"msg" wrote in message
ernet...
Arfa Daily wrote:

snip

You know Graham, I've never been a Gates / MS / Windoze basher. A lot of
the flak that they take seems to come from people not liking the fact
that they tied the market up, and make squillions of dollars a day. OK,
so maybe there was something better than Windows just waiting to come on
the market, and maybe Gates and co did stop it by working to make Windows
the dominant OS worldwide, but looking at it the other way, it has got to
have done more to 'standardise' the world of home (and business)
computing, and to make it practical and affordable to the whole world at
large, than any other factor which has had an influence.

It is difficult not to want to respond to this post and I hope that other
folks do express their opinions in this thread (yet another o/s religious
debate), especially those with expertise and experience in these matters,
but I would like to make a few points (briefly);

1. O/S2 should have been the 'standardized' MS o/s; it incorporated the
Win3x
API but was built on a sane kernel and improved security model and its
driver structure IMHO was superior; later versions were poised to
outperform
Win9x but due to the IBM departure, were relegated to business and mission
critical
applications. It could have incorporated the Win9x API for compatibility.

2. Windows API emulation on Unix is a superior platform for legacy
development
and maintenance as MS abandons hardware and o/s versions as a
continuous-upgrade
business strategy. Virtual machine technology is also permitting retaining
older
Windows installations deployed on new hardware that can't directly support
them;
this wouldn't be necessary in a scalable o/s that doesn't force hardware
migration
at every release.

3. Much objection to MS Windows regards the hiding of critical portions of
the API
and kernel hooks to thwart third parties; also the forced inclusion of
non-o/s
functionality at low levels has degraded the o/s (again in an attempt to
thwart
third parties).

4. Continuous patching would not be necessary if the o/s was secure by
design;
evidently NT engineering was headed by ex DEC VMS folks imported to MS -
they
could have preserved the best of NT philosophy in designing the new o/s
but
must have been pressured by other internal forces to release a product
insecure-by-default.

5. Yeah, I like the convenience of expecting hardware and software to
'just work'
and Windows (up to XP) provided that experience for most folks, but when
push comes
to shove, I use versions of linux to identify, test and qualify hardware
that Windows
doesn't quite grok. Currently I am wrestling with a system timer issue
that
borks certain multimedia drivers and applications running on a rather
significant
list of motherboard chipsets under NT/2K/XP; MS considers the behavior a
'feature'
whereas the rest of the world knows it is a 'bug'; fixing it will require
changes
to drivers and applications, whereas it should be fixed in the kernel, and
would
be done so quickly in most other operating system development and
maintenance
programs (e.g. opensource).

6. Vista is a truly unfortunate step in the wrong direction - even more
bloat forcing
ever more powerful hardware to just maintain a performance level of
previous generations;
forced DMCA and IP protection, impossible driver restrictions, poor
quality control
in releases not-ready-for-prime time, etc., etc. Folks are desperate
enough to be
stocking spare machines and software to permit running earlier Windows
releases
into the indefinite future since new commodity hardware now, if not in the
near future,
not run them. Vista wont run a large number of apps used by folks like
embedded
engineers which depend on certain types of peripheral port access, DOS
windows, and
other services which have always been available in Windows.

With these sorts of issues, many people may decide to use a scalable
opensource o/s
that has worldwide continuous support and development in order to preserve
their
investments in software and hardware. And many of these alternatives also
'just work'
and support even more hardware than under Windows.

Michael

I don't really dispute any of these points Michael, but you are getting a
bit specific and specialised here. I was talking in general about an
operating system that pretty much 'works out of the box' for the vast
majority of home and business users. It allows an average person who is an
average computer user rather than 'understand-er', to get excellent
functionality from something which, if you stop and think about it, is
actually an incredibly complex piece of technology.

I think that you would have to agree that without Windows providing a
standardised and user friendly platform, the use of the home computer, and
small business computer, would never have spread around the world like it
has. Nor would there be the huge raft of add-ons and peripherals that are
guaranteed to just work straight out of the box, and the price advantages
that that has brought with it, nor the unimaginably vast mountain of amateur
and professional software that having this 'universal' platform, has
spawned.

I know that a lot of people who think of themselves as 'experts', decry the
inclusion of e-mail and browser software in the OS, and declare both
Explorer and OE to be useless rubbish, but again, the fact that they are
there - and to all but the most picky of users, do what they should - has, I
think, done more than any other factor to promote the use of e-mail and the
internet to average people, who never thought that they would ever be able
to cope with such things. Lets face it, most regular Joes have difficulty
working their VCR or washing machine in detail, so it really is remarkable
that they have got to grips so well with a highly complex item like a
computer. Even old grannies can do it, so that has got to say something
about the validity of the Windows platform, hasn't it ?

I don't have Vista on any machines here, so can't really comment. Maybe they
have got it wrong with that product, but I guess that you can't get it right
all the time ...

Arfa