Recommendations for the future of Windows

[Guest]

I'd like to make a few suggestions with respect to Windows, particularly as
there have been many changes in Vista.

* UAC is a fantastic idea for protecting system-wide settings. The
implementation isn't perfect but the concept compares to the 'sudo' command
under linux which asks you not just for permission but your password every
time you wish to run an admin command. This is a necessary step in protecting
Windows computers from exploits. I've gathered from the forums there have
been a lot of complaints about UAC but I see no real reason for complaint.
* DRM. I know what I make of this so I'm going to suggest a compromise. I am
one of those people who won't buy copy-protected CDs, DVDs and therefore
won't buy HD media either. I think the DRM client software should equally be
a choice. It should be possible to legally disable DRM in Windows. Obviously,
inserting DRM media would produce a prompt saying "we can't play this, unless
you consent to having DRM installed". I don't think this is unreasonable. DRM
media is still protected and users can choose not to let you disable their
hardware as you please i.e. not have DRM installed.
* Internet Explorer still can't be removed from Vista, ditto Windows Mail.
Again I cite personal choice here. There are plenty of people who choose to
use these products, but if I don't then why can't I free up hard disk space?
Forcing users to use or at least have IE against their will has probably sped
up the development of competing products. I'd rather use IE if I was given a
choice. Unfortunately IE is technically inferior to many competing browsers
in it's present state. Just one example: TLS under IE supports RC4 128-bit as
"strong encryption" whereas Firefox supports AES256. For Internet Explorer 8,
the browser should be optionally removable (install it by default if you
wish). This will have one major impact. In order to protect your browser base
you'll have to put a lot of innovation into IE8 and will probably produce a
better product.
* Subsystem for Unix Applications - what a fantastic idea. Take my favourite
POSIX programs and compile them under Windows. Sadly, it's only available to
enterprise customers and Ultimate users - so amateur developers like myself
can only dream at such ideas. Too bad, will have to keep developing using gcc
then. Opening this system up to Business Edition would be a massive move in
terms of persuading small businesses using datacenter hosted servers probably
using linux to port their unix apps to windows.
* The boot manager has been overhauled and improved, as has the desktop and
many other under-the-hood features. This is a much better state of affairs
than any previous NT OS even if end users barely notice it - at least it no
longer feels like a re-hashed version of DOS.
* Unfortunately you dropped one of the single biggest and most exciting
features of Longhorn - WinFS. This promised to be something amazing - XML
soup file system to enable searching as if the FS was a database. Whilst
Vista search is good you missed a huge opportunity to break the mould here.
I'd rather you'd dropped both avalon and indigo in favour of WinFS. Sadly,
technologies such as ZFS, XFS and JFS2 look more likely to take hold.
* You rely too heavily on the GUI. Can we scrap cmd.exe / command.com and
have a shell.exe capable of running the OS without .net interfering?
* By all means have Powershell too. Why can't it browse the registry as if
it were a file system?
* Win32 is a subsystem, written on NT code. So is OS/2 although it is barely
used. Could .net, instead of being a layer sat upon a layer sat upon native
code (.net>win32>Native NT) become a subsystem in itself? Doing so would
allow you to replace every OS component with a .net version (bar Native NT
ones of course) and make .net integration neater.
* Can the log-in screen be customised? I prefer it feeling and being
separate to the desktop but I wish I could make it look more professional.

A few complements for you:
* your wireless/wired networking facilities are fantastic.
* thank you for removing the patronising 'My' prefix from everything and
renaming many little aspects in more mature ways - I feel like I'm using a
computer and not a playstation (sorry, Xbox).

Let's clarify a few things. I am a Linux user (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora) and a
great supporter of projects such as Mozilla. However, this is NOT a Linux VS
Windows discussion - both OSes have their merits. In this post I'm trying to
suggest a direction for Windows that I feel would add value.

Well, that's it, please feel free to add your own suggestions, there are
probably a great many features that could be added that haven't been.

I won't be reading this thread with the exception of MS responses.

- Acontiae

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...b43&dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.general

 

[Dana Cline]

You probably won't get any official MS responses, but if you want to read
I'll offer some comments, inline below...

I'd like to make a few suggestions with respect to Windows, particularly
as
there have been many changes in Vista.

* UAC is a fantastic idea for protecting system-wide settings. The
implementation isn't perfect but the concept compares to the 'sudo'
command
under linux which asks you not just for permission but your password every
time you wish to run an admin command. This is a necessary step in
protecting
Windows computers from exploits. I've gathered from the forums there have
been a lot of complaints about UAC but I see no real reason for complaint.
* DRM. I know what I make of this so I'm going to suggest a compromise. I
am
one of those people who won't buy copy-protected CDs, DVDs and therefore
won't buy HD media either. I think the DRM client software should equally
be
a choice. It should be possible to legally disable DRM in Windows.
Obviously,
inserting DRM media would produce a prompt saying "we can't play this,
unless
you consent to having DRM installed". I don't think this is unreasonable.
DRM
media is still protected and users can choose not to let you disable their
hardware as you please i.e. not have DRM installed.

Exactly what DRM are you talking about? DRM is generally attached to the
content of media, and governs its use... Personally I'm against it too, and
like you don't buy music with it. All DVDs have it (it's called CSS) so you
can't get around that if you want to watch DVDs.

* Internet Explorer still can't be removed from Vista, ditto Windows Mail.
Again I cite personal choice here. There are plenty of people who choose
to
use these products, but if I don't then why can't I free up hard disk
space?
Forcing users to use or at least have IE against their will has probably
sped
up the development of competing products. I'd rather use IE if I was given
a
choice. Unfortunately IE is technically inferior to many competing
browsers
in it's present state. Just one example: TLS under IE supports RC4 128-bit
as
"strong encryption" whereas Firefox supports AES256. For Internet Explorer
8,
the browser should be optionally removable (install it by default if you
wish). This will have one major impact. In order to protect your browser
base
you'll have to put a lot of innovation into IE8 and will probably produce
a
better product.

The guts of IE are used in other places, such as the HTML Help system. While
it's possible to remove the IExplore.EXE file, that file is small and is
only the shell for the underlying guts.

* Subsystem for Unix Applications - what a fantastic idea. Take my
favourite
POSIX programs and compile them under Windows. Sadly, it's only available
to
enterprise customers and Ultimate users - so amateur developers like
myself
can only dream at such ideas. Too bad, will have to keep developing using
gcc
then. Opening this system up to Business Edition would be a massive move
in
terms of persuading small businesses using datacenter hosted servers
probably
using linux to port their unix apps to windows.
* The boot manager has been overhauled and improved, as has the desktop
and
many other under-the-hood features. This is a much better state of affairs
than any previous NT OS even if end users barely notice it - at least it
no
longer feels like a re-hashed version of DOS.
* Unfortunately you dropped one of the single biggest and most exciting
features of Longhorn - WinFS. This promised to be something amazing - XML
soup file system to enable searching as if the FS was a database. Whilst
Vista search is good you missed a huge opportunity to break the mould
here.
I'd rather you'd dropped both avalon and indigo in favour of WinFS. Sadly,
technologies such as ZFS, XFS and JFS2 look more likely to take hold.

I agree with you that WinFS sounded exciting. But I wondered how easy
recovery would be if a small chunk of hard drive went bad.

* You rely too heavily on the GUI. Can we scrap cmd.exe / command.com and
have a shell.exe capable of running the OS without .net interfering?

Are you familiar with Monad? The command line shell is way more powerful
that the old DOS window was.

* By all means have Powershell too. Why can't it browse the registry as if
it were a file system?
* Win32 is a subsystem, written on NT code. So is OS/2 although it is
barely
used. Could .net, instead of being a layer sat upon a layer sat upon
native
code (.net>win32>Native NT) become a subsystem in itself? Doing so would
allow you to replace every OS component with a .net version (bar Native NT
ones of course) and make .net integration neater.

Pretty much all of the "NT code" you mention was scrapped...most of Vista
was written from scratch.

* Can the log-in screen be customised? I prefer it feeling and being
separate to the desktop but I wish I could make it look more professional.

A few complements for you:
* your wireless/wired networking facilities are fantastic.
* thank you for removing the patronising 'My' prefix from everything and
renaming many little aspects in more mature ways - I feel like I'm using a
computer and not a playstation (sorry, Xbox).

Let's clarify a few things. I am a Linux user (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora) and
a
great supporter of projects such as Mozilla. However, this is NOT a Linux
VS
Windows discussion - both OSes have their merits. In this post I'm trying
to
suggest a direction for Windows that I feel would add value.

Well, that's it, please feel free to add your own suggestions, there are
probably a great many features that could be added that haven't been.

I won't be reading this thread with the exception of MS responses.

- Acontiae

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

 

[MICHAEL]

* Dana Cline:

Pretty much all of the "NT code" you mention was scrapped...most of Vista
was written from scratch.

Proof? Link?

If that were really true, then Vista shouldn't be vulnerable to the same
exploits that XP is.... several patches since Vista's release were for XP,
Server 2003, and Vista. Sounds like a common code base to me.

*Parts* of Vista may have been re-written and other components *added*,
but Vista's guts share much with XP and Server 2003. That's exactly why
many XP programs work straight up in Vista, even without "compatibility mode".

Oh, "re-engineered" does not equal "written from scratch".


-Michael

 

[Lang Murphy]

I won't be reading this thread with the exception of MS responses.

<snip>

Don't hold your breath...

Lang

 

[Guest]

* Dana Cline:

Proof? Link?

If that were really true, then Vista shouldn't be vulnerable to the same
exploits that XP is.... several patches since Vista's release were for XP,
Server 2003, and Vista. Sounds like a common code base to me.

*Parts* of Vista may have been re-written and other components *added*,
but Vista's guts share much with XP and Server 2003. That's exactly why
many XP programs work straight up in Vista, even without "compatibility mode".

Oh, "re-engineered" does not equal "written from scratch".


-Michael

I think re-engineered is a better definition of what MS have done with the
exception of the boot loader, which is new. The components may have been
re-written to implement buffer overflow protection (this seems to be in
fashion with VS2005 anyway) and generally tidied up, but otherwise implement
similar functionality to XP. At least, the API is practically identical. That
is my suspicion. The underlying code base is still Native NT code therefore
Vista is still NT.

I said I wasn't going to read this thread, ok, I lied, but DRM does concern
me.

DVDs are encrypted with CSS which is a content-based encryption algorithm.
Keys are hard-coded into players/decoders which is fine by me. However, there
is no restriction as to where I can play said DVD provided my player can
decode it. There is no monitoring, hardware checking etc.

DRM takes this to a new level. DRM-controlled media, when inserted into
Vista, starts up a set of features designed to make it impossible to
intercept decoded media on a hardware level. Anything remotely deemed
susceptible to interference is disabled or downgraded. So, my built-in LCD on
my laptop, if deemed a security risk by Vista, will be downgraded/disabled.

My gripe with this is simple. I don't "own" Windows or even a copy of it but
I am legally licensed to use it. However, I do own the hardware Windows is
running on, and I do expect Windows to be compatible with it given the price
tag.

OK so not a problem with current media, but I can imagine the audio/video
industries picking up on this fast enough at least in some form - so what
happens when I access some DRM-enabled media in the future and haven't
upgraded the screen in my laptop? Vista throws a fit and disables my screen?
What's to stop software becoming DRM-locked? How far does this go? Until
Microsoft dictates what I can and can't do with my hardware?

I also object to DRM on the basis it is, albeit primitively, remote-control
software. Whilst I doubt it is possible DRM will contain remote exploits
given it requires locally accessed content, it still allows Microsoft to
dictate and I hate not having a choice in the matter.

No, I haven't heard of Monad, time for a little research...

Lang - I don't expect a response from MS, still, one of these days I may be
pleasantly surprised...

-acontiae

 

[Guest]

:

No, I haven't heard of Monad, time for a little research...

Oh, PowerShell. To begin, it's .net, which is fine only I can't manage .net
assemblies from within a .net program hence I'd have to keep re-booting
assuming PowerShell is the shell. Secondly, whoever thought of the daft
copy-and-paste shortcuts with cmd.exe and put them into PowerShell? Or is it
another re-baked piece of code?! Finally, why on earth does it prepend this:
PS Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem:: to SMB paths? It's a step in the
right direction I agree but as far as shells go it needs a lot of tidying
up...

I think I mentioned PowerShell in my original post... include it by all
means but we need an updated "Native" shell.