Microsoft + Github Acquisition (Rumors)

[Graf Zahl]

I run 8.1 on an 8 Gig machine that originally shipped with 7. I upgraded the OS because I needed it for Windows Phone development.

[Nash]

I hate Windows 8.1 too. Too laggy and a bloated mess.

Fully disagree. My current Windows 8.1 machine is the FASTEST machine I've owned ever, and I've built all my own PCs since the early 2000s. Literally 5 second startup time from cold boot. Can startup most heavy editing programs farily fast and can support multiple open programs - a typical Doom modding day session for me will have VS Code, Visual Studio 2015, Photoshop, Blender, Discord, Steam and even the RAM-hungry Chrome browser all open simultaneously for hours.

I'm currently using a computer which I built in 2010 - that's 8 years ago! Although slowly upgraded over the years.

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage 2 Extreme
CPU: Intel i7 950 (ooooooold)
RAM: 15 GB RAM DDR3

One thing that I felt really made the difference in making the OS butter smooth is that Win 8.1 is installed on an SSD and 15 GB RAM. RAM is important to reduce page file swapping and therefore keep the system running fast at all times.

What's even funnier is that my digital audio computer - the one I use at my recording studio, is far superior hardware-wise (built in 2013) but with Windows 7 on it. And guess what? Win 7 starts up super slow for me. 20 seconds VS 5 on my older computer! Win 7 also installed on an SSD.

For comparison, my "slower" Win 7 computer:

Motherboard: ASUS Z87
CPU: Intel i7 4770
RAM: 16 GB DDR3

I'm guessing whatever it is they improved in 8.1, made a HUGE difference in OS performance, provided you have the hardware for it.

[Cacodemon345]

Windows Phone development.

Windows Phone? That platform was already dying out and people still want to develop for it? Why the fuck would anyone develop apps for it when it has a tiny amount of popularity.

Maybe he ran it in a VM. At work I have to use a Mac so when doing Windows it will be with a VM. And that's extremely sluggish, regardless of version.

I ran it on a old laptop from 2010 and it lagged like hell. I later dumped it for a desktop that's better than that, running Windows 10 at a higher speed. It shipped with 4GB RAM, so I later upgraded it to 8GB. Times have changed, so consider my statement invalid.

[Graf Zahl]

Windows Phone development.

Windows Phone? That platform was already dying out and people still want to develop for it? Why the fuck would anyone develop apps for it when it has a tiny amount of popularity.

Maybe because it got sponsored by Microsoft?

I ran it on a old laptop from 2010 and it lagged like hell.

Yeah, old laptops tend to do that. My old laptop from 2008 also lagged like hell, although it was running the original Vista installation, not 8.1. The reason it was slow was the hard drive in it which had absolutely rotten performance characteristics. Compiling GZDoom on it took twice as long as on my desktop at the time which had roughly the same CPU but a better HD.

But of course you blame the operating system, not the computer. Typical

[ibm5155]

not really, on windows 8.0 days Windows Phone was kinda doing ok, with some countries having more Windows Phone devices than Ios ones...

Being bad or good, I feel its still much better to code for it than Ios nowadays

[Cacodemon345]

I say Windows Phone is fucked up by Android. Google went ahead, bought Android startup, finished it and then oen-sourced it and available to manufacturers. Microsoft didn't quite do that and ended up getting far less attention after Apple also kicked in. Android later became popular due to the freedom it offers and the fact that manufacturers sold it, plus the fact that there are more apps for it. I think Steve Ballmer had a good outlook on Windows Phone. But he definitely had a bad outlook overall. I find Satya Nadella to be the new Ballmer at this moment, having way too much on the enterprise and cloud. That's why Windows 10 sucks; I can't stand it in my opinion.

[Graf Zahl]

I say Windows Phone is fucked up by Android. Google went ahead, bought Android startup, finished it and then oen-sourced it and available to manufacturers. Microsoft didn't quite do that and ended up getting far less attention after Apple also kicked in. Android later became popular due to the freedom it offers and the fact that manufacturers sold it, plus the fact that there are more apps for it. I think Steve Ballmer had a good outlook on Windows Phone. But he definitely had a bad outlook overall.

Having worked in the industry back then I experienced first hand what happened with WP. The main reason why it failed is very simple: There was no way to use native code on WP7. Everything had to be rewritten in C#. That meant that no backend code from existing software could be used AT ALL! Writing apps for this system amounted to a gargantuan amount of work. The inevitable result was that almost nobody developed software for it so it was a barren platform nobody wanted to own. Microsoft was so desperate that they brainwashed Nokia to get into their boat, and even that failed, because nothing about the fundamental problem got addressed. That only changed with WP8 but Microsoft (read: Ballmer) was so smart to make the platform incompatible enough with its predecessor that again a lot of software had to be rewritten. The system also suffered from some inane limitations that simply were not present in either iOS and Android. So, with all the damage already inflicted by WP7, it was simply too little, too late. All the money Microsoft spent to pump their product into the market did not improve the situation and once Ballmer was gone, saner heads prevailed and worked out a roadmap to shut town this financial black hole - but do it in a way that avoided to admit failure.

I find Satya Nadella to be the new Ballmer at this moment, having way too much on the enterprise and cloud. That's why Windows 10 sucks; I can't stand it in my opinion.

Clueless as ever...

I really think you should inform yourself a little better before posting such nonsense.
First, Microsoft needs to earn money. And Nadella got one thing right: The cloud is the future. Those who are not present in the cloud will lose. You may not like it, I may not like it, but that's how things are.
Focussing on Windows is a certain road to death. Yes, it's still an important product for Microsoft but the real money will be made elsewhere, namely by providing the infrastructure on which future computing works. That's also why he started embracing competing platforms and integrated Open Source development into Microsoft's strategy.

The ultimate thing is not whether you accept where things are heading but whether they work out to keep the company afloat. Yes, they definitely have to work on their reputation, and Windows 10 did a lot wrong, but that's not the point. Nadella still got to work with a company structure that got a lot of Ballmer in it.

What I see is that Microsoft is slowly digging themselves out of the hole Ballmer put them in. I actually have some hope that they'll improve in the future.
No such hope with Apple, though. They have degraded into the biggest corporate bully in the computing world and take their customer loyalty so much for granted that they do not even try anymore to make things better.

But I guess we can only wait and see where computing will head. The good thing is that those locked down platforms that established themselves in the mobile world cannot fly on the desktop, because they are of no use to the paying enterprise customers. Even if they get provided, they'll only find some niche use in places where a freely accesssible computer may pose a problem, but that's it.

[Cacodemon345]

Each and every people know that Microsoft will have to earn money through cloud infrastructure. But that also means Windows is gradually starting to become less important. Wait for a few more years and you will see that Microsoft will decide to stop shipping features to Windows.

[Graf Zahl]

They won't. Because you and me are not the important customers. Big corporations are. Their entire well-being depends on in-house software that often runs on Windows.
And those pay a lot of money so that their software keeps running - not for the OS license but for maintenance services etc.

Long term it wouldn't even surprise me if parts of Windows were open sourced, because in the new computing world there's indeed not much to gain anymore from providing an operating system for low licensing fees, and if this work could be offloaded to the community, all the better.

[Kinsie]

Long term it wouldn't even surprise me if parts of Windows were open sourced

https://github.com/microsoft/winfile

[Cacodemon345]

At leaat I am still waiting for most parts of Windows to be open-sourced.

[Rachael]

Long term it wouldn't even surprise me if parts of Windows were open sourced

https://github.com/microsoft/winfile

He's talking a step further than that, though.

Imagine if NTOSKRNL.EXE got open-sourced. That, alone, would open a whole world of possibilities.

It's a real-mode raw executable and may not seem like much, but that file is *everything* to Windows - it may not have drivers in it, but it's the reason your drivers even work. It may not have programs in it but it has everything required to make those programs run. It has all the components necessary to make a full operating system - provided you're willing to put a working ABI and GUI on top of it.

[Cacodemon345]

I think the entirety of Windows should be open-sourced in the long term if it is actually possible.

[Graf Zahl]

Long term it wouldn't even surprise me if parts of Windows were open sourced

https://github.com/microsoft/winfile

It's a start. A few years ago, with Ballmer, this would have been unimaginable.

[Cacodemon345]

There isn't a point in keeping Windows closed-source completely.