The new Windows 2006, the benefits?

[riccofl]

Will you still be able to run WinUAE?

Last night I saw a video where Microsoft presented a 3D feature  in the new version of Windows. The cool thing about this feature was that you could flip the screen around and make a post-it note. Other than that, what in the world can you use this feature for? I don't see any benefit in watching my web pages sideways. Hope I am not asking another 640KB of Memory is enough question.

Also, I saw a feature where Windows will read a portion through a memory card to boot up extremly fast. Has that idea any relation to Amiga ROM or RAD?

Other than that, is there something special awesome about the new version of Windows?

[Karlos]

riccofl wrote:
Other than that, what in the world can you use this feature for?

So that they can say "look, we have a 3D accelerated graphical user interface engine too." to all the MacOS X users :lol:

Other than that it is completely pointless, I expect.

The principal benefit of as 3D accelerated desktop is user interface speed. So much time and effort has gone into pushing the 3D hardware envelope this last decade that not using their 3D capabilites for conventional user interface rendering is a waste.

Of course once you have such an underpinning, the eyecandy people get hold of it and insist on doing the above mentioned gimmicky bollocks that I usually strive to get rid of within 30 seconds of starting a system :lol:

[adz]

Yeah, eye candy sucks, too much clutter, too much colour ;-) Give me a text based terminal anyday. TBH, looking at the next generation of Windows OS's, I'll be sticking with XP for a loooong time, besides the only reason I run Windows is for gaming, I do all my work on either SuSE or OS X.

[mattabat]

Naaah, nothing to do with Amiga ROM or RAM IMHO.
These new features of Windows are clearly useless.
No wonder Microsoft has to advertise Windows XP on TV here  in Australia - they are quite afraid their new OS won't get any takers.

[Trev]

The principal benefit of as 3D accelerated desktop is user interface speed. So much time and effort has gone into pushing the 3D hardware envelope this last decade that not using their 3D capabilites for conventional user interface rendering is a waste.

Well, just about every chipset since the Voodoo Banshee has included features for accelerating 100% of the Windows GDI API, and full DirectDraw support (now part of Direct3D, I think) followed soon after. I don't see any benefit to a 3D interface on a 2D surface--unless someone comes up with a substantially different mode for controlling productivity applications.

Anyhow, it's still just Windows NT. The kernel has improvments and new features, but a prettier Windows Explorer and XML-based everything doesn't really do anything for me. :-/

[seer]

Anyhow, it's still just Windows NT. The kernel has improvments and new features, but a prettier Windows Explorer and XML-based everything doesn't really do anything for me. :-/

Hm. Have you used it ?

Even the Alpha currently "available" uses a "explorer" that's different then that of XP. Longhorn is going to "break" more drivers and programs then XP did, tho legacy compatebility (sp?) should improve.

Besides, XP standard theme is eyecandy only. With longhorn it's more user friendly. Even for an Alpha, I liked it, while I really dislike the 2000/XP interface.

[NoFastMem]

Windows 2000 was the closest thing to a truly decent Windows. Come to think of it, releasing it was probably a mistake. ;-)

[Noster]

Hi,

> Other than that, is there something special awesome about the new version of Windows?
Yeah, very restrictive DRM (digital right management). Every contents you purchase for your computer (videos or any music titles) will be bundled with your computer hardware/software. If any part of your computer gets broken (hd, motherboard, or anything else) you won't be able to use that stuff any more, you will need to buy it again!

I say, thanks to Bill and his man and remain using my Amiga, Linux, and for some old games and my office 97 pack Windows 98. I hope that AmigaOS 4.0 is released soon.

Noster

[mikeymike]

NoFastMem wrote:
Windows 2000 was the closest thing to a truly decent Windows. Come to think of it, releasing it was probably a mistake. ;-)

Personally, I'm wondering how long I will be able to practically use it for.  I was forced off NT4 by hardware changes, I wonder what it'll be this time.  Though it seems that with every MS OS release, the more configuring that needs to be done to make it a responsive OS with a reasonably small memory footprint (for Windows).

[adz]

@NoFastMem

TPG?

[Framiga]

@mattabat

No wonder Microsoft has to advertise Windows XP on TV here in Australia - they are quite afraid their new OS won't get any takers.

WinXP TV adv here in Italy too.

[T_Bone]

mikeymike wrote:

NoFastMem wrote:
Windows 2000 was the closest thing to a truly decent Windows. Come to think of it, releasing it was probably a mistake. ;-)

Personally, I'm wondering how long I will be able to practically use it for.  I was forced off NT4 by hardware changes, I wonder what it'll be this time.  Though it seems that with every MS OS release, the more configuring that needs to be done to make it a responsive OS with a reasonably small memory footprint (for Windows).

I hated NT4, it was always wonky setting those damned things up.

Soundcards were hit or miss, same for video cards, service packs had to be constantly reinstalled everytime you make a slight configuration change that pulled an original file off the install CD, USB was ignored, CPU cache size had to be manually set. No device manager. Ugh, no fond memories of Nt4 here.  :lol:
(Running it wasn't bad, but if anything "Murphy Lawish" happened to the machine it was a PITA to work on)

2000 and XP seemed exactly the same to me, I keep hearing people say they liked 2000 but hated XP, but most of the reasons are down to default settings that can be changed to accomodate the preference for 2000's defaults.

2003 is identical to XP, but with default options similar to 2000. Microsoft has been throwing free 2003sbs Server DVD's around like candy, so that's all I've been running lately, set up as a workstation.

XP-64 is Win2003, the version reports as 5.2.3790, which is the same as this Win2003sbs I'm running now. I wonder why they didn't update XP-32 to the same kernel, it's a bit faster and has a smaller footprint. it's wierd that Xp32 and 64 would be left at different revisions.

One thing I *DO* miss from Nt4 is support for IBM's HPFS filesystem, I used to use that instead of NTFS as it seemed to perform better on servers. Rumor has it 2000-XP-2003+ can be hacked into supporting HPFS by copying some files off the NT4 CD, but I haven't messed around with that, and by now the benefit probably isn't there any longer. Even Nt4 had to be tricked into installing into an HPFS partition, you'd have to create the partitions with an OS2 Warp CD, then abort the install and fire up NT and tell it to ignore the errors(NT4 had no HPFS utilities, even though it advertised compatibility) Ugh, Nt4 flashbacks :-P

[T_Bone]

adz wrote:
Yeah, eye candy sucks, too much clutter, too much colour ;-) Give me a text based terminal anyday. TBH, looking at the next generation of Windows OS's, I'll be sticking with XP for a loooong time, besides the only reason I run Windows is for gaming, I do all my work on either SuSE or OS X.

They're improving the console too. IIRC it'll be possible to actually run windows completely from the console again, although this may be only on the server versions, but even the console application in the desktop should be improved.

[Martin_Lee]

M$ make me laugh.
they have no idea what theyre doing.
longhorn will still be a piece of *?*?!
they need to start again, rebuilt the whole os from scratch and get rid of all the spagetti code!!! but they'll never do that coz itll take too long and it would result in a non bloated OS they would work too well and result in less need for constant upgrades = less $$$

[HopperJF]

Framiga wrote:
@mattabat

No wonder Microsoft has to advertise Windows XP on TV here in Australia - they are quite afraid their new OS won't get any takers.

WinXP TV adv here in Italy too.

And here in England.