Microsoft Windows OSes Compared

[norseman]

Windows XP X64 is a dream! If only linux would operate so well... I think linux is a great server OS but really lacks a proper GUI/desktop side. They need updated drivers to be part of the X.org or Kernel or both or whatever. Because of all of the packaging system and required headers and dev files it is almost impossible to update the drivers yourself.

In Windows you need to double click on an exe and you are up to day. Cannot be anymore user friendly than that.

Thank you Microsoft for investing so much time and money into making a great product.

[Hak Foo]

One sentence? That could be tough. The .NET Framework consists of the CLR (Common Language Runtime) and a set of libraries that build on it. It's a managed programming environment similar to Java, although multiple languages are supported (including a Java-clone, J#) - though C# is the most common .NET language. There are also Managed C++, VB .NET, and more. Essentially, .NET lets you write code in any supported language (or even a mix of them), and then the code gets compiled into something called IL (Intermediary Language).

So basically "It's Microsoft's take on a Java-style virtual-machine environment, supported by a range of languages." One sentence. :)

It is still remarkably Dilbert-esque how .NET has meant everything and nothing over the past few years.

.NET code is also far easier to write, less error-prone, and more secure by its nature. However, it doesn't provide as low-level access or control over memory for the programmer, isn't always as tunable for performance, and requires the user to have the .NET Framework installed. There are also versioning complications when dealing with managed components in an unmanaged process (like writing .NET add-ins for the Windows shell, which is not .NET).

You'd think they'd have learned that one from Sun and the Java situation (I LMFAOd in college when I found my write-once-run-anywhere Java would work on one box but not another more often than you'd expect) and allowed/encouraged the building of standalone executables, either by statically linking libraries (honestly, on a 100Gb hard drive, do we really need to worry about the disc space issues of two copies of a library, especially if it avoids any version-mismatch issues) or by offering compile-to-native-binary.