lulu7850 Posted March 28, 2011 Share Posted March 28, 2011 This is according to my research from OFFICIAL microsoft documents. This is 99% accurate and yes, Millenium was a last minute plan because Neptune was not the best at the time being. Neptune was in development starting in early 1998 after the release of 98, but after Neptune, Triton, and Odyssey were scrapped, Windows Nt 5.0 was named to Windows 2000 and Windows ME was put into Neptune place, with Whistler finally closing the gap. A few months ago I was looking up stuff on Microsoft's Anti-Trust documents. Turns out this just adds another piece to the puzzle. To explain this easier, ME was the REPLACEMENT of Neptune. Neptune would have had a successor called Triton, but Odyssey for some reason is not in the picture. These documents were dated in February 1998 and list the following about Triton. It also states the document pages. This is all of MY work. Triton was NOT going to be a service pack of Neptune, it would have been a minor release after Neptune. I posted this many months ago on the Betaarchive Wiki here: http://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?title=Windows:Triton The confidential documents used against Microsoft in the Comes vs. Microsoft case provide information that Microsoft codename Triton was indeed NOT a service pack for the unreleased scrapped predecessor to Windows ME, Windows Neptune, but a successor! The documents show the planned service packs for Triton and shows the planning of what it will run on. The documents state that the release of Triton will be in Q4 of 2001 (though Neptune was never released, the NT names Neptune, Odyssey, and Triton were scrapped.) The document also states on page 67 that the RTM for Triton was planned in March 2001. Service Pack 1 (for Triton)was planned for May 2001, and Service Pack 2 was planned for September 2001. Service Pack 3 was also dated for January 2002 and Service Pack 4 for July 2002. Microsoft was planning for a x64 bit version of Neptune, as well as Triton. In the Windows Desktop Product Roadmap on page 26, it describes Triton as a minor release to NepTune userbase; continue refining products based on PC capability [edit] Microsoft's Main Focus The document overview on page 73 of the confidential documents describes Triton as: Overview -Minor release/update to NT NepTune -Date-driven to support new hardware Market -Standard: General Business, consumers, and work at homes -Entry Level: Basic consumers only, new PC users -High End: Technical workstation users External Dates -RTM: 4QFT01 (ALL) Features - Standard -Incremental shell improvements, particularly for consumers (new generation UI not delivered until next major NT release) -IntelliMirrowZAW 2.0 enhancements -Integrated storage enhancements -Support new hardware Features - Entry Level -Subset of Standard Features - High End -Enhanced NT64 capablilities -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All info showed above can be found in this PDF file below. Page numbers are defined as the numbers on the bottom right hand corner of the page. NOT the Adobe page numbers. http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/7000/PX07297.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ci7 Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 four services packs in two years :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amon91 Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 I love how MS tried to do frequent incremental releases, yet what they did was the opposite. And SP's were more frequent back then, my guess would be because the internet wasn't as widespread as it is nowadays, therefore rolling out a big patch every year or so was the best way to make sure the fixes would make their way onto as many machines as possible. So ME was rushed, what a surprise. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PGHammer Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 This is according to my research from OFFICIAL microsoft documents. This is 99% accurate and yes, Millenium was a last minute plan because Neptune was not the best at the time being. Neptune was in development starting in early 1998 after the release of 98, but after Neptune, Triton, and Odyssey were scrapped, Windows Nt 5.0 was named to Windows 2000 and Windows ME was put into Neptune place, with Whistler finally closing the gap. A few months ago I was looking up stuff on Microsoft's Anti-Trust documents. Turns out this just adds another piece to the puzzle. To explain this easier, ME was the REPLACEMENT of Neptune. Neptune would have had a successor called Triton, but Odyssey for some reason is not in the picture. These documents were dated in February 1998 and list the following about Triton. It also states the document pages. This is all of MY work. Triton was NOT going to be a service pack of Neptune, it would have been a minor release after Neptune. I posted this many months ago on the Betaarchive Wiki here: http://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?title=Windows:Triton The confidential documents used against Microsoft in the Comes vs. Microsoft case provide information that Microsoft codename Triton was indeed NOT a service pack for the unreleased scrapped predecessor to Windows ME, Windows Neptune, but a successor! The documents show the planned service packs for Triton and shows the planning of what it will run on. The documents state that the release of Triton will be in Q4 of 2001 (though Neptune was never released, the NT names Neptune, Odyssey, and Triton were scrapped.) The document also states on page 67 that the RTM for Triton was planned in March 2001. Service Pack 1 (for Triton)was planned for May 2001, and Service Pack 2 was planned for September 2001. Service Pack 3 was also dated for January 2002 and Service Pack 4 for July 2002. Microsoft was planning for a x64 bit version of Neptune, as well as Triton. In the Windows Desktop Product Roadmap on page 26, it describes Triton as a minor release to NepTune userbase; continue refining products based on PC capability [edit] Microsoft's Main Focus The document overview on page 73 of the confidential documents describes Triton as: Overview -Minor release/update to NT NepTune -Date-driven to support new hardware Market -Standard: General Business, consumers, and work at homes -Entry Level: Basic consumers only, new PC users -High End: Technical workstation users External Dates -RTM: 4QFT01 (ALL) Features - Standard -Incremental shell improvements, particularly for consumers (new generation UI not delivered until next major NT release) -IntelliMirrowZAW 2.0 enhancements -Integrated storage enhancements -Support new hardware Features - Entry Level -Subset of Standard Features - High End -Enhanced NT64 capablilities -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All info showed above can be found in this PDF file below. Page numbers are defined as the numbers on the bottom right hand corner of the page. NOT the Adobe page numbers. http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/7000/PX07297.pdf Still, it wasn't Microsoft that had Neptune (and the whole successor track to it, including Odyssey and Triton) killed - it was the OEMs and IHVs that were still flogging Windows 9x to consumers and businesses that wanted no part of Neptune. Oddly enough, they were coming on board to support NT 5.0 (which would later become Windows 2000 Professional/Server) - they had no idea if the consumer market was ready for an NT-based OS for them. Windows 2000 Professional *itself* proved the OEMs and IHVs largely wrong, and left Microsoft with a major case of egg on their face for getting talked into a last 9x release (namely Millenium Edition, which I referred to as ME-ouch; primarily due to the many security issues - I refused to run it OR recommend it for home users, but ran, and recommended, Windows 2000 Professional instead). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PGHammer Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 ME was a major secuiryt mistake I love how MS tried to do frequent incremental releases, yet what they did was the opposite. And SP's were more frequent back then, my guess would be because the internet wasn't as widespread as it is nowadays, therefore rolling out a big patch every year or so was the best way to make sure the fixes would make their way onto as many machines as possible. So ME was rushed, what a surprise. :p ME was rushed because it wasn't planned by Microsoft. 98SE was the last planned 9x release - period. ME was literally insisted on by major OEMs (the system builders, especially Dell) and the more esoteric IHVs (peripheral vendors) that were insisting that consumers were *not* ready for an NT-based operating system. Neptune was to the then-NT 5.0 what XP Home would later be to XP Professional. Even though a lot of those same OEMs (including Dell) were quite willing to push NT 5 (which would later become Windows 2000 Professional and Server) to the business and enterprise marketplace, they didn't think that consumers were ready to deal with an NT-based operating system. I was quite horked off at the OEMs' reasoning; in fact, so was anyone that had any exposure to even NT 5, let alone Neptune. I was, in fact, dual-booting NT 5 beta 2 (the changeover to Windows 2000 Professional branding hadn't taken place yet) and 98 SE, and spent most of my daily time on the NT side of things. The only time I spent running 98 SE was because of certain features unique to 98 SE (namely, support for the TV tuner in my AIW); however, when I wasn't watching TV on my PC, back over to NT 5 I'd go. Even most of my gaming time was spent on NT 5 - in fact, in games supported by both NT 5 and 98 SE, NT 5 destroyed 98 SE in both stability and performance. (Beating it in stability wasn't surprising - after all, it was still NT. However, beating 98 SE in terms of gaming performance shocked people.) My experience with NT 5 would prove out when the later betas of what would become Windows ME became part of the MSDN shipments. I was in the tailchase of preparing for the CompTIA Network+ exam; while I was strong in NT-based LANs, I knew I was weak in Netware installation and administration. One of my prep projects was to configure both a Netware 4 server and various Windows-based Netware 4 clients. Novell NetWare had, until 4.0, been known mostly for IPX/SPX - TCP/IP support was the weak link. 4.0 would change that; while IPX/SPX would still be supported, TCP/IP would replace IPX/SPX as the default. It was while configuring a Windows ME-beta-based Netware client that I realized what a sorry state security was in ME. Not even 98 SE was that bad. I was going from angry to seething. During this period, I was also interning at a computer shop specializing in SMB support (clients, servers, and entire networks), which, naturally, included both Novell and Microsoft-based LANs. I asked my then-supervisor (who was both a CNE and MCSE) to check my findings. He promptly bounced off the ceiling - hard! "Houston, we have a problem." He looked at me and asked if I would have any interest in installing Windows ME as a LAN client in the field. I categorically said "No way. I wouldn't recommend ME for any sort of business use - home use either, for that matter. If offered such a commission, I would unhesitatingly decline." And that was that. I promptly replaced ME with a beta of Windows 2000 Professional on the test clients. I would, in fact, move whole-hog to 2000 Professional at home when it went RTM - and recommended the same to anyone else, especially anyone considering ME or a PC preloaded with ME. ME's security issues were far from news - and far from secret, either. After both ME and 2000 Professional had gone RTM (still in 2000), and shortly after I had passed the certification exam, in the last week of my internship (in fact, the next to last day), the whole shop (myself in particular) had a post-internship debrief of me, which concentrated on what I learned, and what should be concentrated on by future interns. I said that basically, no matter where you stand in the field, when you are IN the field, your reputation is all you have. Be willing to learn, be willing ot pass on WHAT you learn, and help your customers avoid security mistakes. ME itself was foisted onto Microsoft by ignorant OEMs, who basically forced a rushed and insecure operating system out into the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notuptome2004 Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 i have a Neptune image somewhere it is very interesting build . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notuptome2004 Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 just installed windows Neptune in windows VPC and well Xfire installs so does firefox 4 i was rather surprised Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PGHammer Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 just installed windows Neptune in windows VPC and well Xfire installs so does firefox 4 i was rather surprised There was absolutely zero reason for the surprise - as Microsoft themselves plainly stated, Neptune was based on Windows 2000 Professional, which itself differed considerably from NT4WS due to the presence of DirectX (specifically, DirectX 5) and the Hardware Emulation Layer (whyich I referred to as the HEL, because it built on, but did not replace, the Hardware Abstraction Layer, or HAL, which was a fixture of the NT core from the beginning, and persists in Windows 7 today). Windows 2000 Professional (largely due to the presence of HEL) was a solid OS for games (provided the game supported it - one game that I used to demonstrate exactly how solid Windows 2000 Professional could be as a home or gamers' OS was the original Unreal Tournament; it was that year's Game of the Year in the FPS category). Unlike some games to ship in that year, UT was supported by Windows 2000 from the beginning; further, unlike a lot of applications, it could actually run well on a *minimum* 2000 Pro hardware configuration - better than the same configuration running either ME (my opinion on *that* Microsoft OS is plain) or even 98 SE. Still, the very idea of an NT-based OS being home-usable (and especially gaming-friendly) had a lot of FUD to overcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts