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"Apple makes fast Windows PC" -Gearlog

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    BenBen
    edited March 2006
    The main reason that Microsoft couldn't scrap everything and start again is their success.
    There are thousands of programs and devices that work on Windows. And you expect them all to work perfectly on the new version regardless of the version they were created for. The huge bloated codebase they have to use from one version to another is mostly stripped down from past versions so that those programs and files work.
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    KosmoKosmo
    Lech, actually, atleast in the gpu world MS is the dog that barks the rhythm. Microsoft makes DirectX and XNA, then they say to nVidia and ATI that there are the shader models and specifics they need to support for their products to make it, if they don't support the standards they just die, and so is happening to alot of chip specific features that nVidia and ATI implement, and mostly they were one trick ponies anyway. Microsoft very much orders what gpu chips should do in the future, not since DX7 has any chip maker decided what will be in the next feature list, or what becomes a standard. Ofcourse they could drop the standards but their next chips wouldn't cut it in the game development world that has gotten used to easy APIs and they wouldn't be supported. Future is a big question mark with XNA because Microsoft is strenghtening it's stranglehold on graphics chips and audio, they want to control the whole game multimedia front, and if they get XNA out as the industry defining standard, they will control it. There hasn't been any say over the technological development of graphics chips since the days of Voodoo. Now processor developers have it bit better, they still control what their chips do, but that is mostly because there hasn't been any cpu technology that would really revolutionise everything like in the graphics chips. They just make faster and faster processors and every new technology is there to make them faster, nothing to compare (not to mention the selling power) of normal mapping, lighting and visual effects on graphics cards and three dimentional sound.
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    gigingergiginger New
    Why can't Microsoft just make an entirely new system that then runs "legacy" apps in a virtual PC type situation?

    Most PCs are powerful enough to do that without causing problems. Maybe even have the old OS install at the same time but entirely seperately.

    New Windows goes into a Freeze type state and the old one boots up and runs the program. When the program quits you're back into new Windows.

    Quite probably a coding nightmare but it's more or less a solution to the problem of old code.
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    KosmoKosmo
    Wine and Virtual PC already run alot of legacy programs flawlessly, so I don't see a problem with going around and trashing the old code. Designing things from ground up to match todays situation instead of trying to beat and bend old things to kinda match up to todays situations is far more effective. Same can be seen with old (60s) programming languages and modern languages, modern languages are far more sopisticated because they are designed with todays standards. Why should the OS not harness the experience that we have gathered during the past decade? It is the most vital part of a computer.
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    gigingergiginger New
    image
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    KosmoKosmo
    The one on the left is sexually harassing the right one.
This discussion has been closed.