For those rabid, open-source conspiracy theorists still holding on to the popular notion that Microsoft is secretly working on its own version of the Linux operating system, Bill Hilf has some sobering news. "The bottom line is, we're wholly, 100 percent committed to Windows and think we can do amazingly powerful things in the operating system," says Hilf, director of platform technology strategy at the Redmond, Washington-based software giant. "There's a ton of stuff we can do to innovate. We don't see that level of innovation [in Linux] that makes us say there's [anything] out there that's better than or more effective than what we can do."
News source: PCWorld.com
News source: PCWorld.com
Let’s start with what Microsoft told us last Friday:
Its important to note that Microsoft made it very clear to us that Beta 1 does not contain all the end-user features that they have planned for Beta 2. What those features will be is a wild guess because Microsoft declined to tell us.Upgrading to Windows Vista from previous Windows versions will prompt you to perform an Anti-malware pre-installation setup. Vista now has a full screen domain logon, otherwise known as the "Welcome Screen".
Windows Service Hardening restricts critical Windows services from performing abnormal activities in the file system, registry, network, or any other resources that could be used to allow malware to install itself or attack other computers. For example the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service can be restricted from replacing system files or modifying the registry. Here's an interesting link from Microsoft that explains the process in detail.
Standard user accounts have been updated so they can change system settings (or install programs) by 'unlocking' the setting using an admin password. This may help users decide to use the 'Standard user' rather than an Administrator group account so that programs can't run in the background without authentication. (A Restricted user account remains an option) Microsoft has done away with the Windows guest account that the majority of people disabled or deleted anyways.
Vista will ship with an integrated "Restart Manager" effectively reducing the number of reboots a machine will need to perform. (Up to a 50% reduction) A lot of Windows users have disabled the automatic update features of their OS so as to avoid the annoying and incessant automatic restart pop-ups.
Virtual Folders in Windows Explorer will show a basic visual reference to the content within. If a folder contains music, the virtual folder will change to reflect the content inside. Same goes for pictures and just about any other type of document on your computer. Virtual Folders will even show a preview of content stored within the folder. (here is an example of what I mean). I used Windows Paint to capture this and it saved as PNG by default.
The new Games Browser features Parental controls for content (Games) using the ESRB Rating system.
IE7 will only be made available on Windows Vista Windows XP SP2.
Print Preview in IE7 gas gained a "shrink to fit" option (normally chops off right hand side of page), and an integrated MSN search field has been added next to the address bar. Additional search providers can be chosen, currently they are: AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, Google & Yahoo. On the toolbar there's a new button that when pressed, displays RSS Feeds you can subscribe to. (You can even subscribe to MSN search results)
Beta 1 has limited implementation; Beta 2 will see more interesting end user features. Basically the message from the IE Team here is, "We have a renewed vision in the future of IE, we are back"
Windows Vista truly promises to be something worth upgrading to, and I haven't even talked about the 'eye-candy' yet. I don't really need to, as you have seen the screenshots and countless articles before this on Aero, Glass and even seen concept themes made for Windows XP that emulate it.
Paul Krevs contributed to this article.
Will the average consumer ever use Linux's I-Notify?
Will the average consumer ever use AMD's 3DNow!?
The answer is NO. Linux and AMD fanbois are just jealous of MS+Intels success. It's called Wintel for a reason.
SVT - Neowin MVP
Personally, to me AMD is cheaper sometimes. But I don't give a dang about branding and such - just whatever is better.
Linux on the other hand, is like ... a circle... it's redundant and pointless. Here are some interesting questions, followed by my guesses in parenthesis.
How many linux users actually know of the kernel itself? (1/2)
How many linux users know how to compile it? (1/15)
How many linux users are familiar with the linux kernel's source tree enough to edit and modify it? (1/1000)
Call this an exageration, I'm sure it's probably 1/10,000... Wow, open source at work. I'll stick to my visual basic 1.0 alpha edition, thank you.
The kernel isn't open source to allow end users to add features, it's open source to allow venders to add features.
If IBM wants to add a feature to the Windows NT kernel, how do they add it?
IF IBM wants to add a feature to the Linux kernel, all they have to do is hire some coders and implement it.
What if Novell wants to add features to the Windows NT kernel? do they beg Microsoft?
The kernel isn't being built by hobbiests working for free. That may have been true 10 years ago, but today companies such as Google, Redhat, IBM, Linksys, Cisco, Sony, Netgear, etc. pay developers plenty of money to customize the Linux kernel for their products.
are you sure you know what you're talking about? I guess not... Of course, no user will use inotify directly, but that's pretty normal for infrastructure. I mean you don't use streets, you use a car - doesn't that mean the streets are useless by your logic?
And 3DNOW was the first real SIMD extension for x86 CPUs. iNTEL more or less copied it, made it incompatible and renamed it to SSE (if you look closely, you'll see that 3DNOW and SSE are almost the same thing - but 3DNOW came out first). I'm happy iNTEL didn't pull a similar stunt with amd64, except for removing a few features and renaming it to EM64T.
To clear things up: inotify is a much improved replacement for dnotify, a subsystem that tells applications when files get moved/ altered/ deleted (if there were no such notification system, applications would need to check for alterations in a given, short interval, wasting system resources.
The answer is NO. Linux and AMD fanbois are just jealous of MS+Intels success. It's called Wintel for a reason.
He is calling a big group fanbois. instead of calling himself a MS+Intel fanboi
Will the average consumer ever use Linux's I-Notify?
SVT, yes they already do via distributed computing... you are definitely below average, but even you use it. What do you think this site is running?
Unfortunately, his views on AMD make no sense . . . *still*
3DNow! is a "useless gimmick"?
I suppose that's why the Athlon series of chips have been consistently outperforming their Intel counterparts, right up until the the XP2800+ series.
And now, AMD is still MILES ahead of Intel in the 64-bit game.
Intel simply has a larger market share. Uh . . . is that why you like Intel, because they happen to sell more? LOL.
And the average AMD user has been using 3DNow! for years. Of course, "average users" who use Intel won't be experiencing 3DNow!
Microsoft has always had a close relationship with AMD, especially in recent memory, since AMD released its 64-bit line.
Here's some imformation on the subject of 3DNow! from (drum roll) . . . . .
The Microsoft Developer Network
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vclang/html/vclrfkeyfunctionality.asp
Heh, No.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a zealot either way when it comes to linux, but what does linux honestly have when it comes to windows? The fact Microsoft has a huge percentile of the desktop market share isn’t the reason Linux won’t pull through on the desktop market - it’s simply nailing linux in the coffin. The Open Source model is being grossly missused when it comes to linux. People just grab the kernel, add software, and make their own “distrobution”. Then some modify and add upon other “distrobutions”. So what do we get? Developers split between which libraries to program with, which ideals to stick to, corporations, etc.
The open source development model isn’t contributing to linux on the desktop - it’s satisfying the what certain people want personally. So many distrobutions out there, all the developers you could ever dream of, but the oppurtunity is so wasted.
Microsoft’s software developer’s don’t piss and moan because their being payed. When you get a guy programming open source applications, he is going to do whatever the hell he wants, he doesn’t give a damn about the unified process of creating a desktop OS. Honestly, linux is sweet to try out, but it’s hopeless - it’s like a spider web of software made by different people with completely different goals…
Firstly. Imagine the Kernel.
Now, imagine hundreds of distrobutions, just imagine that as the potential power of linux breaking into a thousand pieces.
Majority of these distrobutions should be forks off redhat, debian, and slackware, keep their package system, make all your own packages.
Next, let’s split some developers from each distrobution to work on QT or GTK apps - They won’t change, they’ll keep their bullheaded opinion until death.
Now make 100 window managers.
Now make 5 different web browsers, 10 different text editors, 4 image editors, 40 terminals, etc.
Great — Now if your apart of the linux PR department, tell your users your giving them “choices”. Yes, linux, all about choices. Now time to hit the irony.
Your programming in open source. You could collaborate together and all get what you would like, but you all wish to go on your own paths. Great. Linux should of been more democratic from the start. We shouldn’t have KDE and GNOME, we should have one modular desktop environment based off the same window toolkit. You wonder why flame wars come about of KDE and GNOME. People are damn zealots — gnome and kde users are just as stuck up as the developers in the way they make their software. Both KDE and GNOME are huge pieces of software - but both are trash when compared to explorer because explorer doesn’t have to fit to 1000 damn distrobutions, kernel compilation configurations, etc.
WHY compile a kernel? Why not give the user the option to change his setting from within the OS? Windows runs perfectly fine for me, and I’m not compiling it with all these tweaks and compilations. What linux really could use is an open standard people could start accepting. Linux should regroup - It’s talk is due to the fact it has potential, but isn’t moving anywhere.
Microsoft innovate??? Bwahahahhaaaaaaaaa.
Ok, name something original that MS developed.
Everything MS does is either in answer to other emerging tech MS did not invent, or an outright copy.
The only thing innovative about MS is their predatorial business practices.
WinFS
Xbox live
Microsoft BOB
DirectX
Now go back to your AMD box, n00b.
1.) Intelligent licensing.
2.) A giant software company that is not plagued by retarded management.
(Wow, SVT, you're actually making sense now . . . well, right up until the AMD remark.)
^It's a flying pig BTW.
ROFL! LTD, R_a_V_e_N, and Ambivalancer just got PWNED!
WinFS - MS didn't invent vaporware!
Xbox live - MS Copied the Dreamcast here!
Microsoft BOB - Ok, MS did invent this one. But even the most hardcore MS fanbois wont admit to it.
DirectX - MS copied SGI's OpenGL here!
LOL! 3 n00bs took the bait! Hook, Line, and Sinker!
SVT - Neowin MVP
WinFS *is* innovative in the way it implements metadata functionality in an OS. WinFS is NOT Spotlight. It will be much more. Metadata itself, however, is nothing new.
The rest I paid no attention to.
Nope .... BeOS has it for years .... FS with metadata ... tze tze
@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_File_System
---------------
The Be File System (BFS, BeFS) is the native file system for the BeOS operating system.
BFS was developed by Dominic Giampaolo and Cyril Meurillon in 1996 over a ten month period to provide BeOS with a modern 64-bit capable journaling file system. It is case sensitive and capable of being used on floppy, hard disks and read-only media such as CD-ROMs, although its use on small removable media is not advised, as the file system headers consume from 600KB to 2MB, rendering floppy disks virtually useless.
Like its predecessor, OFS (Old Be File System, was also called BFS when current), it includes support for extended file attributes (metadata) with indexing and querying characteristics to provide functionality similar to that of a relational database. Similar facilities are scheduled for future versions of Microsoft Windows under the name WinFS.
--------
Awesome
they get paid for that lol
I never found a software like Dreamveaver for Linux (nVu is on the rigth way!) or i never get Steam tu run on my Ubuntu (it starts,update, but cant login into steam xD). I don't like Gimp ... matbe because i work with fireworks?
So .... IMHO ... if your noob and only type with 2 fingers .. ok ... stay on Windows .. if your a friend of command lines (as i am) go to linux
BTW .. all my system have dual-boot ... ehmmm .. only the MediaPC .. it's only linux xD
On most of them you can install any kernel you want from vanilla to hardened or ck with no problems.
Even the "distro-specific" pre-packaged kits can be used on very different systems. Debian can use alien to use a Red Hat RPM. The "incompatibilites" you rant about just don't exist in the nightmarish proportions you claim.
Then you complain that the the current kernel is ok for decades, and you complain about them adding features and making changes. Have you checked out the Windows world? Or Mac? Software is constantly being developed. I have no idea what your point was supposed to be.
The point is that you must find what distro u want:
Server : Get a debian
Media Center : Fedora have some plus-points
Normal-user: Ubuntu/Kubuntu (maybe SUSE, but that f****** slow)
And with software like "apt-get" u can undate your system with only one line :
apt-get upgrade
Have u never dream from a tool that updates all your software ... OS,Browser,MediaPlayer,Lib's,etc... yes? Well, linux has it, and it's not "new"
There's none of those at Neowin! :rollseyes: Even some of the mods get in on this "fun".
After using Debian Linux for years now, I see the advantages and disadvantages of Linux and Windows. I like Linux more because there are no limits to what you can do. Windows has limits to what you can do. You don't have to be a programmer to use linux. They do a good job for what you get in a FREE product.
I can do things faster and more efficiently in Linux than I can in windows because I don't have to keep buying 3rd party software to do it. Also the command line interface rocks a hell of a lot more. I still do things on the command line in Windows like I used to do in MSDOS, but there are so many of those great utilities in Windows that don't let me do things like I can in Linux.
I even use Knoppix Linux to fix critial Windows problems and to rewrite Windows passwords if needed by people that forget their passwords.
All in all, Linux is just more flexible since you can modify just about anything to get it to do what you want. The modifying is mainly for servers.
Windows does too much if you only want it to do one or two things. So if something you don't care about breaks it breaks the rest of the system. Since you can tell the Linux kernel to only do what you want it to do, it's faster, more reliable, and just plain better.
Linux is like a watch. Your watch will never really break, because it only tells time and doesn't have other things to screw it up or slow it down.
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