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Microsoft

Windows Whistler Screenshots 454

Posted by Hemos from the looks-blind dept.
syf0n writes: "While most are raving about Mac's OS X, Microsoft has covertly launched their latest attempt at an operating system...Windows Whistler. Some screenshots have finally been posted over at m0ss...I have to say, some of the GUI changes they've made are incredible. The shutdown menu and some of the dialogs in the Control Panel are kind of disturbing -- it looks a bit too user friendly for me! I'm dying to see how the giant folder icons work! Also, you'll notice the "hide the contents of this drive" option. Sounds interesting! Some other info about the beta is available in the root." Annndd...if there are any good themes, they should be made into themes for us, a la Aqua.
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Windows Whistler Screenshots More

Windows Whistler Screenshots

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  • 3DFX drivers came with my Storm Linux distro. How can I tell if they're experimental? They work, they're just slow.

    And as for X, you're totally missing the point. I said, "let's throw X away, there aren't any good X programs." You said, "what about all that KDE/Gnome stuff." I said, "I mean native X, not X using a toolkit." Now you're, like, "That's not a drawback!" I didn't say it was a drawback. It's an advantage. It'll make it easier for the community to get rid of that horrible piece of shit that is X without having to recode the whole of every KDE/Gnome application. Duh!

    My reasoning about X is nothing like what you mention. In case you hadn't noticed, X is the foundation upon which all graphical programs in Linux are built. It's more like me complaining that my house is built on a plague pit which is causing gradual subsidence. Fortunately, moving a KDE app to another foundation is easier than moving a house! X isn't like "a hammer" it's much more fundamental to a modern Linux system than that.

    But surely you must agree that X is primitive by modern standards, and it's sub-optimal to have the Linux GUI built upon it?

    I'd like to see how good X can get with e.g. the decent drivers you mention, but I know too much about X's fundamental design to expect too much.

  • > Finally, to me it really looks more and more like a mac. Give them a few years and they'll only 20 years behind!

    And then, if they were to go with Linux at the core, it would have a 30 year old kernel design to compliment the 20 year old UI

  • Found this out there in the ether Nathan's Toasty Tech Page [pla-netx.com] Don't knoiw if genuine, but hey...who really cares?
  • Gnome is very buggy, so is KDE.
    hehe, thats why I use windowmaker.
    Its as stable as X.
  • Auto path completion already works and has worked for ages in NT. You just have to turn it on, which you do from the registry. software-microsoft-command line-completion char if i recall right. Yes, cumbersome.. but it works just fine.
  • Yeah, but I personally LOATHE the one common menu for all apps at the top of the screen. I access my application's menus just fine thank you. Fact is, it doesn't slow me down very much at all, because I almost always have a right-click context menu available for more 'direct manipulation' without cumbersome key-mouse combinations. And talk about minimal mouse-travel!

    In particular, I can't IMAINGE why MS hasn't taken the task-bar tip... or at LEAST made it an option (i.e. you must put your mouse down to one of the corners for the task bar to un-hide). That is probably one of the single biggest annoyances in the Windows UI.

    The other one is the sub-menu item mentioned. I agree the apple way is superior than the 'wait half a second' hack.

    But god forbid they should ever force all apps to have one common menu along the top the way the Mac does. Ugh. In maximized mode, that's great, and I think they should take advantage of it. But in over-lapped windowed mode... I want each app to have its own menu, and have that menu visually associated ONLY with its corresponding app. I'm sorry, but since I never NEED to 'throw' my mouse around, I never have any real problems with over-shooting (since I rarely use non-context menus anyway).

    And dont' get me started on circular menus. Those are just stupid. They're a perfect example of how ivory-tower isolation can lead to stupid ideas. Sure, on paper, they're faster. But in real life, they just look stupid, ugly, and there's still an issue of the narrow end of the pie-slice (you have to move more than a few pixels, or else you still run the risk of slipping to a new pie-slice when you don't mean to, 'cause the pointy end is SMALL). And labling a pie-slice just looks sloppy no matter how you do it (and if you have to read text at angles, you're slowing things down). About the only place I'd agree they have value is in selecting color from a 'color wheel' or something like that, where what you're selecting isn't text labeled, but is more visual and abstract.

    Personally, I think MS would do as well to focus on consistency in the UI (ever try to find certain info or settings? Is it in THIS control panel or that one? On this tabbed dialog or that one? Why doesn't my System Properties list how fast my CPU is? Why are some network settings under "Internet" and others under "Network"... why are some UI settings under "Display" and others under "Internet"?!?). I think a better organization of information and functionality would make things infinitely. But aparently MS is stepping backwards on this one, as there are several things (Dial Up Networking configuration) that were much easier to find and change in NT4 than in Win2K.

    But damn, I wish they'd make that 'only activate hidden taskbar when mouse is thrown to a corner' option available....!

    - Spryguy
  • Why are documents and settings grouped together?

    What do they have in common?
    Simple: They roam (when roaming user profiles are enabled). When you log off your main machine, and log on to another machine on a corporate network, all your per-user documents and settings should still be available to you. As opposed to your per-machine things, like installed applications.

    Notice also that your ntuser.dat (which contains the HKCU portion of the registry) lives under here.

  • Snippet from MS code-base (Score:5)

    by mybecq ( 131456 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @11:41PM (#762172)

    #include <ui_dos.h> /* black background, white writing */
    #include <ui_win31.h> /* white windows, beveled buttons */
    #include <ui_win95_98.hxx> /* beveled icons, web folders */
    #include <ui_2000.hxx> /* fat folders, pastels */

    /* #include <ui_bob.h> */ // just hold off on this one for now ... - billg

    Revolutionary things always fail when they come to market too early :)
  • I have to ask though... anyone know how much of a hard drive hog this thing is going to be? If it follows any other MS product, it's bound to take more space then needed, but some program stats, even at this stage, would help.

    from what we've seen of MS's long-term direction [slashdot.org] (digital age lorentz transformation-> long-term=5 years) this problem, if you still consider it a problem in view of the growth rate of affordable, high-capacity drives, will be solved by net-delivered applications. if you're running usage-only-on-demand pay-per-click software, they may not even need your hard drive to store all those program files [of course, widespread broadband is a necessity, but it's coming].

    Also, is this a new overall OS or just for certain products? (In other words, is it a PC OS, yet another NT upgrade, or what?)

    given the MS.net vision, it would seem that after a few years of operation there need not be any further distinction between relatively configurable consumer Windows9x and the more restricted lock-down-everything-they-don't-need-to-mess-with business NT system.

    ---
    the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties

  • This is not a new idea, but rather yet another case of Microsoft "innovating" by taking other people's ideas and hawking them as their own.

    I've been using TraySaver [mlin.net] for two years now, and it works like a charm. Another, slightly different implementation, is PC Magazine's Tray Manager [zdnet.com]. Both programs come with full source code, so you can customize them to your heart's desire.
    --

  • Huge parts of this thing look too much like Win2000

    I got my first look at Windows ME today. I saw the desktop and thought to myself, "Hey, it's Windows 2000!" Clicked the "Start" button...said "Windows ME Millenium Edition" on it.

    That was mostly because of the Recycle Bin icon...looks the same as the 2k one.

    --

  • I am sick to death of Microsoft picking these assinine directory names...

    Ah, you mean like the wonderful way they chose "Program Files" to demonstrate their "long filename" support "with spaces" which made it a pain to install all those old 16 bit programs. I mean, why not just call it "Programs"?

    Yet another example of Microsoft ignoring all the lessons learnt in years before. Spaces have been available in filenames in Unix for forever yet people avoid them. Why? Because it makes things complex, breaks scripts and you have to escape them on the command line (or in the case of MS use quotes which complicates things even more if that means you have a script which then needs to be double escaped).

    Not to mention of course that long directory names mean it's impossible to get more than a couple of levels in the directory tree in explorer. Of course, we're supposed to put things in "My Documents" anyway.

    Anyway, I'm sure this has all been hashed out before so I'll just leave it there.

    Rich

  • Hm. Out of date. (Score:3)

    by unlinear ( 235476 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @01:36AM (#762197)
    Not to troll on my first post, but this is kinda dissapointing. Slashdot is always pretty up to date on things relating to *nix and whenever ESR sneezes there's a post about it, however now we find a post about the previous build of Whistler. This was news about 2 months ago, kids. Here's the lowdown.. The build number of the latest build that leaked out is 2257. They introduced actual theming (but still very restricted, nowhere near the level of customization that Windowblinds [windowblinds.net] offers. Should /. users (and or admins.. lets keep the info current shall we) wish to keep up to date, here's a few URLS to keep you busy: http://jotenet.koti.com.pl/ http://betaxtreme.hypermart.net/ and http://www.wininformant.com/ (which is biased as hell but still useful)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • What is it with Microsoft? From Windows 3.1 onwards each implementation of Control panel seems to take up more screen estate, and become harder to navigate through.

    The Win3.0 control panel was very simple. Not many icons, always in the same place. It only changed if you started up in Enhanced mode or added network support.

    Firstly Win3.1 allowed the Control Panel to be extended, which was a boon until some software companies (including Microsoft themselves) started adding extra control applets that should have been added to applications themselves.

    Then Windows 95 added a control panel which allowed you to sort the order that the icons appeared in. Then if you also installed IE4 with that desktop integration, the control panel took up even more space, with a vast area of the screen doing nothing.

    Now we have this abberation. Absolutely ghastly, all space and no real ordering.

    The issue is, can they dumb things down any further.

  • Pardon my lack of artistical sense but there's nothing new in these snapshots

    So what? Exactly why should there be any change in the basic WIMP interface of Windows or any other OS for that matter? It's not like there are leaps in interface design from successive versions of Unix, Linux or even the Macintosh instead most changes have been gradual over time.

    OK, some icons are a bit bigger but I really don't understand where all that hype comes from ?

    In this vein, nowhere have I seen MSFT touting their whizzbang new improved user interface but instead they have touted the improved reliability, scalability and robustness of their new systems which if making the switch from NT to Win2K is true. Maybe you are mistaking MSFT for Apple?

  • Actually, I find X with a simple window manager to be much more responsive than Win98 on my P166 with 32MB and Matrox Millenium II... unless it's doing something really processor intensive in which case the OS doesn't give the GUI higher priority like Windows does.

    Of course the Millenium II drivers are very optimized, YMMV.

    To me it's much more important that linux doesn't crash or thrash the drives for no reason and that I can script anything that I need to do on a regular basis.

    But I'm an old school Unix hack who just uses X to hold up a bunch of terms and Netscape. I don't use DE's like gnome or kde which may being slowing you down.

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • One thing MS has done right in Whistler is include a personal firewall (i.e. intended for desktops or laptops that are directly Net connected).

    This is important for the whole Net, in order to reduce the number of DoS attacks launched from compromised machines, particularly as cable modems and ADSL become more common.

    I hope Linux distros and KDE/Gnome are going to include similar features - I know that ipchains is there by default, but what I want to see is that the basic firewall is installed as part of the install process, as a result of asking 'will this machine always be used behind a firewall?'

    The Windows world is getting into personal firewalls - McAfee (formerly Conseal), Norton and the idiosyncratic ZoneGuard are some examples.

    Probably MS were going to do this anyway, but I remember talking to a fairly senior program manager a year or two ago, who was on the Win2000 team, and saying how important it was to have personal firewalls, so maybe I can claim some credit :) Amusingly, he wrote the details down in his Palm III...

  • Uses about 20MB... so what? Linux has better memory management and caching algorithms, still runs great with 32MB RAM.

    How's Win2000 with 32MB?

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • w00t killa? (Score:3)

    by eg0n ( 62511 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @04:05AM (#762266) Homepage
    http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/graphics/library/infogfx /0004whistler/whistler_pre.jpg check this pic out... it's registered to 'w00t killa' and the company is 'Anti-Netscape'. i think that's pretty funny

  • Re:What's new? They're butchering English (Score:3)

    by TheReverand ( 95620 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @02:34AM (#762273) Homepage
    Complaining about bad grammar on /..

    Oh the irony.

  • Win2000 has Tab Completion...so you only need to click *tab* once you have the "CD DOC" typed.


    -Julius X
  • moot
    n.
      • Law.
      A hypothetical case argued by law students as an exercise.
    2. An ancient English meeting, especially a representative meeting of the freemen of a shire.
    v. tr. mooted, mooting, moots.
      1. To bring up as a subject for discussion or debate.
      2. To discuss or debate. See Synonyms at broach1 [slashdot.org].
      • Law.
      To plead or argue (a case) in a moot court.
    adj.
    1. Subject to debate; arguable: a moot question.
      1. Law. Without legal significance, through having been previously decided or settled.
      2. Of no practical importance; irrelevant.
    Usage Note: As an adjective moot has come to be widely used to mean "no longer important, irrelevant," as in It's a purely moot question which corporation you make your rent check out to; Brown will get the money in either case. This usage may be originally the result of a misinterpretation of its legal sense in phrases such as a moot question. A number of critics have objected to this use, but it was accepted by 59 percent of the Usage Panel in the sentence The nominee himself chastised the White House for failing to do more to support him, but his concerns became moot when a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would oppose the nomination.


    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • Innovation by Necessity (Score:3)

    by SideouT ( 60964 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @04:15AM (#762293)
    Why does everyone think that Microsoft is going to change their UI when it has been making them so much money since win95 took over the desktop market in most distributed pc's? As much as i love gnome/kde/wm, many of these Window Managers emulate many of the things that win9x has done ever since they copied apple. Until the public is sick of the way windows looks/operates, no changes will be made.
  • Find a utility called TTFGASP, which will adjust the font size where anti-aliasing starts at to some really low value (0 or 6, IIRC), which then makes small fonts on windows AA'ed. Works with the Font Smoother patch for 95 and 98.

  • Well they're forcing sysadmins to learn some obscure directory paradigm requiring major network redesign

    As well as continuting with a pradigm which expects end users to perform sys admin tasks, whilst making it difficult for sys admins to actually do them.

    Linux is hard, but so is Windows and at least with Linux a power-user can find out what's wrong and fix it - no reinstall required because it's all in well-documented text files not in an obfuscated, bloated database.

    Also you can do this without the admin needing to be sat at the computer or for that matter with the user still sat at the computer...

  • Re:Um. (Score:2)

    by GypC ( 7592 )

    A lot has changed but it still looks pretty much the same.

    As opposed to "not much has changed but it looks different and we're gonna pimp it as the best thing since sliced bread."

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • Ok, perhaps I'm one of the 0.0003% of people who would find this funny, but take a look at http://www.m0ss.com/Images/W histler2250/mycomputer.jpg [m0ss.com]. Under "Removable Media" there is an item listed as "3-1/2-Inch Floppy D..." I don't know what immediately pops into your mind, but I wonder if this is some sort of Freudian slip on the part of Microsoft coders.

    P.S. All M$ coders reading this do *not* send me pictures confirming or disconfirming my observation.
  • Is it just me or is a desktop just a desktop? After a while, to me, they all look the same...whatever the OS.
  • ummm, whistler is an alpha. Right now, it mostly IS Win2k. Hell, screenshots of this bletcherous beast have been showing up in magazines for a few months now...

    Although, I have to wonder about the giant folders... This seems like a step backward except for the visually impaired, I mean, God help those poor devils who run at 640x480 (and there still are some... our boxen at work have 4MB agp video cards and 17" monitors, but we still have folks running at 640x480x8 and liking it...)
  • MS should do the Olympic coverage graphics.
    ---

  • From dictionary.com

    shat
    v. Obscene A past tense and a past participle of shit.

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • Pardon my lack of artistical sense but there's nothing new in these snapshots : Windows 2 thousands just seems as it always looked like.
    OK, some icons are a bit bigger but I really don't understand where all that hype comes from ?
    I read again the topic : no. It is not supposed to be a joke.
    So : what's up ?
    --
  • It's a "beta". Therfore it is also a "good idea".
  • What you must realize, is this is what almost every Microsoft user has been asking for!

    Also, the big icons are not the default. You are able to change them back to the smaller size!

    You're basically stating the obvious, and overstating things that we already know!

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • I'd blame the bad refresh and redraw on the old graphics hardware in your machine.

    Sorry, but I mostly have to agree with the previous poster.. not that Linux wasn't made to run graphics apps, but that X sucks..

    I use Linux every day, and on the same hardware, X is much less responsive than Windows any day of the week.

    X _is_ slow (relative to Windows) even on modern hardware (PII 400 w/128MB and a Voodoo 3500) - yes, faster hardware makes a difference, but the point is that it shouldn't have to.

    On the plus side, I find X to be much more usable than windows, even though it's less responsive - it just works more logically (cut & paste, for example.) Working in X makes me more productive, because things are easier to do.

    I too, love Linux (I only use Windows because of a few router management apps that are Windows only) but I won't make excuses for it

  • Weird things (Score:3)

    by will_sd ( 179162 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @09:51PM (#762345)
    There a few funny things in these screenshots, like for example the "File a bug report" shortcut. Are these guys trying to be ironic or what?

    Also, the "hide the contents of this drive" is pretty much disturbing, and the "3 objects (3 hidden)" in the status bar as well.

    Finally, to me it really looks more and more like a mac. Give them a few years and they'll only 20 years behind! (note: I'm not a mac user, and unfortunately I don't like their interface at all... sounds like I won't like this one better).

    --
    "Listen, [...], going to another country doesn't make any difference.
    I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from
    one place to another. There's nothing to that."
    -- Ernest Hemingway in 'Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises'
  • That's four words.
  • How much hand-holding is enough?

    Hell! Maybe your Mom won't know what C:\Windows is for so let's name it

    C:\This Is Your Operating System So Do Not Touch This Folder Please Thank You

    I still think that there should be an option somewhere to force Windows*.* to conform to 8.3 for no other reason that personal preference. Maybe your mom won't use it but I certainly would.

    It's just my personal pet peeve and it was finally close enough to being on-topic that I could scream about it.

    =P

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • who made the weird theme for [gnome|windowmaker]?

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @09:53PM (#762365)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Of course, that 932MB includes all of Windows' pretty GUI features, sounds, bells, and whistles, etc. (No pun intended)

    Yeah, we can all install Linux in under 200MB - hell, on a floppy disk. However - how big is your install if you include X, Gnome, Apache, and the other "equivalent" software? Pretty sizeable. I'm not defending bloatware, it's just that MS won't give us a "I don't want pretty, I want functional" version of Windows.

    Davitt

  • God, you guys are a bunch of angry bastards. True, screenshots show nothing about the OS - but neither did Mac OS X's. The underlying features, while "closed code", will be partially revealed in development kit and on Microsoft's sites. I for one want to get my hands on the new Administrator control panel (it looks fabulous).

    Explaining the administrator/client model to the average home user, and why they "need it", is one of the biggest problems of OS's like Linux and Mac OS X today. If the OS makes it clearer in terms of descriptions and icons, I'm all for it.

  • You are overreacting just a touch.... The definite article is fairly obvious from the context - why waste screen space and user time on 'Shut Down *The* Computer', when it's clear that you are not shutting down any other computer?

    Or maybe there should be 'Shutdown A Computer', Shutdown Any Computer You Feel Like', etc?

  • Okay STOP right there! (Score:3)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Thursday September 21, 2000 @09:54PM (#762382)
    C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator?

    What the hell is this? Is Microsoft is actually going to force console-dwellers to type out this pig of a path every time we want to so much as touch our data? Or maybe sit there trying to count out six letters so we can ~1 it?

    I am sick to death of Microsoft picking these assinine directory names and then locking them off with giant fences in the registry.

    C:\Documents and Settings
    C:\Temporary Interenet Files
    C:\System Volume Information
    C:\Downloaded Program Files

    WTF!?!?

    C:\Docs
    C:\Temp
    C:\SVol
    C:\DPrg

    WHY WHY WHY can't I do a massive registry search-and-replace and be done with this crap once and for all? I swear...it is this stuff that will drive me to UNIX more than any other problem Windows has thrown at me. I refuse to give up 8.3 compatibility for my older/dual-boot systems and I refuse to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome just because I like a console interface. I would kill for /etc /bin /dev folders.

    Yes I know about the name autocompletion registry trick in NT but it is unreliable at best. I get used to file X being three TABs away but suddenly I make a new dir or new file and then I have to relearn its now four TABs away.

    [/end rant]

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • Every other post so far is "ooh, why is Windows so ugly, they're trying to make it look better, gnome/X looks so much better, they're copying gnome, oss whine & bitch &c &c".

    Frankly given the far superior video drivers' performance under Windows, the display in Windows specifically does NOT make we want to vomit as I may be induced to do so by bad refresh & redraw under X. Don't get me wrong, I love linux, I just can't stand X. Linux was not meant to run graphical applications. Plus, there is nothing inherently wrong with the Windows UI graphics. They are reasonably customizable if they aren't to your liking, yet fixed enough to provide a consistent interface across applications and machine configurations.

    Now, as to the relevance of this article to anything....
    ---

  • "My Network Places"?

    Who's bright idea was this? "Network Neighborhood" was bad enough, but at least it got the idea across. What's wrong with "Local Network" or something similar? I know they're trying to make an OS that's usuable by idiots, but do we have to throw five year olds in too?
  • Everyone named Bob had to change their names. I remember. Joke [action-electronics.com]
  • Have you used KDE recently? Folders and files on the desktop, if you want, and a customizable panel. Sure, it lacks a NeXTSTEP-type icon dock, but beyond that, KDE is pretty slick. And so is GNOME, or XFCE for that matter...

  • well ... (Score:5)

    by rbolkey ( 74093 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @09:57PM (#762397)
    we all know what a cd called "stuff" holds ...

  • why would they care? (Score:3)

    by Tridus ( 79566 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @04:39AM (#762409) Homepage
    Do you think the average person actually gives a rats ass *how* the computer works?

    Looking around the office here, nobody really cares how the computer works. They care only that it does or doesn't work, and they pay me to care about details like "how".

    The home market is the same way, people have better things to do with their time then care about just how their OS does anything. So long as it does it, they don't care. Just like a lot of people don't care about how the engine in their car works, provided that it does. They have a mechanic who worries about the details.

    How many of us care about the details of how the phone works? I don't even think about it unless the phone isn't working for some reason.

    Microsoft understands this. They're tuned into the average user home market, the people who want the computer to do what its supposed to do and not bother them with the details of "how". That may not make Windows a very good geek OS, but its precisely why its good for the other 90% of the market.

    My mom is going to love Whistler when she sees these screenshots, because it looks neat and things are easy to find. And thats the market MS wants, because of how much bigger it is.
  • television coverage of the olympics is outmoded. use the internet more often. olympics.com [olympics.com]
  • I've not used the latest MS products for a while (their the only company I know that can add some graphics and call it an upgrade).

    Anyway, in previous their products doc*set* would retrieve the first entitity that started with doc. Anything after the first * would be ignored.

  • This is microsofts idea of innovation. Change the icons and charge another $100.00. Lucky for them most of the world buys it.

    It's becoming obvious that most of the smart people have already left microsoft.

    A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.

  • best yet is that when you save an html file with a space in the name (which Front Page lets any clueless moron do), most web browsers will barf on the space.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @10:05PM (#762440)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The definite article is fairly obvious from the context - why waste screen space and user time on 'Shut Down *The* Computer', when it's clear that you are not shutting down any other computer?

    Are you sure? What about Remote Desktop Connection [m0ss.com]? Can you be turning off/rebooting some else's computer?

  • From your joke link:

    Microsoft also announced today that Bob(tm) Harbold, its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, has become the first Microsoft TrueName licensee and will have the Windows 95 logo tattooed to his forehead.

    Sadly, someone actually has a Windows Logo [fuse.net] tattooed on them.

    If Microsoft sued them, would they have to get laser surgery?

  • What's new? They're butchering English (Score:5)

    by Froid ( 235187 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @10:08PM (#762453)
    Look at the logoff [m0ss.com] image or main2 [m0ss.com] image. They're systematically removing definite and indefinite articles from the English language. It's bad enough that Microsoft has to perpetuate the infantilism of "My Computer" and "My Internet" (gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!!!). Now, it's: "Uggh! Me Tarzan! Me want 'Turn off Computer'" The grammar of America's youth is shoddy enough as it is. We don't need Barbie telling our kids, "math class is tough", and we don't need Microsoft telling them "computer" is a proper noun.

  • Shorten them yourself (Score:3)

    by zaugg ( 87876 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @10:09PM (#762454)
    Don't get me wring, the names suck

    These kinda shortcuts make life a little more bearable.

    C:\Documents and Settings

    cd doc*set*

    C:\Temporary Interenet Files

    cd temp*int*

    C:\System Volume Information

    cd sys*inf

    C:\Downloaded Program Files

    cd down*file

    --zaugg

  • Yeah right, grammar, "OK," but Apple's ad guys, to Hell with them anyway! I saw this, they had the gall to illustrate an store ad for their merchandise, with a picture of Mohandas Gandhi, and that is not OK, not OK at all. Did Apple's advertising agency think, "Gandhi's safe in his grave and unable to sue and we're running out of celebrities, so let him spin there," do these people have no sense of decency at all?

    Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

  • First off, it's "Windows" not Windose.

    Secondly, this feature has existed for quite a while now. It allows you to open a remote Windows session. It's present in Windows NT Terminal Server edition, and Windows 2000 Server and up. Windows Whistler comes with it built in.
  • It's actually much nicer then X in my opinion for running a whole remote desktop instead of a single application.

    Over a LAN there's virtually no slow-down

    Clients exist for all Windows OS 9x, NT4, Win2K(And WinCE I think?)
    • C:\Documents and Settings -> C:\home
    • C:\Temporary Interenet Files -> C:\var\iecache
    • C:\System Volume Information -> C:\boot (NT systems have "system" and "boot" backwards)
    • C:\Downloaded Program Files -> C:\usr\local (could be wrong on this)
    As Richy_T wrote (#150) [slashdot.org], these shorter names are much easier on 16-bit programs.
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • Wow, looking at Win2K and Whistler side by side it's like night and.. later that night!

    C'mon, hiring icon artists does not a new system make. Oh, right. These are the folks who brought us Win2K, 98, and WinME! (Shouldn't that be called BuyME?)

    Kevin Fox
  • there hasn't been a UI that comes close to the useability of Win2K or MacOS.

    Sorry, but I think you're confusing responsiveness with usability..

    Responsiveness is determined by how quickly something responds to your actions - for this, Windows and MacOS beat X hands down.

    Usability is determined by how easy (and quickly) a given task can be accomplished - for this, X and bash blow both Windows and MacOS out of the water. (I notice that you said UI, and not GUI, so we can enter the console into this discussion.)

    For complex tasks, the console blows away anything other form of UI when it comes to usability, because that's what it's designed for - it's an interface that allows complex communication between the user and the computer. Most people type faster than they can move a mouse, so more information can be conveyed with the console in the same amount of time - humans also have a large capacity for language skills, which the console takes advantage of.

    To contrast this with a GUI, Imagine trying to communicate with someone using a language that only had two words (or in the case of the Mac, one word) - yes the language would be much easier to learn than english (or any other language), but it takes a LOT longer to communicate with. This is what you're doing with a GUI (you have two words, "Left Click" and "Right Click", and what these words mean depends on what the mouse is hovering over at the time.)

    The drawback to the console is that it takes more time to learn (just like it takes longer to learn English than the imaginary two-word language.)

    As far as usability between X and Mac/Windows, all three are pretty similar - the differences are in the minor details.. My favourite example is the clipboard; it's much more logical (and faster) to use in X than the others.

    Say you want to copy & paste under X - how much work is it? Two actions: Highlight the text you want copied, middle click where you want it pasted. Under Windows or Mac, it's at least four (if you know keyboard shortcuts); Higlight the text you want, hit CTRL-'X', click the window you want to paste into, hit CTRL-'V'... If you don't know keyboard shortcuts (or, if the app doesn't support them) it's even worse: Highlight the text, click 'edit', click 'copy', click 'edit' (in the destination window), click 'paste' - that's an awful lot of clicking to do one simple action.

    Yes, X is less responsive, but responsiveness is not the same as usability.
  • In the screen shots, there were only three directories in the root of C:, thefore you could use:

    cd d*

    to get to Document Settings.

    You can do this now in NT 4.

    matt
  • And people talk about GNOME's icons looking cheap?

    What?!?! I've never heard that. The gnome icons are central to why so many people think gnome looks so slick.

    --Ben

  • anyone know how much of a hard drive hog this thing is going to be

    Does it really matter any more? With affordable hard drives available in th 25-75gig range, it really wouldn't even matter if the icons are 128x128, 24 bit uncompressed animated tiffs..

  • Large folder icons (Score:3)

    by michael.creasy ( 101034 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @10:32PM (#762499) Homepage
    Clearly the folder was set to "Thumbnails" not the normal "large" or "small" icons. If there had been any other files there (i.e. images) thumbnails would have been visible, but because there weren't the folders get displayed at that size because that is the size used by the thumbnails.
  • whistler was the blind guy in the movie _Sneakers_, and from the looks of it he had a hand in the design. :)

    Actually, it's a perfectly fine looking GUI -- maybe some of the themes will be a little more attractive/radical.
    --
  • The reason Microsoft won't write a brand new OS from scratch is backward compatibility with old software and hardware (and in the case of MS Office documents, data). Incremental improvements to the Windows platform allow not-too-old programs and devices to run. If Microsoft dropped this backward compatibility for a superior but incompatible new MS OS, then many people would not adopt it. Since users would have to start from scratch with a new OS, they might evaluate their options and choose Linux instead. :) So Microsoft keeps its user base through incremental updates.
  • WinME isn't getting rid of the command prompt, it's getting rid of real mode.

    Supposedly.

    My guess is there's still 16 bit thunking going on underneath. But it's not the command prompt they're talking of getting rid of.
  • > This is not a new idea, but rather yet another case of Microsoft "innovating" by taking other people's ideas and hawking them as their own.

    Remember that next time you call Linux revolutionary. It's UNIX. And a not terribly advanced one at that (where's the ACL's? Where's the MLS version? where's the hotpatchable kernel?)

  • Big Icons are Bad (Score:3)

    by jeorgen ( 84395 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @06:43AM (#762512)
    There is a reason for icons to be about an inch, and no bigger. There is an area on the retina called fovea, which is the area where we can see in any detail.
    At an arm's length distance, this covers a circle of roughly one inch in diameter.

    If you make icons any bigger, the user must move his eyes to take in the whole image. Hence, a big icon slows down work and fun.

    A lot of design issues are moot, but for some there is objective knowledge to draw from.

    /jeorgen

  • Quick way to tell, without clicking anything: win2k has a shadow under the mouse pointer. Gee, what a feature every server needs.

  • Comment removed (Score:5)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @10:16PM (#762520)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Does anyone know what the official (and unofficial) plan is for the command prompt? I've heard that in Windows ME just about none of the normal apps (format, sys, scandisk etc.) work but is it (the commandline) going away? Does Microsoft want it to go away or do they officially consider it an effective tool (which it is for developers, system admins etc.) and keep it?
  • I've been using Win2k at work for a few weeks, and this is exactly what they're doing to us. I've yet to find a way to rename that
    "C:\Documents and Settings plus some other files and whatever else we feel like storing here getting tired of typing yet you fucking geek?"
    directory^Hfolder. It's completely ridiculous.

    They can name it whatever they want right out of the box, but c'mon - what possible reason could they have for forcing such stupid names on everyone, forever?

    News Flash ! Attention Bill Gates ! There are still plenty of things in Windows that you can only do on the command line. Why make it so hard to use?
  • I've been an angry bastard ever since that evening in 1993 when I realized it was 9:30pm, and I had been tweaking this poor bastard's config.sys file over the phone with him since 2pm, trying to help him get his system up and running. I remembered the *last* time I came home that late for similar reasons, and my wife was pissed because she had tried to suprise me with the kids at grandma's, and a candlelight dinner at home.

    Since config.sys has been replaced with the registry, things haven't gotten much better (except since my stock options came through, my wife now appreciates the time I put in to make us so rich). Messing with a registry or config.sys can turn *anyone* into an angry bastard.

    I believe the rumor that the ONLY profane language Mother Theresa ever uttered in her entire sainted life was the first and last day she tried to run a Windows system.
  • Shutdown Computer vs. Shutdown the computer is exactly the same thing. The idiots who think this guy deserves +5 need to shit in the toilet, dunk their head in it, flush, and go back to the English classes they forgot since they've evidently been writing too much code.

    *shrug* I didn't give it +5, and I wouldn't have. But I would have given it +2 easy. Maybe +3 if it cought me in the right mood.

    If they don't, they're likely to end up writing their own menu options such as this and having a younger generation of /.ers insulting them.

    I hope not. My only GUI apps [sourceforge.net] are OSS. I expect a patch, not a bitch. Especally on things where even non-coders can find the quoted string and change it.

  • I feel the same way trying to tweak the XF86Config file to have a proper refresh rate on my monitor. Except a mistake here may ruin my monitor permanently.
  • Apple is not telling your HOW to think (as in "think differently"). They are telling you WHAT to think (as in "Apple is different. When you think of Apple, think [of something] different").


  • Look at the bottom right corner of this screenshot [m0ss.com] for a nice solution to the problem of tray icon overpopulation: only the ones you use appear and the others are accessible through the "" icon. I know many windows users that have so many tray icons there is virtually no room left on the task bar. They keep downloading and installing "cool" stuff from the net and a lot of it ends up as new tray icons.

    When I think of it, screen real estate is not their real problem. Windows machines with so much stuff loaded in memory are even more unstable. The first thing I do when they come screaming for help is get rid of all this junk.

    ----
  • i just think it's kinda sad the way things are going now-a-days.

    Does anyone else think gui's like Explorer.exe, GNOME, and KDE are starting to look like something you'd find next to an E-Z Bake Oven at KayBee toys?

    Sure, i want color in my GUI...but c'mon people, bright red, blue, yellow, and white isn't a color scheme...it's a frickin' circus. (i know they're changeable, but the defaults are whack)


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • I don't think that you actually need to do the backspace. Just hit backslash and keep going.
  • You don't NEED to take multiple captures of the whole screen/desktop - one is enough.

    And once you've got that, you don't even have to CROP your images.

    ALT-PrntScrn will capture just the active window - leaving background windows and objects out of the picture.

    I hope someone finds that helpful. :)
  • You know, maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that if Microsoft were to stop concentrating on releasing a new (but not-so-new)OS every 2 years and just start from scratch, they, having a huge amount of manpower, and hopefully a large amount of intelligence, could conceivably build a great new OS. I just don't see why they waste their time with the classic re-hashing of their old systems. Sure, it doesn't matter to them because they will sell tons and tons of copies no matter what, but i can't quite understand why they don't seem to care, or, why they don't take more pride in the quality of their products. With the amount of resources that they have, I'm sure they could build a new OS that is still compatible with old Windows programs, but does not contain all of the bugs and memory leaks, etc.
  • Fire up X and your favourite display manager and desktop and then run top. Insert foot in mouth.
  • First poster: And people talk about GNOME's icons looking cheap?

    Second Poster: What?!?! I've never heard that. The gnome icons are central to why so many people think gnome looks so slick.

    I've got to say I agree with the second fellow. Don't under-estimate quality artwork. We're finally getting the attention to detail that we see every day in the real world - texture, shades, lights, etc., - in computers. People will pay good money for that experience on their desktop - especially if the attention to detail is done so well that the computer itself feels "natural".

    Dave
    'Round the firewall,
    Out the modem,
    Through the router,
    Down the wire,

  • Get TweakUI (Score:4)

    by nicky_d ( 92174 ) on Thursday September 21, 2000 @11:02PM (#762570) Homepage
    Grab a copy of TweakUI for 2k - the official beta of it has expired, but there's a non-expiring version here [server101.com], and elsewhere. This will let you change the location of system folders, so you can move "C:\Documents and Settings\Foo\My Documents" to "c:\foo\doc", if you want to.
    You can also set filename completion from TweakUI, so you can use tab to autocomplete, a la Bash.
    Renaming "Downloaded Program Files" to "DPrg" might work for you, but it's not going to do much good for, say, my father, who would just see "DPrg" as a random collection of letters, and further evidence that the computing world is determined to keep him from joining in...
  • Microsoft has kept its outdated metaphors in its graphical interfaces, yet changed basic functionality and flow with every other release. This is confusing to common users and expert users alike!

    I have studied "HCI" - human computer interaction, and know that the only thing big icons are good for are:
    (a) poor eyesight (common among older people)
    (b) increasing mouse click speed which has become a mute point with all but the newest users, and modern optical mice.

    I wish Microsoft would focus on either real innovation or real stability / reliability for the common user. Time and time-again I see the non-technical people at my past two jobs struggling with Windows.

    Just because slashdot readers are comfortable with software/hardware installation, many users can't even figure out how to install a network printer - perhaps one of the most common complaints that our IS manager receives are the new hires !@#$ing up their printer settings. Then, there's the travelling consultants - have they ever been able to plug into another network without 2+ reboots, and a call to tech-support?

    Now, I'm on win2k, and most of my games are broken, and my Cyborg 3D digital joystick is completely unsupported. I'm sure someone will flame this, as win2k isn't the 'gaming' platform, but let's face it - some developers play games, and Microsoft shouldn't disable 1 year old hardware with every release! I swear Microsoft not only want's your upgrade dollar$, they want licenses of their APIs by hardware companies with each release!!!

  • One of my favourite reasons for disliking gnome/enlightenment is the fact that colleagues often stop by and ask you why you are playing with a sega at work. A nintendo fan should not have to be forced to swallow an insult like that.

  • "Think different" is probably correct in American english. It sounds funny to everyone else. Go to Tennesse: you'll find the people "real nice". Americans seem to be quite comfortable using adjectives as adverbs, dropping just about every "ly" ending they can! Interestingly, my Oxford dictionary (one of those little colour ones) indicates that the word "real" is an adverb in Scottish and US colloquial english. I've never heard a Scotsman use "real" like that, but I guess if they're talking talking colloquially, they would say "ken".
  • Ah, you mean like the wonderful way they chose "Program Files" to demonstrate their "long filename" support "with spaces" which made it a pain to install all those old 16 bit programs. I mean, why not just call it "Programs"?
    Actually, this is one of the few places where I think MS showed a little backbone in not overemphasizing backward-compatibility. Thanks to "Program Files" nearly every program would include full support for long names and spaces, where otherwise there would be a lazy minority that would still not support long filenames and spaces.

    8.3 was awful, and as wordy as "Program Files" might be, it was worth getting rid of a bad scheme.
    --

  • You obviously don't meet many people from areas other than your own. Your reply almost has a level of arrogance in your assumption that other people will be able to understand you.

    I could easily use language that expresses my thoughts more clearly, but I doubt that you would find it very understandable. Thus I would defeat the purpose of trying to communicate to you. For example, I could talk like wot I would with me ol' chinas and ov-er geezas daahhn the nuclear sub. But that would just draw a blank stare from you.

    The question is, where do you draw the line? When are you making too much effort attempting to be correct, and when are you just being plain lazy? Colloquialism's shrink the size of your target audience. For most people in the world, I could say "I'll come around and knock you up in the morning", and that would have nothing to do with pregnancy.

    Use whatever language is appropriate for your target audience. In an international formum such as /., you will not be able to communicate your thoughts so well if you take a lazier approach to your English. It's already hard enough for Brits and Americans to communicate, don't make it even harder than necessary for those who speak English as their second language.

    A lot of people make mistakes such as your vs you're and its vs it's. Each time I encounter one of those mistakes, I have to pause my reading to try to understand the gist of what is being said (i.e. what thought the writer was trying to express). If something contains too many mistakes along these lines then I won't bother reading it as it is too much effort trying to understand it (it takes too long). Thus the writer has failed to express their ideas. Also, too many mistakes lead to an impression of ignorance, and lower the credibility of the writer
  • You're totally missing my point, because despite your blasting off on your own tangent, this is exactly what I'm talking about. It's quality of communication that matters, not linguistic purity. That's exactly what I was arguing for, if you'd bothered to read my post.

    I *live* in an area other than my own, me old china. Communications problems are old hat to me, which is why I feel confident spouting about them on Slashdot.

    You, on the other hand, are failing to see the importance of communication and you're falling in to the trap (typical of "intelligent" people) of assuming that good communication equals speaking the Queen's English.

    And that, my friend, is complete arrogance. Our native language is dying, and in its place is rising a new globalized version. You and your linguist friends can toss off over the ramifications of this all night, if you like.

  • The original post merely mentioned the number if running processes, not resident memory of said processes. It's called reading comprehension, did they skip over that at your school?
  • First of all, Mr.P- provided this link, to winsupersite [winsupersite.com] which has much newer screenshots from a later build (2257 as opposed to 2250 IIRC). Please go there and look at the newest Whistler screens and inflo before saying "hey this is Windows 2000 run through Paint". I've been sort of half-heartedly following Whistler through it's development because it will most likely end up on my Windows box next. I think Microsoft's OS guys have finally figured out that a forked development process is wasteful and bothersome. Whistler is based off NT/2000 and will have Personal, Professional, Server and Advanced server versions available. This eliminates the traditional separation between Windows for regular people and Windows for businesses. It also means developers can program for a single environment and API and sell their products to both home and professional users without spending the money for a port to a similar but slightly incompatible system. Whoa hey, I said something good about Windows someone better find a Stallmandroid to promote the GPL one more time.

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