Who needs Vista anyway?
So there have been a bunch of rumblings about Windows Vista (aka Longhorn). Vista will use a vector based graphical system. Fine and good, now your icons will look good whether they are icon size or blown up full screen or some crap like that. They have been touting WinFS for a long time now and guess what....as it looks now, its not going to make it in time for release but will be added later as a service pack or something. Thats just great, this means that if you convert your hdd to WinFS and have to reinstall guess what...the original install disc won't recognize your WinFS disc unless they do some voodoo (note: this is not known for sure must wait to know for sure).
Now, some of the cornerstones of Vista: new developments to the OS and the .NET framework is further support for DRM (I hate that acronym, its so evil), an application deployment engine called "clickonce", improvements to the installation of applications, and the trustworthy computing initiative which is previously known as Palladium. A bunch of jargon to mask some of the stuff. So, I googled 'Palladium' just to see what all that encompasses and came up with a pretty good article by Ross Anderson (obligitory link here). In short, its a group effort from IBM, MS, Intel, AMD, and HP. Palladium is only the name MS gave one version that was to be deployed in 2004. Here is a short part of the article about Trusted Computing:
The windows Presentation Foundation (aka Avalon) is a new UI subsystem and API based on XML, .NET, and vector graphics, which will all make use of 3d graphics hardware and Direct3D technology.
The Windows Communication Foundation (aka Indigo...why did they come up with that name I have no idea...was someone a fan of the Indigo girls?) is a service oriented messaging system to allow applications to interoperate locally or remotely similar to web services.
Now for all you Win32 API Guru's out there...WinFX (Totally different bird than "WinFS") is a new API to allow access to these new features, replacing the current "Win32" API. Just spiffy huh? Its a managed API which, like everything in Vista is built on the .NET framework so I don't know about the backwards compatibility. Here is a link to watch a video talking about WinFX, its in two flavors 100k and 300k.
Vista will include a completely re-designed UI, they call Aero (why does Red Hot Chili Peppers "Aeroplane" come to mind here). This interface is intended to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing (IE more annoying and waste of cpu clock cycles IMO) than previous Windows, including new transparencies (who cares), animations (Bah humbug) and eye candy (only in games my friend) implemented similarly to Mac OS X's Quartz Compositor. They think the improved aesthetics will re-inforce faith in Windows platform and keep potential switchers from leaving the OS (makes me want to switch even more).
It is worth noting that WPF, WCF, and WinFX are technologies that will be made available to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 as well, and will not be technologies exclusive to Vista, but rather developed in time for the Vista release, to be incorporated in that operating system (how thoughtful of them). This doesn't imply coming visual changes to these operating systems though, as Aero(plane) will still be exclusive to Vista.
Vista is expected to have a brand new networking stack. A significant change is a more complete implementation of IPv6 which is now supported by all networking components, services, and the user interface. Vista will also take advantage of peer-to-peer technology to provide a new type of domain-like networking setup known as a Castle (I would probably wager MS is the self proclaimed King...).
Full support for the no-execute feature of processors. This feature, present in AMD's AMD64 architecture, as well as Intel's EM64T Architecture. Which I must point out in programming terms is "Intel EM64T == (Intel)AMD x86-64". Finally, something to be all warm and fuzzy about.
We all know that XP has built in CD writing support, but who uses it, Every new system that has a burner comes with burning software. Vista will have Built-in DVD recording capabilities, including Mt. Rainier support. Great, now my computer is going to melt down for sure...pesky volcanos.
A new installation program that will install Vista in about 15 minutes. I have GOT to see that, no wonder the beta is 2.4gigs. I suspect its just a copy and paste operation for the most part.
They are going to be dropping the "My" prefix on stuff, so 'My Computer' will now be 'Their Computer' oh wait I mean 'Computer'.
The Windows System Assessment tool sounds cool as long as it doesn't send itself to MS every time I scan my system... Its supposed to allow you to tweak your system for peak performance. Once again only time will tell.
There was an article on Slashdot a few days ago about OpenGL support (link here). I didn't even think of this when I was sitting in on a presentation about Windows Longhorn from the MS Evangelist. He did his thing talking about avalon, indigo and stuff. I listened while he praised the vector graphics stuff. Since the graphics are now vector based what does this mean for OpenGL? Well, the current MS implementation will be to layer OpenGL over DirectX (effectively stopping OpenGL at version 1.4 even though version 2.0 has been released). This could produce a performance reduction of up to 50%. What games are OpenGL: quake2, 3 and anything on the Q3 engine, Call of Duty, half life , Decent 3, some of the final fantasy games, Diablo 2, Doom 3, Duex Ex, Heretic 2, Hexen 2, the Hitman series, The Homeworld series, Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Academy, Medal of Honor, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, both Soldier of Fortune games, Star wars: knights of the old republic, two star trek games, Tribes 1 and 2, and Unreal and there are a bunch more at opengl.org and this does not take into account CAD, Modeling & Creative Content Creation, Developer Toolkits & Libraries, Game Engines, High Level 3D APIs, Virtual Reality Tools, Viewers & Internet 3D Streaming, Utilities: Screensavers, File Converters, Benchmarks, Simulation & Visualization, Scientific, Data Analysis & Geographic Mapping.
So, what have we learned today: 1) I can read, 2) OpenGL rocks, 3) DRM, MS, Longhorn/Vista is evil 4) No thanks MS, ill stick with XP as long as I can. Plus, I also learned that there is a Windows Longhorn Server which is to replace Windows 2003 Server but they have yet to give it a marketing name like Vista. If I have overlooked anything or stated anything wrong please post a comment or email me.
A big thanks to Wikipedia and its supporters for the information I gathered for this post, its a very handy online encyclopedia. Hopefully my visa card did not receive any fradulent charges while I was writing this and that no one's Visa was revoked while reading this post. Also, I guarantee Lordpanzer will have a comment to make about the possible 'monitor DRM' Vista may have, so I won't tread on his ground there (union rules).
Now, some of the cornerstones of Vista: new developments to the OS and the .NET framework is further support for DRM (I hate that acronym, its so evil), an application deployment engine called "clickonce", improvements to the installation of applications, and the trustworthy computing initiative which is previously known as Palladium. A bunch of jargon to mask some of the stuff. So, I googled 'Palladium' just to see what all that encompasses and came up with a pretty good article by Ross Anderson (obligitory link here). In short, its a group effort from IBM, MS, Intel, AMD, and HP. Palladium is only the name MS gave one version that was to be deployed in 2004. Here is a short part of the article about Trusted Computing:
2. What does TC do, in ordinary English?There is more to the article and its a good read. It put me on edge (must learn linux).
TC provides a computing platform on which you can't tamper with the application software, and where these applications can communicate securely with their authors and with each other. The original motivation was digital rights management (DRM): Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will decrypt and run on a TC platform, but which you won't be able to copy. The music industry will be able to sell you music downloads that you won't be able to swap. They will be able to sell you CDs that you'll only be able to play three times, or only on your birthday. All sorts of new marketing possibilities will open up....
The windows Presentation Foundation (aka Avalon) is a new UI subsystem and API based on XML, .NET, and vector graphics, which will all make use of 3d graphics hardware and Direct3D technology.
The Windows Communication Foundation (aka Indigo...why did they come up with that name I have no idea...was someone a fan of the Indigo girls?) is a service oriented messaging system to allow applications to interoperate locally or remotely similar to web services.
Now for all you Win32 API Guru's out there...WinFX (Totally different bird than "WinFS") is a new API to allow access to these new features, replacing the current "Win32" API. Just spiffy huh? Its a managed API which, like everything in Vista is built on the .NET framework so I don't know about the backwards compatibility. Here is a link to watch a video talking about WinFX, its in two flavors 100k and 300k.
Vista will include a completely re-designed UI, they call Aero (why does Red Hot Chili Peppers "Aeroplane" come to mind here). This interface is intended to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing (IE more annoying and waste of cpu clock cycles IMO) than previous Windows, including new transparencies (who cares), animations (Bah humbug) and eye candy (only in games my friend) implemented similarly to Mac OS X's Quartz Compositor. They think the improved aesthetics will re-inforce faith in Windows platform and keep potential switchers from leaving the OS (makes me want to switch even more).
It is worth noting that WPF, WCF, and WinFX are technologies that will be made available to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 as well, and will not be technologies exclusive to Vista, but rather developed in time for the Vista release, to be incorporated in that operating system (how thoughtful of them). This doesn't imply coming visual changes to these operating systems though, as Aero(plane) will still be exclusive to Vista.
Vista is expected to have a brand new networking stack. A significant change is a more complete implementation of IPv6 which is now supported by all networking components, services, and the user interface. Vista will also take advantage of peer-to-peer technology to provide a new type of domain-like networking setup known as a Castle (I would probably wager MS is the self proclaimed King...).
Full support for the no-execute feature of processors. This feature, present in AMD's AMD64 architecture, as well as Intel's EM64T Architecture. Which I must point out in programming terms is "Intel EM64T == (Intel)AMD x86-64". Finally, something to be all warm and fuzzy about.
We all know that XP has built in CD writing support, but who uses it, Every new system that has a burner comes with burning software. Vista will have Built-in DVD recording capabilities, including Mt. Rainier support. Great, now my computer is going to melt down for sure...pesky volcanos.
A new installation program that will install Vista in about 15 minutes. I have GOT to see that, no wonder the beta is 2.4gigs. I suspect its just a copy and paste operation for the most part.
They are going to be dropping the "My" prefix on stuff, so 'My Computer' will now be 'Their Computer' oh wait I mean 'Computer'.
The Windows System Assessment tool sounds cool as long as it doesn't send itself to MS every time I scan my system... Its supposed to allow you to tweak your system for peak performance. Once again only time will tell.
There was an article on Slashdot a few days ago about OpenGL support (link here). I didn't even think of this when I was sitting in on a presentation about Windows Longhorn from the MS Evangelist. He did his thing talking about avalon, indigo and stuff. I listened while he praised the vector graphics stuff. Since the graphics are now vector based what does this mean for OpenGL? Well, the current MS implementation will be to layer OpenGL over DirectX (effectively stopping OpenGL at version 1.4 even though version 2.0 has been released). This could produce a performance reduction of up to 50%. What games are OpenGL: quake2, 3 and anything on the Q3 engine, Call of Duty, half life , Decent 3, some of the final fantasy games, Diablo 2, Doom 3, Duex Ex, Heretic 2, Hexen 2, the Hitman series, The Homeworld series, Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Academy, Medal of Honor, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, both Soldier of Fortune games, Star wars: knights of the old republic, two star trek games, Tribes 1 and 2, and Unreal and there are a bunch more at opengl.org and this does not take into account CAD, Modeling & Creative Content Creation, Developer Toolkits & Libraries, Game Engines, High Level 3D APIs, Virtual Reality Tools, Viewers & Internet 3D Streaming, Utilities: Screensavers, File Converters, Benchmarks, Simulation & Visualization, Scientific, Data Analysis & Geographic Mapping.
So, what have we learned today: 1) I can read, 2) OpenGL rocks, 3) DRM, MS, Longhorn/Vista is evil 4) No thanks MS, ill stick with XP as long as I can. Plus, I also learned that there is a Windows Longhorn Server which is to replace Windows 2003 Server but they have yet to give it a marketing name like Vista. If I have overlooked anything or stated anything wrong please post a comment or email me.
A big thanks to Wikipedia and its supporters for the information I gathered for this post, its a very handy online encyclopedia. Hopefully my visa card did not receive any fradulent charges while I was writing this and that no one's Visa was revoked while reading this post. Also, I guarantee Lordpanzer will have a comment to make about the possible 'monitor DRM' Vista may have, so I won't tread on his ground there (union rules).
posted by Brian Wright at 1:30 PM
7 Comments:
*wonders how hard it would be to make her own OS*
Ugh Vista. Asta la vista, Vista.
Here goes. I don't know about anyone else but I use my computer monitors for tv's and well just about anything I need to view. I can get much better rez and all. But what of this. I got to pay to get a new 19incher to watch my pron with my nice DRM filled Vista OS. Crap on that. I think I am going to one up both B and demona and try out LFSmaybe it is that eating pizza and drinking beer at the bar that is starting to get to me but man got to tell you linux is starting to look better. Just something about buying a mclarenF1 and having someone tell me I can't drive it above 55. My monitors are going to be displaying anything I want in what ever rez I want. What of this nasty thought. With those extras in vista turning out to be ghostware maybe M$ is in its death throws. What have I learned. 1. I like pron to much. 2 Monitors are to damn expensive. 3. Old hardware is good to try out that new os on. 4 Eye candy sucks when I am trying to use every bit of my proc to either brute force a password or do some folding
man forget everyone one then that don't have old hardware laying around. I don't need no stinking Quad OP (Like I saw at the computer store yesterday.) to DL those nasty hugh linux iso's. My PIII 450 or my soon to be Dual PIII 933 will get them just fine with much less heat
HAHA, I think that a lot of linux was influenced by beer and pizza. If you ever get a MclarenF1 let me take it for a spin, i promise no black marks. Plus, your old hardware can't handle Vista...I'm not sure if my stuff will handle it properly... So, what have we learned today 1) lordpanzer has old crappy HW, 2) he's never going to have a McLarenF1 3) its more like Vista will lead MS towards its death throws...
those little scripts that I can write and run on my boxen here work really sweet even when I have more computer to sit idle while they run
Yo Kisea where you at.
What a pain.... I think people will get annoyed enough to crack the TC chips. Eaither that of after some long and bloody court battles we will see the wintel monopoly take over the US govt and launch missiles at every computer in China. The new american symbol won't be apple pie or the eagle, but instead the M$ butterfly.
Post a Comment
<< Home