One problem: That's one of the things that's old, full of holes and generally broken both technically and in usability.
Keep .NET, WPF, UAA, WDDM, etc., and ditch everything underneath and build a new UI on top. No native backwards compatibility, period. Anything from the old days can run in its own seamless VM. Microsoft is lucky there since the VM technology wasn't mature enough back when Apple designed Classic mode for OS 9 under OS X.
No don’t keep .net, not unless they can either invent real downward compatibility or ditch it entirely. .net’s “include all previous versions to be downwardly compatible” methodology has made it a complete pig.
> One problem: That's one of the things that's old, full of holes and generally broken both technically and in usability.
Well, I'll agree that Explorer has its problems, architecturally and otherwise. But in terms of its model and presentation, I like it the best of what's out there. It'd have to get re-implemented anyway if it was layered over a real OS, so maybe they can do it without the annoying hangs and slow operations.
> Keep .NET, WPF, UAA, WDDM, etc., and ditch everything underneath and build a new UI on top.
Yeah... as long as the new UI can be made to look like Win2K Explorer by applying sufficient beatings. ;-)
> No native backwards compatibility, period. Anything from the old days can run in its own seamless VM. Microsoft is lucky there since the VM technology wasn't mature enough back when Apple designed Classic mode for OS 9 under OS X.
That's a truly excellent point.