| TSR's are notorious for lock ups! |
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Posted on 07/30/2013 11:15:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Consider the following: Internet Explorer 11 is available as a preview for Windows 7 or as part of the Windows 8.1 preview, but not for Windows 8. Similarly, PowerShell 4 will run on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, but not Windows 8 — even though it will be available for Windows Server 2012, which is the same core code as Windows 8.
So does this mean Microsoft giving up on Windows 8? Um, no.
Windows 8.1 is Windows 8, as far as Microsoft is concerned. It's an update to Windows 8 that will be available in the Windows Store, free of charge. It has new APIs that aren't in Windows 8 that Internet Explorer can use.
Microsoft will port some — but not all — of those back to Windows 7 for IE 11; as we understand it, the HTML5 Media Source Extensions and Encrypted Media Extensions support that lets you stream Netflix in IE 11 without needing a plugin won't make it to Windows 7.
It has new versions of the controls developers built apps with too; the new alarms and timer app in Windows 8.1 uses the Windows 8.1 version of a control that's three times faster than the Windows 8 control on a low-end PC. "We could have done a lot of profiling of data, a lot of tweaking — or we could just upgrade to the version 8.1 control," program manager Steven Abrams said at the Build conference.
Couldn't Microsoft just port those APIs and controls to Windows 8 as well? Well, it already has — that's Windows 8.1.
Microsoft is betting that if you're prepared to install a new version of the browser and the updates to make it work, you'll be willing to do that as part of an update that also gives you the Start button so many people have been asking for and a bunch of new features.
Microsoft is also trying to put out a 'new version' of Windows in a year, rather than three, with a new version of the browser in a year rather than 18 months (which is how long it took to get from IE 9 to IE 10) — and as part of a continuous development schedule that put the usual SP1 contents into Windows 8 before it went on sale and has given us 700 improvements to Windows 8 since then.
Given that there are only so many hours in the day and only so many engineers on the team, it makes sense that Microsoft has decided to prioritise resources for Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 and create, test and support two versions of the IE 11 preview rather than three.
Keeping up with a continuous development cadence is going to require Microsoft to make a lot of rational decisions that don't make everyone feel warm and fuzzy. Similarly, when IE 12 comes along, I expect it to only run on Windows 7 and Windows 8.2.
You can also expect to see a significant push to get you to upgrade to Windows 8.1. The way Microsoft is trying to make that acceptable to end users and businesses alike is by making upgrading easier and promising compatibility. "Upgrading to Windows 8.1 is simple as the update does not introduce any new hardware requirements and all existing Windows Store apps are compatible," says Erwin Visser, the Windows general manager who handles the business side of the market.
That means that all Windows 8 devices will run Windows 8.1, that all Windows 8 Windows Store apps will run on Windows 8.1 (something they're working on but that isn't true in the preview), that drivers and desktop applications will work in the same way. And that upgrading to Windows 8.1 won't mean wiping systems and installing a corporate image and reloading your applications and data. Visser calls upgrading to Windows 8.1 much more like running updates or installing a service pack. And if you were planning on switching to Windows 8, just plan to switch to 8.1 instead.
To use the car metaphor that's so popular, in a year, the Windows team isn't rebuilding the car or even fitting a new engine; it's changing the tyres, swapping out the instruments on the dashboards, fitting a new car radio and tuning the engine control software.
It's worth noting that it's different for servers. A server upgrade is a major task and Microsoft doesn't expect anyone to upgrade their servers every year; the best they can hope for is that any new servers you put in place will run the latest version of Windows Server. Also, Windows Server 2012 R2 is a major upgrade from Server 2012, with a significant number of new features — it's a much more impressive and compelling update than Windows 8.1, ironically. Windows Server 2012 systems will be around for a long time so they need PowerShell 4 and its major management improvements like Desired State Configuration.
Microsoft hopes that Windows 8 won't be around for long after Windows 8.1 comes out. It hopes everyone using Windows 8 will upgrade, just as it hopes we're all using automatic updates to keep our PCs up to date. After all, we're telling Microsoft to keep up with Apple and Android; surely we want the new, improved stuff, especially as it's free with better features — why wouldn't you want that, thinks Microsoft. And if it can just get us to keep updating our PCs year after year, it will never have to deal with a decade of XP again.
With that combination of incentive and what we're telling Microsoft we want, why would it make sense for it to give us any reason to stay on Windows 8 when we've been so vocal about telling Microsoft to change it?
Thanks, I will look at the TSRs, and I see plenty of them on my system. But yes, I do regular cleanups with various freeware utilities, so that a messy disk is not a problem, but memory could very well be, as you suggest.
Still, going back to my dream PC operating system, I should be able to run multiple sessions, under the same or different logins, on the same single screen, and from the single keyboard, as I have been doing for how many years or decades on a Solaris workstation. Why, I could do that on a VMS workstation 20 years ago. Inability to do this kind of multisession interaction with Windows is the reason why I still use my laptop’s 15.6’’ screen and can’t see a good excuse to upgrade to a larger attached monitor.
Opera, you say? I’ve been using Chrome, and for some things Firefox, but I’ll try Opera. Thanks for the recommendation.
Good ol Adobe, making really crappy software and trusting people will blame Windows. Which is of course why Jobs banned their crap from iPads. Obviously Windows shouldn’t be giving Flash all the resources just because it asks for them, but Adobe shouldn’t make Flash more of an unstable pig every release either.
I don’t want a touch screen. Of course by the same token you really don’t need a touch screen for 8, there’s really no functional difference between a mouse cursor and your finger, except the cursor doesn’t leave Cheetos crumbs on the screen.
I figure there must be some conflict or incompatibility between what Flash is doing and what Windows, and the underlying x86 hardware expects, that cause these crashes, which take as you said a long time to complete, I’ve never timed them, but a minute or longer is standard, I think.
The big problem is that Flash hooks into the browsers, ALL the browsers, and remember what Windows Explorer actually is. So when Flash begins its pre-crash it seizes all the browsers up, which includes Explorer, which kills your ability to do pretty much anything until it unseizes.
The market evolved and fragmented. Microsoft failed keep up.
Even worse on the military network when Outlook gets busy...
Of course, I don't run Windows.
Windows 8 is SO bad no one with software products even bothered to write them for this crap of an OS.
I do bookkeeping work and got a client that put Quickbooks Pro onto a computer with Windows 8. It’s not supported by Intuit and can’t be used remotely. The same with VersaCheck.
Had to get a refund and reload it all to a PC using XP.
What, VMS is still alive? Solaris?
Linux, of course.
May The Force Restart Be With You!
Windows 8 is soon to join Windows ME and Windows Vista as flops. Windows 7 was a good successor to the venerable Windows XP so why did Microsoft have to jump to Windows 8 with all the whiz-bang stuff? Just like Windows Vista Windows 8 has a whole bunch of RAM hogging features that do nothing.
“Maybe it’s just me, but it seems Microsoft has lost their way. It just seems like everything they do is a mess, a flop, or both. I really question Microsoft’s ongoing reason for existing. Seems everyone else is eating their lunch. Also, it seems like Microsoft has a distinct tin ear when it comes to the consumer.”
It’s not just you.
MS should come out with different but compatible OS’s for different people. A very light Linux-type Windows would probably sell very well.
That’s what they’re trying to do with Home, Premium, Enterprise, Ultimate, etc.
“Somebody wake me when MS comes out with a stable version of Windows”
You missed it, it was Win 7.
Will it lose the ugly desktop and revert to Win7 look?
| TSR's are notorious for lock ups! |
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