with a specific implementation that is better suited to the available pixels.

14 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

It takes Microsoft at least two years to get up in the morning.

I should probably also point out that the majority of work on Windows8 has nothing to do with tablets. The UI and WOA might be pretty obvious changes, but that doesn't make them the only changes.

That's too bad for Microsoft. Apple and Google seem to wake up just fine.

You really need to get your head out of the kernel. Users don't care. It doesn't matter what the nerds do under the hood unless that changes the user experience (i.e. smaller, lighter devices, better battery life, improved UI, more realistic fart apps). The W8 experience is principally about tablets (and making the desktop a second class citizen in the process) and that's most of what users are going to see.

*snip*

Are you serious!? The market for Android devices is huge!

Let me rephrase that so you can't skew it:

Thanks for making my point. Most people don't go down to the phone store and say "I want to buy a phone running a Linux kernel."

2 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

It doesn't matter what the nerds do under the hood unless that changes the user experience (i.e. smaller, lighter devices, better battery life, improved UI, more realistic fart apps). 

Every change in the kernel changes the user's experience. Upgrades to the scheduler make the entire system faster. A change to make pagefaults happen 20% faster makes the whole OS feel speedier. And a single misplaced kernel lock can tank an otherwise well performing app.

Users might not care about the technical details, but you just have to look at how angry they get when their device has two hours less battery life than a leading competitor to see that they care that it's done well.

The W8 experience is principally about tablets (and making the desktop a second class citizen in the process) and that's most of what users are going to see.

Yeah, and most of what users saw in Vista and 7 was the aero glass interface. That doesn't mean that Microsoft have 10,000 developers making the glass interface. 

Thanks for making my point. Most people don't go down to the phone store and say "I want to buy a phone running a Linux kernel."

I'm not sure anyone is under the misimpression that users want the Windows8 kernel. What they want is a phone that works. What Microsoft wants is to reuse existing code so that developers spend more time inventing new features for customers and less time re-inventing what someone in a different building has already implemented. That's why Microsoft are unifying the kernels. Not because they think users give a damn.

I'm not a kernel expert but I think the big job of a kernel is to not crash and give as much of the hardware resources to user space, without consuming much of it itself. I don't think WinCE is known to be bad at this job.

So what WinNT will provide to users or developers? Is it certain that the performance and stability will be better, or could it get worse?

11 minutes ago, Bass wrote

@evildictaitor:

I'm not a kernel expert but I think the big job of a kernel is to not crash and give as much of the hardware resources to user space, without consuming much of it itself. I don't think WinCE is known to be bad at this job.

The kernel also needs to enforce security, manage inter-process communications, memory allocations (virtual and physical memory, not heap-allocations), handle hardware faults, manage synchronization, external interrupts, manage the graphical subsystem, authentication, network traffic, the filesystem, the drivers, power-management, handle memory that breaks dynamically, the paging subsystem to page out old memory, managing hibernation and resumation, managing the local user-account, handling requests from user-mode via the syscall interface and the user-mode process subsystem and the kernel debugging interface, none of which can be done in user-mode.

Why do you think it's a good idea for Microsoft to have several entirely different teams each building their own set of those (the Xbox team, Windows, Phones, tablets etc all need one - why not reuse the code?)

So what WinNT will provide to users or developers? Is it certain that the performance and stability will be better, or could it get worse?

It could get better or worse. The reason for joining the two is more to do with code-reuse than performance.

2 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

It could get better or worse. The reason for joining the two is more to do with code-reuse than performance.

So like I've been saying all along this is a geek's wet dream. After getting spanked by the iPhone you think Microsoft's priority would be to recapture hearts and minds with what they have on hand rather than going back to well and spend two years "solving" a problem. I don't know about Microsoft but in my world when your competitor is kicking your arse you do what ever it takes to get back in the game.

17 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

*snip*

So like I've been saying all along this is a geek's wet dream.

Sounds more to me like a manager trying to avoid duplication in the workforce.

I don't know about Microsoft but in my world when your competitor is kicking your arse you do what ever it takes to get back in the game.

If your competitors are winning, do you suggest either

a) keep doing what you were doing before (i.e. keep getting spanked)

b) Try as hard as you can to avoid duplication across your workforce (have one kernel for all of your products) and do things which are brave and trying to make your products more like what they are buying (like introducing metro for all of your customers that are using iPads/iPhones/Android and prefer big blocky interfaces)?

From all of the pain that is coming from the IT industry and developers who really hate Metro, I have to say that Windows8 seems like a geek's worst nightmare. Most normal customers don't care. They just want it to work.

3 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

Sounds more to me like a manager trying to avoid duplication in the workforce.

*snip*

If your competitors are winning, do you suggest either

a) keep doing what you were doing before (i.e. keep getting spanked)

b) Try as hard as you can to avoid duplication across your workforce (have one kernel for all of your products) and do things which are brave and trying to make your products more like what they are buying (like introducing metro for all of your customers that are using iPads/iPhones/Android and prefer big blocky interfaces)?

From all of the pain that is coming from the IT industry and developers who really hate Metro, I have to say that Windows8 seems like a geek's worst nightmare. Most normal customers don't care. They just want it to work.

So bottom line if I understand you correctly:

Windows Everywhere is a cost-cutting move that has no chance in h3ll of regaining hearts and minds because the user interface has already been judged a failure.

If that's the case I'd have to say I agree with you.

33 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

*snip*

So bottom line if I understand you correctly:

Windows Everywhere is a cost-cutting move that has no chance in h3ll of regaining hearts and minds because the user interface has already been judged a failure.

If that's the case I'd have to say I agree with you.

No. I just said Windows Everywhere is rationalizing Microsoft's codebase. There's certainly a brand element to it as well (otherwise they'd just do it any not tell you about it), but fundamentally Windows Everywhere isn't about performance.

And let's be clear that "the user interface has been judged a failure" merely means that there is lots of vocal opposition to Windows 8 at the moment. But Windows 8 is only being used by technical people at the moment (I don't know any "normal people" using Windows8 yet - even if it is available via the CP). Which means that the Windows8 UI is disliked by technical people.

Since technical people also invented the hideous contraption that is the command line interface, and most developers couldn't tell the difference between a working UI and a slap in the face, I'm going to wait until normal people (i.e. not developers) start trying out Windows8 before judging whether it was a success or not.

I'm also glad to know at least that we both agree Windows Everywhere isn't about performance. Maybe they should call it Longhorn Phone Edition for the phones? That has a nice ring to it.

2 hours ago, cbae wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: What about your wife? How does she feel about your GF W8?

My ex-wife is too dumb to handle W8.

1 hour ago, MasterPie wrote

Ignoring for the moment that your son and daughter are each using W8 to their liking and personal styles...your family is suddenly representative of an entire population?

Absolutely not nor did I claim them to be. And for the record both have asked me to put W7 back on the home PC.

3 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

Oh and BTW, my kids are both using W8.

Well if both of your kids can manage, why do keep getting so angry about it?

3 days ago, Escamillo wrote

This Coffeehouse forum has gone in the toilet ever since Rory left.  Mostly what we get now are malcontents and Microsoft-bashers.  There use to be lots of tech talk on this forum and actual insight, but those days are looooong gone.  And that's why the userbase of this forum has dropped down to fewer than a dozen regulars.  The ones remaining are mostly the malcontents that can sit around and pat themselves on the back at how brilliant they are (they equate cynicism with brilliance).  The rest that remain are those few individuals that have the stomache to put up with the nonsense constantly spewed by the malcontents.

 

I'd put the exact date a good while after Rory's departure myself, but apart from that: quoted for truth. A handful of people have managed to destroy what was once a great community. Well done guys!

1 hour ago, Bas wrote

I'd put the exact date a good while after Rory's departure myself, but apart from that: quoted for truth. A handful of people have managed to destroy what was once a great community. Well done guys!

It's funny that you mention that - I was actually thinking of leaving C9 myself :/ It's not as fun as it used to be. Littleguru, Charles, W3bb0, Herbie, blowdart and so on have all but completely vanished from the Coffeehouse

I often wonder why I bother coming here, too.  It has seemed incredibly negative recently; but I'm not sure if that's just the lack of serotonin talking.

Herbie

2 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

It's funny that you mention that - I was actually thinking of leaving C9 myself :/ It's not as fun as it used to be. Littleguru, Charles, W3bb0, Herbie, blowdart and so on have all but completely vanished from the Coffeehouse

I'm still here. Mostly moderating though. Kinda hard to relax when beer uses everything you say and presents it as a Microsoft policy or statement

8 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

@evildictaitor: Wow. You got reach back to the command line? Really? I don't suppose the command line had anything to do with the natural progression of computers? I think users found Windows 95 amazing it its day and Windows 7 was well received by the average joe.

Afraid that's selective memory. The move to the new taskbar and the start button (as opposed to Program Manager) was widely criticized back then, not to mention the lack of a "true DOS".

Yet, it allowed amazing things, such as connecting to the internet without having to master Trumpet and other arcane incantations, or using CD-ROMS more or less painlessly, or watching off-colored videos of Eddie Brickell. Enough to make people want to upgrade regardless.

I don't know what might do it for Win8, geeks are not good judges of this kind of things. I wouldn't be surprised if a killer set of Metro apps would be enough...

It'll be interesting to see the RC in June if Microsoft is able to make their crappy Metro apps included in the CP tolerable (IOW something better than what's available on the iPad). I don't expect they're going to get much help from third-parties. IMO they'll start out by operating much like Nintendo and their quest for good third party apps.

38 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

@Blue Ink: What plant are you from? Windows 95 was a huge hit. I was a big fan of Microsoft back then. And I loved that Eddie Brickell track.

In 1995? Among other things, a sustenia finalutiensis, fruitless and full of thorns

My employer had the brilliant idea of instructing field support to route the impossible calls back to us developers and I got my fair share. Batch files that no longer worked, unknown apps crashing horribly, applications no longer showing status on their icon when minimized (live tiles ante litteram), confusion between desktop icons and active tasks, or people just venting off about not finding stuff on the start menu ("everything is so small"), tired rants about having to press start to shutdown. Not part of my happy thoughts.

Yet, while everybody wanted something fixed, tweaked or explained, nobody ever asked to go back: Win95 enabled them to do so much more they cared about. Including the Eddie Brickell video that I also loved (until about the 500th time or so), despite the image quality.

Fast forward to Win8, we are pretty much on the same page. I don't expect independent developers to contribute much for RTM, either: even just porting a WP7 app is no slam dunk if you want to do it right. I hope they contracted some of the big names, and possibly some great content.

So if we apply your same reasoning over WP7 people will just get over it and eventually those things will be flying off the shelves right?

13 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

@Bas: Could it be that Microsoft's decision making over the past couple of years has something to do with it? People who used to believe/agree with Microsoft's direction have left for greener pastures? That just leaves the extremists on both side; those that vocalize their frustrations and those that defend Microsoft regardless.

That would be a convenient way to oversimpify things, yes. In reality though, it's just down to the behaviour of a handful of people determined to derail every single thread.

Not sure what WP7 has to do with all this: one thing is selling an upgrade, anotther thing is to get people to switch platforms. If anything, WP is unsuccessful despite the fact that it offers a great UI: it just doesn't enable you to do anything you cannot do with the other devices. And it's just not cool, but that's a different story.

17 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

@Blue Ink: What plant are you from? Windows 95 was a huge hit. I was a big fan of Microsoft back then. And I loved that Eddie Brickell track.

When it was launched, yes (well aside from some scare stories about incompatible BIOSes that didn't actually amount to much).

During the betas though there was much concern that changing the look and feel of Windows would just be a source of endless problems, that everyone would need to configure it to switch back to the old UI and general comments that people probably wouldn't upgrade because it was doomed to fail.