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CowboyTeal writes:
"Windows 8 is still being disputed as either the product of a genius or a nerdy sadist but that doesn't mean Windows 9 isn't in the works. That said, how would you guys improve Windows if you could change anything about it? Has windows 8 improved or degraded your overall experience of the Windows platform? If you're not a Windows user, what features would you like to see in Windows for possible assimilation?"
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It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SurvivorZ on Sunday March 02 2014, @02:56PM
Quite simply, it's the Windows API!! OH MY GOD! You have apparently never tried to work with this monstrosity or you would not even need to ask such a telling question!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:41PM
You're absolutely right about the API, but you're absolutely wrong about the kernel. I just started a job where I have to do some work with the Win32 API (not by choice, if I had known this about the job I wouldn't have accepted it), and holy shit, it's the most ridiculously arcane thing I've ever seen in my life.
However, the Win32 API predates the NT kernel mostly, as it was used in Win95/98, and is an API to the OS libraries, not to the kernel itself. It's retained in XP/Vista/7/8 because of backwards compatibility concerns and inertia. If they switched to a Linux kernel for some odd reason, they'd still have to put in a compatibility layer for Win32. Of course, we actually already have this on Linux: it's called "WINE". But for Windows, they'd make it a primary API probably, along with some kind of .NET stuff, and the Linux libraries and APIs we know and love would probably not be there.
(Score: 1) by andrew_t366 on Sunday March 02 2014, @05:12PM
Windows NT existed before Windows 95.
(Score: 0) by mendax on Sunday March 02 2014, @09:05PM
I don't know where you got your history from but this is completely wrong. I wrote a Windows app for Windows 3.1 way back when, then ported it to the Win32 API when I discovered the Win32S package that would generally allow programs using the Win32 API running in the already well-established, multitasking and stable Windows NT to run in 16-bit Windows on a 32-bit machine. This was about a year before the introduction of Windows 95. Thus, I know something about this history. The basic Win32 API is essentially the original 16-bit Windows API with some adjustments. When Windows 95 came out, Windows NT was already well-established but not being used by the masses, mainly because memory was astoundingly expensive in those days (I paid $500 for 16 MB in 1995). Windows 95 could run fairly well in 4 MB.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 03 2014, @04:11PM
Ok fine, but the point is the API is not tied to the kernel, since the NT kernel and the Win95/98/Me kernel have very little in common, but both support the Win32 API.
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @12:16AM
Shit son, last time I bought ram for retail it was 8mb for $800. that was right after the factory fire or something, my single speed cd rom drive and soundblaster was $680, all on a 486 sx-25, man those were the days.
(Score: 0) by mendax on Wednesday March 05 2014, @12:04PM
Well, this was memory for a 33 mhz 486DX. It did run Windows 95 nicely after getting all that memory. After the upgrade it had 20 mb of RAM.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by cx on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:48PM