Windows rewrite theories

[complacent]

An interesting article detailing a few ideas that might be worth taking for the next desktop os from the gang at Redmond.

Interesting theory if nothing else...

Article found at the times.

[Sabre]

I couldn't agree more that Windows needs a rewrite. I was really hoping that Windows 7 would be it too. Just look at what BeOS was, a modern OS started from scratch. It booted in seconds, started applications like they were on a RAM drive and was 64bit from the ground up. Windows could be that and much more.

[complacent]

yupyup Sometimes the best thing you can do is start over.

And if nothing else... it worked for those freaks over at Infinite loop.

[Libra Monkee]

I had such high hopes for Vista back in its Longhorn days but what was delivered left a LOT to be desired. I've marked it as this generation's ME. I hope whatever Win7 does that it's not just the previous OS with a different window theme and a few more bells and whistles.

[WRXWagon2112]

But wasn't Microsoft founded on re-packaging existing technologies - i.e., not starting from scratch? After all, the program that started it all, MS-DOS, was just:

...a renamed form of 86-DOS by Seattle Computer Products.

I'm not sure they have it in them to start from scratch.

--Alan

[complacent]

[chicken n waffles]

I had such high hopes for Vista back in its Longhorn days but what was delivered left a LOT to be desired. I've marked it as this generation's ME. I hope whatever Win7 does that it's not just the previous OS with a different window theme and a few more bells and whistles.

vista may be bloatware, but likening it to winME, a back-alley abortion of an os, is a tad unfair. at least vista is stable. ME crashed every computer it was on.

[complacent]

I had such high hopes for Vista back in its Longhorn days but what was delivered left a LOT to be desired. I've marked it as this generation's ME. I hope whatever Win7 does that it's not just the previous OS with a different window theme and a few more bells and whistles.

vista may be bloatware, but likening it to winME, a back-alley abortion of an os, is a tad unfair. at least vista is stable. ME crashed every computer it was on.

Man has a point.

[sirwilliam]

Good read. Thanks!

[Sabre]

I had such high hopes for Vista back in its Longhorn days but what was delivered left a LOT to be desired. I've marked it as this generation's ME. I hope whatever Win7 does that it's not just the previous OS with a different window theme and a few more bells and whistles.

vista may be bloatware, but likening it to winME, a back-alley abortion of an os, is a tad unfair. at least vista is stable. ME crashed every computer it was on.

Man has a point.

ME was the only version of Windows that I ever absolutely HATED

[avriette]

I'm not sure they have it in them to start from scratch.

I am so sorry to hear all this bashing of Vista. The interface is a little wonky, but a lot of that is the user using it like XP. And Vista is just not XP. And the kernel for Vista (and 2003 R2 and 2008) is just such an incredible work of art, I wish you guys could have been there when we were rolling it. The folks working on the guts underlying the interface everyone hates are nothing short of genius, some of the brightest people I've ever worked with (including folks like Jim Gray), and they are so, so far ahead of Windows 2000, and even XP, that I don't see a rewrite of the fundamentals being necessary.

I see the primary problem being a loose coupling of hardware designers and software vendors. This is one reason Apple stuff is rock solid (most of the time). If Microsoft and AMD and Intel could get a little tighter, and Microsoft could make their kernel work a little better, or get assurances that differences in PC architectures (bringing in companies like ASUS and NVIDIA, etc) were not going to be drastic, or that they could make the same assumptions about hardware that Apple does, I have no question that their operating system would work better. As it is, I find that the vast majority of problems I have with Windows In General is with third-party applications and drivers (which, granted, may be calling Microsoft APIs....).

But I'm really the only Microsoft apologist I know, and I don't even really like Windows. I just know what it is, and what it isn't.

[WRXWagon2112]

I didn't think I was bashing Vista. In fact, I kinda like it.

I'm just saying that Microsoft doesn't have a history of creating from scratch. They were founded on re-branding an existing product. Perhaps this mentality is now ingrained in the corporate culture to the point where any wonderful work that their engineers do will be forced on top of, or alongside, existing code - regardless of whether it creates inefficiencies or security issues or not.

--Alan

[avriette]

I'm just saying that Microsoft doesn't have a history of creating from scratch. They were founded on re-branding an existing product. Perhaps this mentality is now ingrained in the corporate culture to the point where any wonderful work that their engineers do will be forced on top of, or alongside, existing code - regardless of whether it creates inefficiencies or security issues or not.

The 2003 Server kernel (I have no idea what the industry calls it. "Inside," we just knew them by their code names, project names, and people working on them) was largely a ground-up redesign. Windows CE 5 was an entire rewrite because they needed everything to be realtime for certain embedded customers they had. And I'm sure you've all heard about Alchin storming into Gates' office saying "this whole vista thing is fucked! we need to start from scratch!", which, of course, is why it took so long. The end product wound up being a huge piece of original code sandwiched on top of the things they didn't have time or money to rewrite, and at the same time you had a bunch of developers torn between Office 12 and the new OS (which had to complement eachother...). And of course, Microsoft was working with Cornell to fix their TCP stack, understand other finicky bits of highly-parallel computing (which any OS manufacturer knows they need now, not three years from now...).

Alright, I'll shut up. I still use Linux, MacOS, and Solaris at work.