Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[jaclaz]

My long time banter-partner on Channel9, EvilDictaitor, explains what caused the "crack" at Microsoft that lead to their shameless Apple-envy. He's an insider, and here are some valuable insights:

Well, I don't want to start an indirect quarrel, but there is something that *somehow* escaped from the cited analysis.

My current (and limited) knowledge on NT based systems dates back to NT 3.51.

Believe me when I tell you that till today and up to Windows 7, that knowledge has remained (essentially) the same, with the obvious integrations/updates (this is something that if posted on - say - neowin would start a BIG flame war ) essentially the OS (and mechanisms) are still the same, very simplified:

• NT 3.51 is a NT system with the Win 3.1 graphical interface
  
• NT 4.00 is a NT 3.51 with the Win 9x graphical interface
  
• 2K is a NT 4.00 with plug 'n play for devices
  
• XP is 2K with some bells and whistles (mostly unneeded) added to it
  
• Vista is a bettered XP, only worse
  
• 7 is a (IMHO nice) Vista Service pack, made more stable and with worse GUI
  
• 8 is (IMHO foolish) additional Vista service pack, with a senselessly forced upon users "touch interface/simplified GUI"
  

But underneath what you see, the NT system is more or less the same since NT 3.51.

Sure we have VSS/Shadow copies (since XP), cannot think of anything really "new" in Vista if not Aero and the Imagex/.wim format (which has some validity), nothing at all (again excluded graphical appearance) in 7 possibly Powershell, which is not what an "average" user would die for, nothing particularly relevant (again excluded the awful GUI) in Windows 8.

Everything has been (when "right") an evolution of what was there before.

So, what the good MS guys managed to do (BTW successfully) is to re-sell to me the SAME OS for almost 20 (twenty) years.

During all these years they introduced (obviously) quite a few improvements (and as well obviously) solved issues deriving from evolution of hardware (BTW most of which were caused by one or another form of shortsightedness they have been suffering from).- if you prefer I do not consider CHS/LBA addressing, 48/128 bit LBA, exFAT and not even the availability of 64 bit versions of OS as "improvements" over the previous version, they are simply adapting the existing OS to the evolution of hardware.

Same goes for another long time flagship of the good MS guys, there is no "real" in the sense of "new", "cannot live without", etc, improvement in Office since Office 4.3 (yes, that's the 16 bit version).

Mind you very advanced users may find this or this other *needed* feature in a later version , but most people, that I rate as being more than 80% of users could do the same work/documents they currently do with the "full", "latest" Office Suite using what? Microsoft Works!

Still, they managed to re-sell (this time not to me - I still stick to Office 2000 - but to many, many people):

1. Office 97
   
2. Office 2000
   
3. Office XP (sometimes called Office 2002)
   
4. Office 2003
   
5. Office 2007
   
6. Office 2010
   
7. Office 2013
   

and are now desperately trying to sell to everyone the SAAS Office 365.

Suddenly, they realized that the PC market was (largely) saturated, that we are in a world-wide recession, that NO firm that already has a working PC will even think of updating their machines (and OS) if not in dire need (hardware failure) that every household that can afford a PC already has two or three of them (that substantially do the tasks the users are capable of doing/are wanting to do) and is not going to fork from even a few bucks for new hardware (and conversely OS).

Thus the only way to sell new OS's/Programs is

• slap a new interface on the latest Vista servicepack (and call it "Windows 8")
  
• start pushing the new "one tablet fits all" propaganda
  
• trick people in the SAAS folly (folly for the users, not for the good MS guys)
  

I.e. undermine their business model (that has worked for years) in the hope of conquering new markets (the Apple and Samsung ones) with smartphones and tablets.

Paradoxically they are paying now the fee for not having introduced *anything* new for years, i.e. the ability with which they managed to essentially re-sell over and over the same stuff to people and the overall good quality of their original 1994 and 1995 designs is backfiring and they are grasping at straws to keep up the sales.

jaclaz

[ciHnoN]

Am I crazy... or...?... soon in a work place near you? HAHA... I bet it will be the case if Microsoft gets their ways. *lol*

! EDIT: gott'a love this one: "FaceMouse allows users to left click on screen by winking their right eye" Edited May 2, 2013 by ciHnoN

[ciHnoN]

Well, boys and girls... remember where you read it first... Windows just "died":

[JorgeA]

My long time banter-partner on Channel9, EvilDictaitor, explains what caused the "crack" at Microsoft that lead to their shameless Apple-envy. He's an insider, and here are some valuable insights:

Well, I don't want to start an indirect quarrel, but there is something that *somehow* escaped from the cited analysis.

Very impressive pair of posts, those. It's going to take a while to sort out these various insights in my mind. I'll sleep on it.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Well, boys and girls... remember where you read it first... Windows just "died":

The graphics are unbelievably good! Those fantasy scenes look like they were filmed in real life. Look at the shine on the floor in the indoor hall. Wow.

Hmm, maybe the technology is getting TOO good. It could soon present "interesting" possibilities that lawyers will have a heckuva time dealing with. Think of the ability to "place" someone in a, say, inconvenient place and time. People may start welcoming getting tracked by their smartphones just to have a record of where they were every minute of every day.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Am I crazy... or...?... soon in a work place near you? HAHA... I bet it will be the case if Microsoft gets their ways. *lol*

! EDIT: gott'a love this one: "FaceMouse allows users to left click on screen by winking their right eye"

I can see how this could be great for people with physical handicaps. OTOH, maybe my imagination is running wild tonight, or maybe I'm just in a crabby mood, but the next thing that comes to mind is the user chaos that this would cause while surfing the Web. We'd have to watch and control our facial expressions and our reactions to funny or shocking stuff, lest we end up with unwanted effects onscreen. Not sure I'd be happy having to develop a "poker face" just to be online.

Nor do I think I'd want to run Skype or operate a webcam while using this FaceMouse application.

--JorgeA

Edited May 3, 2013 by JorgeA

[Formfiller]

I guess you will like this post of mine on C9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-desktop-as-SaaS/c5ead7956ac04c3999f4a1b3008022c1

[jaclaz]

I guess you will like this post of mine on C9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-desktop-as-SaaS/c5ead7956ac04c3999f4a1b3008022c1

BUT you got a completely wrong comparison.

JFYI a traditional maker of small, economical cars (Volkswagen) ALREADY SUCCESSFULLY out-Lamborghined Lamborghini (they simply bought it ).

And never two brands in the history of cars have been so distant in the customers imagination.

Visual comparisons:

In year 1966:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VolkswagenBeetle-001.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:6274_-_Luzern_-_Verkehrshaus_-_Lamborghini_Miura.JPG

In year 1974:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vw_golf_1_v_sst.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Countach_Autostadt.jpg

jaclaz

Edited May 3, 2013 by jaclaz

[Formfiller]

I guess you will like this post of mine on C9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-desktop-as-SaaS/c5ead7956ac04c3999f4a1b3008022c1

BUT you got a completely wrong comparison.

JFYI a traditional maker of small, economical cars (Volkswagen) ALREADY SUCCESSFULLY out-Lamborghined Lamborghini (they simply bought it ).

Sure, but they didn't achieve this by trying to be Lamborghini.

[jaclaz]

Sure, but they didn't achieve this by trying to be Lamborghini.

In love and war (and business) ....

But it was a bit subtler than that .

Chrysler tried the same thing BEFORE and FAILED BIG at it. .

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Am I crazy... or...?... soon in a work place near you? HAHA... I bet it will be the case if Microsoft gets their ways. *lol*

! EDIT: gott'a love this one: "FaceMouse allows users to left click on screen by winking their right eye"

I can see how this could be great for people with physical handicaps. OTOH, maybe my imagination is running wild tonight, or maybe I'm just in a crabby mood, but the next thing that comes to mind is the user chaos that this would cause while surfing the Web. We'd have to watch and control our facial expressions and our reactions to funny or shocking stuff, lest we end up with unwanted effects onscreen. Not sure I'd be happy having to develop a "poker face" just to be online.

Nor do I think I'd want to run Skype or operate a webcam while using this FaceMouse application.

Hmmm, eye blinks controlling Left-Click which in normal operation can be double-clicked to serve as Open or Run. Can't imagine what could possibly go wrong with that.

Could easily defeat all the extra effort people make to avoid accidental double-clicks by making sure the delay is long enough. And also by always using F2 to edit a a filename rather than two slow single left clicks.

Here is NeoWin's article on that Kinect thingie ...

A mouse or a face? New Kinect project presents FaceMouse ( NeoWin 2013-05-02 )

You can see the effects in the video above and, well, it's pretty impressive. FaceMouse allows users to left click on screen by winking their right eye and scrolling up and down is handled by raising and lowering the eyebrows; drag and drop commands are activated by opening and closing the mouth.

Just imagine when something gets in your eye and you get a mad blinking fit. Comedy gold.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Well, boys and girls... remember where you read it first... Windows just "died":

The graphics are unbelievably good! Those fantasy scenes look like they were filmed in real life. Look at the shine on the floor in the indoor hall. Wow.

Those are the real visual pioneers, and they laugh at Playskool Metro Tiles By 1998 these 3D game engines were perfected, on both Direct-X and OpenGL. They had progressed rapidly from the initial Wolf3D in 1992 to Quake 3 and Unreal that everything else looked like it was standing still. I have often said ( a little in here ) that either Microsoft should have incorporated game engine style graphics in to Windows, or they should have just given up and let Carmack or Epic write operating systems. Transparency and every other effect was in place in these games by the time Win98se even came out, yet Microsoft still needed ten more years to add a little taste of it to the GUI, and then crazily yanked it away while calling it dated and cheesy.

We should by now be able to fly through 3D file managers taking advantage of all that real horsepower we have that was nowhere to be found when Quake and Unreal conquered the game industry. The fact that we need this extra layer of work to do this ( HTML+JS rendered by a browser ) really shows how little Microsoft has advanced Windows in the GUI department and how much they are lacking in the imagination department.

Here is the NeoWin article about it ...

Epic Citadel HTML5 demo launched; IE browsers are left out ( NeoWin 2013-05-02 )

You can try the actual page itself right here ... The Epic Citadel HTML5 webpage ... it doesn't accept Opera ( v11 ) currently, or older versions of FF.

[jaclaz]

We should by now be able to fly through 3D file managers ...

http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fileexplorer3d/

http://www.cubixproject.com/

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Is Microsoft running out of ads inside Windows 8 apps? ( NeoWin 2013-05-02 )

Microsoft has promoted its in-app advertising program to Windows 8 app developers for a while now as a way for those software creators to gain revenues without having to charge for their apps. Now it appears that those developers that depended on that in-app ad money have been seeing their revenues drop to almost zero in the past few weeks.

Seeing this posted a lot from app developers in all different forums. Microsoft better watch out, they could easily now anger the few developers they sucked into Windows 8. Heck, why not? They've alienated everyone else.

IDC analyst slams the Surface Pro: "it's just not there yet" ( NeoWin 2013-05-02 )

Now I know that Steven lets these articles get posted because they are click-bait, and he is busy miking his resident MicroZealots and MetroTards for all their worth I've also noticed he or his moderators have been letting a lot more "haterz" post lately. Probably a part of the plan. Here's one mocking all the excuses flowing in the comments: "It's a worldwide conspiracy. Everyone is against Microsoft, and lackluster sales are a grand conspiracy by EVERYONE! I get it now, we're all holding it wrong."

Windows 8 Wikipedia page vandalized, 'review' inserted ( NeoWin 2013-05-02 )

The page itself is now disabled from being edited by any new or unregistered Wikipedia users due to vandalism. CNET.com contacted Wikipedia and found out that someone decided to delete much of the content on the page, replacing it with a hate filled "review" of Microsoft's latest OS.

Everyone hated Windows 8. The interface was useless, it looked like a drag queen on steroids. And the operating system is extremely unstable on mobile devices, which would guaranteeing angry shoppers who has used a mobile device that ran on a Windows OS before. Save yourselves and use either an iPad or an Android mobile device.

HeHe. I swear it wasn't me. It really shows the unprecedented worldwide level of controversy now, surpassing Vista for sure.

One MetroTard has a final solution though: "It's things like this, comment trolls, keyboard warriors, extremists and online bullying that make me with wish the web was not open to everyone. People abuse it like crazy and waste so much of their lives on it for the wrong reasons, when really it could have been a wonderful thing. If the web wasn't anonymous where people could hide behind fake usernames or whatnot, then I'm sure this kind of stuff would be drastically reduced."

Some unexciting Windows 8.1 build 9388 screenshots leak ( NeoWin 2013-05-02 )

~yawn~ Another day another leak. But as usual we can find gems of ignorance: "I really do hope Microsoft removes all legacy code to get rid of the Start menu completely. Just make the button a visible link to the start screen, and be done with it.". Sorry 'tard, you're making our point crystal clear. What you describe is a new operating system, it's what you get when you add in new stuff and remove the old. They should have designed a Playskool Microsoft Tiles just for you from the ground up. You're making our point all around because they would not design a separate 'tard OS just for you because it would have died at birth. So they went the sneaky route, the very one you deny, and that is that they are killing Windows on purpose to suck us into the new OS and you don't like the fact that we are onto the plan. Your advice is definitely not Microsoft sanctioned because the last thing they want is the truth to be known. And that truth is that Microsoft is attempting to leverage their monopoly OS and convert it to an iOS walled garden and sneakily drag along their monopoly victims whether they like it or not. Microsoft should be busted up with the OS div carved out and operating as a neutral company. The criminals that hatched this plan up in Redmond should be removed and indicted. They are intentionally flaunting the recently relaxed government action and are going further than they ever have because they believe no-one is looking.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

We should by now be able to fly through 3D file managers ...

http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fileexplorer3d/

http://www.cubixproject.com/

Thanks for the links. I am aware of the first one which links to many others. I have a pile of these to hopefully test soon. Here are some links right back at ya ...

Google Images

Innolab 3D File Manager ( also SourceForge )

BumpTop ( Cnet Article )

Yod'm 3D ( Portable Freeware )

Gonna have to do a specific thread about this eventually. With the Windows 8 and Metro fiasco upon us it seems certain that Microsoft will never use any imagination. It is a shame because they are sitting on the patents and really all the documentation for NTFS and even FAT and are the natural people to trust for something related to file and disk management. But I suppose we'll be forced to look 3rd party for developers that somehow manage to successfully design a nice GUI despite the handicap that Microsoft has foisted upon them.