Microsoft to kill off the Windows Desktop -- confirmed?

[bphlpt]

All this talk about everything that has been removed makes me wonder what the OS would have been like if, starting with a combination of NT4 and Windows 95, each version of Windows and the other MS software such as Office that came after had added everything that they did but removed nothing, only added, all the way up to Windows 10.  Admittedly, it would have been larger and a nightmare to troubleshoot and maintain, closing all security vulnerabilities might have been a daunting task, and it would probably taken longer between releases, (which might not have been a bad thing),  The only reason to release a new version would be if there were new features added or if they figured out how to make it either faster or smaller without removing any capabilities.

 

But just think.  Every piece of software and hardware that was ever made to work with Windows should still work.  All the UI options ever available should still be there.  xpclient wouldn't have near as much to write about.  But 3rd party apps that did things better than MS would still be written.  3rd party improvements to built-in parts of Windows such as the Shell, Start Menu, and Search function would still be useful, unless MS got real smart and eventually bought them out and officially folded them into the OS themselves.  Tools like NTLite would be even more useful to slim the OS and remove the parts that folks truly didn't need.  IT careers might be more lucrative since more knowledgeable folks might be needed to deal with the probable mess and the infinite options available. heheh

 

Ah well.  Unrealistic pipe dream I know.  -: sigh:-

 

Cheers and Regards

[NoelC]

I like the way you think.

 

-Noel

[JorgeA]

So, long term, Microsoft builds an internal version of Windows that's much more capable than it delivers as an App Store Engine?  They can develop great things, but we have to buy them.  The thought has crossed my mind.

 

 

Yeah, something like that. My speculation was running in terms of full-fledged PCs with desktop and CLI for The Initiated, and then App Land for the masses -- shunting those of us who fall in-between into the latter category.

 

If you watch those Microsoft "Future Vision" videos, that's actually pretty much what it looks like. How is that girl doing her homework, or the desk jockey manipulating the numbers, going to get access to the innards of the ubiquitous cloud OS that runs the whole thing? Noooo, that'll be off-limits to the unwashed. I don't recall seeing any indication in the videos that users will even have any settings to adjust or any way to customize their computing environment: it'll all be pre-packaged for them by the benevolent and wise Powers That Be.

 

--JorgeA

Edited February 19, 2015 by JorgeA

[NoelC]

Maybe "developer" systems will cost big bucks.

 

I've always secretly thanked my lucky stars that as a high-end computer user I've been carried along by the economies of scale brought forth through development of computers for the masses.  Before PCs we had to use computers owned by businesses or governments, since they were so expensive.  Some even came with personnel who lived and worked on site just to keep the things running.

 

A secondary thing that has always pleased me was that in prehistoric times I was heavily into Digital Equipment Corporation stuff, and the Windows kernel/core is really just an orphan child of Vax VMS.  I've never had any problem with permissions, ACLs, etc., for example, since I had good training on security in the Digital days.

 

Perhaps this is just that time when people who care about real computer power have to get off the train and (walk back to the last station before the turn into town and) take another line.  I've never cared for the undisciplined world of Unix much but that's always an alternative.

 

-Noel

[jaclaz]

Well, to be fair, in the good ol' times you payed for the use of a computer mainframe on a hourly base (and/or when computers needed to be booked in advance of weeks, say in universities) you had:

1. more time to think how to write the program, and at least wrote it in a way that was readable
2. you made d@mn sure that the whatever you wrote did work/had not stupid bugs and only a few years before you made ALSO d@mn sure to punch the stupid cards correctly

And yes, before someone comments, this is intentionally a WHY, in MY day ...

https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html

type of post.

 

jaclaz

[bphlpt]

And yes, before someone comments, this is intentionally a WHY, in MY day ...

 

Of course it is.  My first programming was in 1973, in FORTRAN, using punch cards, on a UNIVAC mainframe, so I understand perfectly.

 

Cheers and Regards

[NoelC]

Deep back into the 1970s as a student I made good with an EE professor who had somehow failed to get his class accounts on the IBM mainframe funded by providing him a single extra JCL (Job Control Language) card to use that would allow everyone in the class to not only do their projects, but also to push them to the front of the queue.  One little extra command opened up a class of jobs that had been assigned by somewhat incompetent system admins a cost of $0.00 / CPU second and had not been restricted from use by mere mortals.  It was something like:

 

/*Priority Urgent

 

Ah, the golden days.  We could have guessed even then that the hardware engineers would end up in the more respectable branch of high tech. 

 

-Noel

[bphlpt]

OT/

 

Hey Noel, I'm Georgia Tech EE '79. You?

 

/OT

 

Cheers and Regards

[NoelC]

University of Florida, BS(CIS) also '79.

 

Emphasis on the BS. 

 

-Noel

Edited February 19, 2015 by NoelC