Vista: Microsoft's Last 'Big Bang' Operating System?

Information Week ^ | December 1, 2006 | Aaron Ricadela

[Zakeet]

As he took the stage to usher Windows Vista to market, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last week tried to put the software's laborious birth behind him. The company's 71,000 employees -- and the entire PC industry, for that matter -- could be excused for breathing a sigh of relief, too.

"It's an exciting thing to finally be here, and that's probably all I'll say about the past," Ballmer said at the unveiling from Nasdaq's cylindrical high-tech building in New York's Times Square. Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 also were introduced, and 30 more products will follow over the next year, all part of the same technology wave. "This is the biggest launch we've ever done," Ballmer said. Microsoft will spend $450 million marketing it all.

Yet for all the design missteps, overly ambitious plans, and personnel changes that led to a five-year lag between versions of Windows, questions about the future of Microsoft's software are top of mind for customers and partners. Ballmer swears to never let as much time elapse between Windows versions; the question now is how the company can keep churning out innovative products on a compressed timetable.

"Vista is the last of the Big Bang operating system releases from Microsoft," Credit Suisse research analyst Jason Maynard wrote in a report last month.

[Paleo Conservative]

You must not be an older computer user. Checkdisk (CHKDSK) checked the drive, mainly in DOS, for cross-linked files. It can still, I believe, be run from the XP command line. I may be wrong about that. /F parameter converts unknown fragments to files. I used that command a lot, but never knew anything to do with the fragments except delete them.

It does more things for NTFS like fix and defrag the index files and security descriptors that can't be touched after the system is booted. Even disk defragmenters can't defrag them. Supposedly Vista is supposed to be able to do those sorts housekeeping chores without rebooting which would be great for servers.

[jammer]

Have been using and learning since early 80's, did not know how to use on XP, #120 gives the answer very well

Oh, sorry. I understood you to say that you didn't know what chkdsk was, and it was very common command to use on the DOS systems. Again, sorry for addressing it.

[CompGeek]

Windows 2000 was the best operating system they ever made. Even the propeller heads who like Linux give grudging respect (not much).

[rose]

hey no apologies necessary, I would have read it the same too.

[Balding_Eagle]

To many options avalible.

LOL! Careful when visiting a Home Depot or modern grocery store!

[doc1019]

Should have said … to many "other" options available … my bad.
;)

[Balding_Eagle]

That makes more sense.

[zeugma]

Funny you should ask...coming soon to a Mac OS near you...:)

Excellent!

Looks like exactly the thing. We may well be adding OSX to our household sometime this next year. 

[doc1019]

Didn’t know that, thanks for the info. Now I’m more excited then ever to own a Mac!!!

[zeugma]

Windows 2000 was the best operating system they ever made. Even the propeller heads who like Linux give grudging respect (not much).

Quite possibly the "best"  MS-Windows OS, but hardly the best OS ever made. That would be VMS.

[Brucifer]

I downloaded the trial version of Flight Simulator X. It looked pretty interesting, and all the reviews I've read were good.

Unfortunately, I bought my copy of Windows XP Office through the university, and now Microsoft is telling me I've got a pirated version that can't be updated anymore. Seems to me a deal's a deal, but somebody's got to keep Bill Gates in high clover.

[tarheelswamprat]

I'm surprised that Apple has never worked in a play on "defenestration" -- a lovely and obscure little word meaning "being tossed out of windows." It used to be the preferred method of regime change in Czechoslovakia. I can't quite wrestle the ad slogan to the ground, but it's in there somewhere.

Tagline for TV, print and billboard ad copy, accompanied by a Windows logo covered by the universal circle with a crossbar symbol:

Come see your Apple dealer for a defenestration!

[Minutemen]

Same old song and dance year after year. My XP system must have a gigabyte of Windows Update patches in past 18 months (to foil "remote code execution").
Bill and the boys can just go on patting themselves on their backs.
Every platform they ever introduced has been a half-baked experiment that you and I have been the guinea pig for.

[ReignOfError]

Just the opposite.
Apple's market share remains
trivial, they lost

1) The game isn't over.
B) Who gives a rat's hindquarters about market share? Apple makes better computers. Windows sells more. Cockroaches are more numerous than humans. If more folks are using Windows, that's their problem, not mine.
III) Worst. Haiku. Ever.

Tevanian, now
they're booting Windows, meanwhile
supercomputers


are being replaced
by configurations of
standard Windows things. *

# 47 on the worldswide supercomputer list is an Apple cluster. No Microsoft code to be found in the top 100. I can't imagine why; I mean, Windows loses a lot of performance overhead to crufty code, but at least the security is craptacular.

Reading your referenced article, it looks like Microsoft is looking to get into high-end computing -- but they're not "replacing supercomputers." They're starting to think about kind of competing with the supercomputers of 20 years ago. Welcome to the party.

It is nice to dream,
but the knee-jerk, mindless hate
of Microsoft is


wildly misplaced.

Knee-jerk, mindless hatred is always misplaced. My dislike of most Microsoft products is neither knee-jerk nor mindless. I've actually had to use the crap.

Neither Google nor Apple
exists as a threat

So tell me, do you drink the kool-aid before or after you whistle past the graveyard? 'Cause it seems like if your mouth is dry, the whistling might be kind of difficult; but if you drink the kool-aid before, all that sugar might gum up the whistling.

Nah, just forget about all of us wild-eyed dreamers and paid shills. You're right; Microsoft's grip on desktop computers is every bit as secure as the beachheads established by Underwood typewriters, IBM mainframes and Edison mimeograph machines.

[DennisR]

CHKDKS /F ??? Hm...new command??? :)

[ReignOfError]

Tagline for TV, print and billboard ad copy, accompanied by a Windows logo covered by the universal circle with a crossbar symbol:

Come see your Apple dealer for a defenestration!

I like it. I like it a lot. If i find the time, look for it on YouTube.

[ReignOfError]

Q: What's the internal Microsoft term for "beta testers?"

A: Customers.

[Paleo Conservative]

CHKDKS /F ??? Hm...new command??? :)

No, old typo.

[ReignOfError]

I have a blue white powermac G3 of 1998 vintage. It runs the current version of the OS and all the basic apps, connects to the wireless network and taps into the shared MP3 server. It's certainly no speed demon, but it's a capable machine for all the stuff above, plus Web browsing and most streaming video.

It's on a rolling cart in my guest room. I thought, guest bedroom, why not a guest computer? Folks like to check their e-mail in private. If they want, I can completely wipe their account and history when they leave. I take Southern hospitality seriously. And besides, giving guests their own computer keeps them from asking to use mine. Everyone wins.

[paulat]

Thanks, HAL!!