The Gates Are Gone...
Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:36 am
He looked to be backing out a while back but seemed to be pulled back in due to the massive delays that their new version of windows (code named "longhorn", now known as Vista) was starting to run into serious development problems.
Vista even though it does do some very interesting things, has long since lost many of its more advanced features due to time constraints, about the only thing that has remained is the new graphical user interface called "Aero" which uses the 3d portions of modern graphics cards to render the desktop.
This technology however, is not the great thing it was once hailed to be, both MacOS and Linux have graphics systems that work similarly, although the MacOS version is a great deal more mature.
Features such as the proposed advanced search capabilities are gone, a new file system to allow for greater dependability (so its less likely your files will disapear after a crash, for instance)...
Vista could have been so much more, as it stands, it'll likely end up being WindowsXP, thats a *little bit* more secure, with a 3d interface, that requires 15Gb in order to install, on a computer that requires its own nuclear fusion plant to power (ok, that last one is an exageration, but you will need an awfully powerful computer to make the most of the new OS).
I will on the other hand be getting SUSE 10.1 linux, which uses a similar approach to rendering the desktop in 3d, has seriously advanced search capabilities, a bomb proof filesystem, and uses a fraction of the resources that Vista does. All very cool stuff.