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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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How Would You Change Windows 9?
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Marand on Sunday March 02 2014, @07:46AM
Like the subject says: rather than provide an OS, I'd prefer seeing some sort of win32/win64 userland made to work with other platforms, like Linux and OS X. Basically, an MS-blessed version of wine that can run atop different operating systems and run windows executables.
Microsoft could ditch the operating system problems and dev costs, pawn off some of their security problems to the kernel devs, and focus on providing a solid application environment and services, instead. If done right, they could pitch is as a more reliable, faster alternative to wine or Cedega's Cider (for macs).
Alternately, I'd love it if Microsoft either ditched Dirext3D for OpenGL, or did something to help improve the quality of Direct3D in virtual machines. I don't mind Windows games and apps, or closed-source software, I just don't really want to live with Microsoft's operating system just to use them, and running it virtualised has limited effectiveness currently.
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For a slightly less ridiculous want: I'd settle for more configurable, sane window management; virtual desktops; better access to system innards and logs; and alternative taskbar options
(Score: 1) by caseih on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:55PM
It's just not that simple. The "userland" is highly tied to the Windows kernel. Just ask the wine developers. They have to emulate large parts of the windows nt kernel to get windows apps to run under wine. A windows app is far more than just calls to draw a gui. There are process creation and management calls, synchronization primitives, etc, all provided by the kernel, that often don't correspond 1:1 with what is available on other operating systems. WaitForMultipleObjects() is a prime example. Not impossible of course. But I'm just saying it means MS will be reimplementing large parts of the NT kernel on top of another OS' kernel. There is precedent for this: MS basically did this to produce Internet Explorer for Unix. But there's absolutely no reason for MS to ever want to do this when their own operating system works just fine, and already is everywhere. Porting it to OSX or Linux would be silly.
(Score: 1) by Marand on Sunday March 02 2014, @09:27PM
Yeah, I understand that, and realise it's not trivial at all. However, if they're looking into giving out a version of Windows for free (and bundling services with), like the rumours going around are claiming, then it might be worth the investment (long-term) just to ditch the OS side and let someone else deal with providing an OS for free.
Hell, they could build off what wine's already done and clean up the messier parts and various stubs that exist because the wine devs are trying to match a black box, where the Windows devs actually created the black box and know how it should work.
Even if they decide to keep the OS business, I'd love to see something like that done. Their apps could be considered cross-platform then, and they could pitch the platform as an alternative to using things like Qt and Java.
Not that it matters; it's just a pipe-dream item for a wish-list topic, so I wasn't worrying about feasibility. It's what *I* would like to see done, not what I expect to ever actually happen.
Now, the bit about Windows guest VM improvements for non-Windows hosts is less pipe-dream, and I'd still love to see that as an alternative.
(Score: 1) by var on Sunday March 02 2014, @07:08PM
I think Microsoft made big mistake, when they did not release .NET for linux, then killed Silverlight and finally chose HTML 5 in Windows 8. NET could have been THE platform for desktop, for mobile devices and for web.