2 new longhorn features that sound kickass.

[VIAN]

http://www.tomshardware.com/column/20050711/index.html

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

MS getting into benchmarking. Sounds nice, just for the aspect of measuring performance gains while adding new hardware.
Tas.

 

[n0cmonkey]

A benchmarking tool and something to keep you from kicking yourself in the butt? Meh, whatever.

 

[Sunner]

Handy I guess.
Written by the imfamous Rob Enderle no less, maybe more and more people are seeing through the FUD he normally writes, so he's resorting to guest articles on other sites.

 

[Phoenix86]

Well the second feature is probably just a modified sysprep being run between hardware changes. Doesn't surprise me since the installer is basically a syspreped pre-installed OS that's imaged from the CD/DVD. That's how they are planning on reducing install times so drastically.

Anyways, the benchmarking tool sounds nice since it actually evaulates what the causes are (IDs bottlenecks).

 

[doornail]

I'm not even allowed to reveal the code name for this feature, and the final name doesn't apparently exist yet, so I'm just calling it "Mod1". During the boot process, this tool looks for significant hardware changes; if it finds any, it restarts the hardware configuration process. This is the process you generally observe when you first install the operating system, which allows the system to initially boot so you can install the proper drivers. This should eliminate the need to start from scratch every time you change a motherboard, while still avoiding the dreaded "blue screen of death."

This feature is not expected to show up until after Beta One, which is the reason for the secrecy surrounding it. Apparently it is intended as a Christmas present to the modder community from the Microsoft developers, some of whom are evidently modders themselves. There are a number of additional surprise features that will show up late in the Beta cycle, some of which appear designed to really torque off Steve Jobs - we'll talk about those in upcoming months.

Until then, realize that Microsoft has done something significant: it has finally recognized that modders and power gamers are some of its most loyal customers. They plan to reward that loyalty with a product that has features specifically designed to make custom machines run better - now if that isn't cool, I don't know what is.

I wonder if this is just a whole lotta spin doctoring on some new authentication process? Where if you change too much hardware you get to explain to some setup module that yes, you do own that copy and you would like to have it record your new settings.

Sometimes I think MS shot themselves in the foot by making it a nusiance to throw together simple windows boxes, even if you are ... err, overbooking your license. I know I'm doing a lot more experimenting in Linux because I pretty much hate activation.

 

[drag]

heh. 'Mod1' sounds like Knoppix.

Probably something that is needed for Windows. Doing major hardware upgrades in Windows XP was always a huge pain in the rear (like pulling your harddrive out of a old computer and putting it into a new one with no reformatting). In comparision modern Linux the most difficult part is usually (there are always some odd thing that crops up, but it's usually fixed quickly) modifing X windows for a new video controller, most of the hardware is autoconfigured on everyboot up. Hell I've even copied a entire OS from a older harddrive to a newer one when doing big upgrades so that I can skip the reinstall.

Good thing to make doing hardware upgrades easier. It's obvious that they think that Longhorn should last for the long-term on people's computers rather then the reinstall cycles people went thru with previous versions of Windows.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Phoenix86
Well the second feature is probably just a modified sysprep being run between hardware changes. Doesn't surprise me since the installer is basically a syspreped pre-installed OS that's imaged from the CD/DVD. That's how they are planning on reducing install times so drastically.

Anyways, the benchmarking tool sounds nice since it actually evaulates what the causes are (IDs bottlenecks).

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[stars]

YAOHOST (yet another over hyped operating system thread)

My money is on Longhorn being another over hyped OS like XP but it's still Beta so we will have to wait for the final release.

Bill Gates "I bet kids will waste hours changing styles, editing the registry, etc to see little performance gain on our bloated OS."

Steve Balmer "Yes, Bill you are god."

Linus Torvalds "I can't wait till these kids get bored with games and start using a real OS."

BSD Devs "Then if they don't take the time to learn a decent distro like Slackware or Debian they will think Linux sucks and try our OS."

Steve Jobs "I wish my hardware wasnt twice the price of x86 because we're so innovated and have the best GUI."

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: stars
YAOHOST (yet another over hyped operating system thread)

My money is on Longhorn being another over hyped OS like XP but it's still Beta so we will have to wait for the final release.

Bill Gates "I bet kids will waste hours changing styles, editing the registry, etc to see little performance gain on our bloated OS."

Steve Balmer "Yes, Bill you are god."

Linus Torvalds "I can't wait till these kids get bored with games and start using a real OS."

BSD Devs "Then if they don't take the time to learn a decent distro like Slackware or Debian they will think Linux sucks and try our OS."

Steve Jobs "I wish my hardware wasnt twice the price of x86 because we're so innovated and have the best GUI."

It's not nice to troll.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: stars
YAOHOST (yet another over hyped operating system thread)

My money is on Longhorn being another over hyped OS like XP but it's still Beta so we will have to wait for the final release.

Bill Gates "I bet kids will waste hours changing styles, editing the registry, etc to see little performance gain on our bloated OS."

Steve Balmer "Yes, Bill you are god."

Linus Torvalds "I can't wait till these kids get bored with games and start using a real OS."

BSD Devs "Then if they don't take the time to learn a decent distro like Slackware or Debian they will think Linux sucks and try our OS."

Steve Jobs "I wish my hardware wasnt twice the price of x86 because we're so innovated and have the best GUI."

You spelled innovative wrong. :roll:

 

[stars]

Thanks MrChad will you be my spell checker now since this Windows box doesnt have one by default

 

[stars]

drag, it wasnt a troll attempt it was a joke. People shouldnt take operating system topics so serious.

 

[Phoenix86]

Originally posted by: drag
Good thing to make doing hardware upgrades easier. It's obvious that they think that Longhorn should last for the long-term on people's computers rather then the reinstall cycles people went thru with previous versions of Windows.

This is already available with sysprep.

edit: Longhorn setup info.
Pretty good quick and dirty read on Longhorn, in .ppt format.