Given yesterday’s exposure of the Microsoft PPT slides from WinHEC, Joe Beda takes the time to reply to some questions people had in the forums: he discusses about the importance of eye candy, Windows and 64bit, the Longhorn machine requirements and more.
Microsoft’s Joe Beda Replies to Questions
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
a true consistent HIG for windows!!!
thank you god, perhaps now windows will be as pleasing to use as OS X and Gnome.
We are working on a set of guidelines (these are the Aero user interface guidelines) to help application authors use this stuff in a consistent way
Just as their consistancy between Office 2003 and XP??? Yep, I agree those are really good guidelines for consistant desktop.
While Windows had been compiling and shipping on 64 bit for quite a while
Microsoft Releases Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003 to Manufacturing….REDMOND, Wash. — March 28, 2003
Quite a while, I see.
First, we will run in software and on lower end machines. Things may run slower, but it will run
So proposed configuration was right then
(my favorite) “dipshits still can’t code html/css?”
My favorite too. Turning the talk all the way. Not that they don’t know to code CSS. Flaming goes to IE that interprets CSS incorrectly (not by w3c standards)
Longhorn is just vaporware. I’ll believe it when it ships in 2017: I’m not crazy enough to comment on ship dates. I’ll leave that to the PR people and the execs. However, we are showing off real code.
1. Yes, versions provided are vaporware. Nothing of paper technology (but few eye candy) is present there
2. You see Eugenia, even he denies any dates
3. The worst of the worst has happend PR is in charge
Innovation: Innovation is such a loaded word. Hell, MS probably did more to make it loaded than anyone else
. However, I never used the word on my blog and I don’t know where the guy who posted this to OSNews.com got it. It really touched off a flamewar there which basically comes down to your definition of innovation. Leaving that aside… I think that Avalon, and Longhorn in general, puts a lot of very interesting features together in an integrated API that will benifit developers and end users in very exciting ways. Use your own definition of innovative to parse that last sentence.
Yep, no inovation there. But paper technology is interesting, I agree.
Basically, this guy says just the same as most *flammin’* comments
Microsoft Announces Beta Version of Windows XP 64-Bit Edition For 64-Bit Extended Systems
Updated Operating System Provides Superior Performance and Compatibility On Systems Powered by AMD64 Technology
SAN FRANCISCO — Sept. 23, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the beta availability of a native 64-bit version of its Windows® XP operating system designed to support 64-Bit Extended Systems, including platforms based on AMD64 technology from AMD.
First announcement is for Intel Itanium 2 processor only.
Is the real thing out or not? Couldn’t find it on M$ site
A pretty decent response from Joe Bega. I still think the hardware GPU requirements for this will be crazy, and greater than he lets on. Considering we have had 3D hardware for many years, I don’t see why existing hardware and 3D technology cannot be used in a desktop more fully, but there you go.
Other than that everything here was a pretty decent reply. His nice sidestep of the Apple patent issue was rather reminiscent of the discussions regarding things like Mono. What goes around comes around.
The innovation thing – well, yer
. Microsoft haven’t innovated anything new with Longhorn, but they’re integrating a heck of a lot of stuff together. Others are going to have to integrate as hard and Apple will have to respond to keep Mac OS being the premier platform for multimedia work.
>I still think the hardware GPU requirements for this will be crazy
I don’t think you understand well the situation. Longhorn will have THREE requirements regarding graphics, not two like Apple’s QE. Here they are.
Classic: Any AGP card, even with just 8 MBs of GRAM.
Aero: DirectX-8 card with 32 MBs of GRAM.
Aero Glass: DX9 card with 64 MBs of GRAM (128 MBs recommended).
Don’t confuse Aero and Aero Glass, they are similar but not the same. Aero will be accelerated too and it will have *some* of the visual tricks of Aero Glass, just not all. Classic is what we have today, plain 2D and Aero Glass will be “the” sh*t.
So, even if you don’t have a latest GPU, a cheap today’s GPU will do the job fine with Aero and will give you hardware acceleration!
I don’t think you understand well the situation. Longhorn will have THREE requirements regarding graphics, not two like Apple’s QE. Here they are.
Oh I do understand the situation – all too well from experience. Only one of these requirements is going to work well, at best two, because Windows will be designed for it. At least Apple have a vested interest in making evetything work because they sell you the complete package.
Classic: Any AGP card, even with just 8 MBs of GRAM.
Aero: DirectX-8 card with 32 MBs of GRAM.
Aero Glass: DX9 card with 64 MBs of GRAM (128 MBs recommended).
Oh please… Look at the history of Windows, the minimum specs and the specs you actually need in the real world. When you are running multiple applications, in 3D mode, believe me you will need a heck of a lot more than 128 MBs on your graphics card. Try running this 3D desktop with a game as well. As usual, the only way you will be able to use this spec is if you do nothing with Windows but boot it up and look at it.
Don’t confuse Aero and Aero Glass, they are similar but not the same. Aero will be accelerated too and it will have *some* of the visual tricks of Aero Glass, just not all. Classic is what we have today, plain 2D and Aero Glass will be “the” sh*t.
Glass will also be the target for Microsoft applications and everything will have to follow. You may be able to run lower specs, but your applications will not look good, not take advantage of many features or not run at all, with a polite dialogue box telling you what you need. I’ve had too much experience with Windows and hardware specs.
So, even if you don’t have a latest GPU, a cheap today’s GPU will do the job fine with Aero and will give you hardware acceleration!
As with every version of Windows, in theory yes. In practice – no.
You forgot the Windows 2000 Limited Edition line for Itanium.
Windows XP and Server For 64-Bit Extended Systems is still in beta (will be released after XP SP2/Server SP1), though trial versions are available for download.
XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/downloads/upgrade.asp
Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/extended/trial/def…
Aero will also require a DX 9 GPU (this was upped due to the change in expected RTM date from last year’s WinHEC and market trend data)
I’ve had too much experience with windows and hardware specs.
For someone who hates MSFT so much, you sure have a lot of experience with Windows. Or maybe you’re just a troll who makes assertions without data or even knowing what you’re talking about. Do you have a copy of an Aero Glass interface? I doubt it, so why are you making comments about its hardware specs? MS itself has not released specs, unless you’re going by the dual 6 GHz crazy information that Slashdotters have been spouting every time someone mentions longhorn. If you hate Windows so much, you can be far more productive in getting people off of it in other ways than bashing it day in and day out. You’re only making your religion look bad.
Color me stupid, but what exactly is a DX9 card? Is there any difference between a run of the mill video card, and a DX9 video card?
What the heck?! How is critiquing a company equated to hatred?
Basically, a DX9-class GPU supports Shader Model 2.0 or greater.
For NVIDIA, this includes the GeForce FX line and up.
For ATI, this would include the Radeon 9700 and up.
By the time Longhorn ships, DX10-class cards should be available, or soon after.
Critique is equated to hatred when it is not even-handed, fair minded, or constructive. He is making predictions about the future based on past “experiences” which are controversial, to say the least.
For someone who hates MSFT so much, you sure have a lot of experience with Windows. Or maybe you’re just a troll who makes assertions without data or even knowing what you’re talking about.
Well, past history is one thing. Windows 95 running within 8MB (doesn’t run well on 32), Windows 98 running on 64 MB (you need > 128) and NT 4 running on 64 MB (that was a joke). Windows Me politely tells you that you cannot run it on a processor less than 150 MHz, even though a 133 should be fine. You know, that sort of thing.
I can always tell that people know I’m right when they start talking about trolling or coming up with data. People who have administered Windows in any sort of organization know all this to be true.
What makes it worse is that is I’ve seen Windows installed on thousands of desktops, and it is incredibly difficult to comprehend how bad things can actually be when you have it installed fine at home. I’ve never had any problems whatsoever with Windows 95, 98, XP or Office once I got enough memory to run them on. When I really started using them, with many different people, then it was a different story.
Do you have a copy of an Aero Glass interface?
Nice cop out. I doubt whether anyone has an implementation of Aero Glass. If they’re touting those graphics requirements now imagine how those are just going to spiral once we actually see the Glass interface.
MS itself has not released specs, unless you’re going by the dual 6 GHz crazy information that Slashdotters have been spouting every time someone mentions longhorn.
Saying that Microsoft has not produced any specs doesn’t alter anything. We know they will be way in excess of what is around today, and we already know you will need some very weighty 3D graphics hardware.
If you hate Windows so much, you can be far more productive in getting people off of it in other ways than bashing it day in and day out. You’re only making your religion look bad.
Thanks, I bash it for a reason as I explain, and people will get off Windows without my help once they have a reason
.
I hate Windows in many ways because there are many poor people, and organizations out there, who are going to have to install and administer this thing (they’re going to have to do things with it rather than saying how cool it is) and buy new hardware for it. And then you buy more hardware. And more. That’s the reality, and it is a merry-go-round people can do without. A 3D desktop is going to bring organizations no increases in functionality (it does the same thing) and people are going to have to pay for it because that is what Microsoft thinks you need. This was OK several years ago, but people have fully fledged IT infrastructures they can’t play around with now. Microsoft doesn’t seem to realize that, or wants to ignore it.
Yer, that sounds like religion to me so maybe I have way too much experience. Calling decent comments religious doesn’t make the other side look good
.
Try running this 3D desktop with a game as well. As usual, the only way you will be able to use this spec is if you do nothing with Windows but boot it up and look at it.
How the hell do you know anything about this ? You a longhorn developer in Redmond or something ? We won’t really know anything until the OS ships. Thats when we’ll find out just what ‘specs’ it takes to run it and how much video ram is needed.
Glass will also be the target for Microsoft applications and everything will have to follow. You may be able to run lower specs, but your applications will not look good, not take advantage of many features or not run at all, with a polite dialogue box telling you what you need. I’ve had too much experience with Windows and hardware specs.
THEN DON’T BUY AND/OR USE THE OS!
Christ man. If you can’t handle it don’t bother. Just quit wasting our time trying to tell us how an OS that is a good 2 years from shipping is going to work or what we’ll need to run it cause you ain’t got a freakin’ clue about it poncho.
Saying that Microsoft has not produced any specs doesn’t alter anything. We know they will be way in excess of what is around today, and we already know you will need some very weighty 3D graphics hardware.
Yeah I sure hope its way in excess of whats available today. I don’t plan on buying a new OS in two years time to run it on “todays” hardware.
If I need an OS for “todays” hardware I’ve already got Windows XP.
Things move forward dude, not backwards in the real world.
Well, decent reply, I think. Although it’s kind of sad to see what “questions” he had to reply to in the first place :S
And here they are again: David and somebody… I’m looking forward to another decent discussion
@somebody
We are working on a set of guidelines (these are the Aero user interface guidelines) to help application authors use this stuff in a consistent way
Just as their consistancy between Office 2003 and XP??? Yep, I agree those are really good guidelines for consistant desktop.
Well, even though they don’t boast the same look, they do integrate with eachother. UI consistency isn’t all about looks you know, it’s about lay out as well. No matter how much you hate MS, you cannot deny the fact that when it comes to layout among different MS apps, the consistency is practically 100%. And, don’t come up with the fact that cmd.exe uses the Classic look– this has a purpose
Yep, no inovation there. But paper technology is interesting, I agree.
Innovation is more than just comming up with something new. As discussed in the other thread, combining several existing features, enhancing them in ways no one else has done before, is innovation as well.
@David:
Oh please… Look at the history of Windows, the minimum specs and the specs you actually need in the real world. When you are running multiple applications, in 3D mode, believe me you will need a heck of a lot more than 128 MBs on your graphics card. Try running this 3D desktop with a game as well. As usual, the only way you will be able to use this spec is if you do nothing with Windows but boot it up and look at it.
XP runs fine on the minimum specs. I’ve tested them, you know. My next project will be installing XP on my notebook: 366 MHz PII. My RAM right now on that machine is 64, but I’m thinking of upping the RAM.
Glass will also be the target for Microsoft applications and everything will have to follow. You may be able to run lower specs, but your applications will not look good, not take advantage of many features or not run at all, with a polite dialogue box telling you what you need.
We’re not allowed to believe MS when they say that Longhorn will run on “normal” machines, but we should believe you when you say this? Do you really think Software creators will risk loosing clientele? Do you have any idea of economics?
I’ve had too much experience with Windows and hardware specs.
Yeah right.
“We are working on a set of guidelines (these are the Aero user interface guidelines) to help application authors use this stuff in a consistent way”
Just as their consistancy between Office 2003 and XP??? Yep, I agree those are really good guidelines for consistant desktop.
No, not like that at all. Hence the guidelines. Idiot.
“While Windows had been compiling and shipping on 64 bit for quite a while”
My favorite too. Turning the talk all the way. Not that they don’t know to code CSS. Flaming goes to IE that interprets CSS incorrectly (not by w3c standards)
Who is “THEY”? This is one person’s blog. And the CSS is valid, run it through the CSS validator if you don’t believe. And it displays correctly in IE and FF. You’ll notice the Slashdot poster admits he is a troll at the end.
Speaking trolls, the rest of your comments have about as much merit… twisted half truths taken out of context (or nearly fabricated), so why bother responding. I hope you get modded down. I’m sorry you’re so bitter. Must come from all those years of manually mounting your drives, editing /etc/fstab, /etc/resolv.conf and all that other stuff that otherwise keeps you guys too busy to do any real work.
Microsoft Releases Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003 to Manufacturing….REDMOND, Wash. — March 28, 2003
Quite a while, I see.
Gee, you delibaretely removed some words from that quote:
While Windows had been compiling and shipping (well, in beta to be clear) on 64 bit for quite a while
Actually, I added the “(well, in beta to be clear)” after the fact. I wanted to be super clear. It wasn’t there when the poster first quoted me.
Sorry about that. Perhaps I should have put a comment on the post when I changed it.
Joe
@Thom
Sorry to dissapoint you. I’m leaving home. My work is done for today:) And since I’m mostly waiting for checkups there’s a lot of time to post:) Nice to have your own bussiness. Be back tommorow though:)
Integrate with each other:
1. Where I don’t wnat them to? Yes
2. Where I would like to? No
3. Feel? Not really and then again yes, but only at given case that you disable al of annoyances like clipy, sidebar, etc.
Desktop is way of consistancy, and “(these are the Aero user interface guidelines) to help application authors use this stuff in a consistent way.” sounds like a HIG to me
Inovation…
To put it simply, if I shit and walk I’m *Inventor*
@Anonymous
Yes, he meant look and feel, and thats HIG, otherwise this has no case.
Who is “THEY”?
“dipshits still can’t code html/css?” I’m not really English speaking person, English is my fourth language. But this sounds like MORE THAN ONE PERSON.
64-bit beta
Yes, here you are right. I overlooked BETA. SORRY. MY BAD. No intentional cut.
About bitterness
No there’s no bitterness. And if it would be it would be from all of my Windows years. Now my bussiness consists only very little Windows related work (25-30 workstations and 3 servers) then there’s (:mostly Linux:)(cca. 50 servers). And believe me, I’m quite happy. And my previous bitterness (with all its suicidal factors) is all gone. But thanks for consideration.
I screwed up the formatting, and part of my text disappeared. If you read his post, you will see that overlapped look is intentional. It looks that way in IE and Mozilla based browsers. It is also valid CSS (try the CSS validator on it for yourself to see).
WTF was I reading? Two mistakes in one article?? Maybe two days working with 4 hours of sleep is getting to me. But that’s not excuse for my part (:At least I wouldn’t accept it as excuse if that was someone elses mistake:)
Heh, thanx again. I always gladly accept correction:) MY BAD:)
OK, sorry for being rude. I thought you were doing it intentionally to start a flame war..
By the time Longhorn ships, DX10-class cards should be available, or soon after.
By this time, hopefully the industry would have moved from AGP/PCI to PCI Express. Yes, there are some graphics cards being tested that work on PCI-Express, but IMHO, the intereting things will start to happen when PCI Express becomes mainstream.
David (IP: —.freedom2surf.net) – Posted on 2004-05-24 21:52:20
Well, past history is one thing. Windows 95 running within 8MB (doesn’t run well on 32), Windows 98 running on 64 MB (you need > 128) and NT 4 running on 64 MB (that was a joke)
Just a wee minor correction, Windows NT 4 minimum requirements were 32MB RAM, oh, and it ran like a dog on Cyrix/IBM/VIA chips but fairly alright on AMD/Intel. Funny, running Linux on the Cyrix chips isn’t too painful.
As for Windows 2000, minimum was 64MB, which was a completely crock of crap, even at the best of times, Windows loaded up will consume *minimum* of 43MB RAM, throw a couple of applications and before you know it, your hard disk will be thrashing like there was no tomorrow.
This was when there was a some tension between Microsoft and OEMs with OEMs (Dell in particular) claiming that 128MB is the minimum, where as Microsoft arrogantly claimed 64MB was sufficient.
My All-In-Wonder 9600 has DX9 support.
Also, I didn’t understand about the 3D graph. It said you could manipulate it in real time. Hasn’t that feature been available in GoBeProductive since 1999?
I never start a flame war. I always speak naked truth with no difference which and what.
I post the facts. And I’m always interested for people to express their view. Here and on /., and every other place. If the views are intelligent and base on the facts everybody could learn.
I was a little bit relieved when Joe Beda actualy posted here, that you and me really saw different version. He actualy corrected his post after I reacted.
Joe Beda (if you read this – M$ or not, kudos, there aren’t many people that would admit that so easy).
p.s. I had to be really tirred yesterday for not seeing the post that Joe Beda made:)
btw. The easiest thing is to admit mistake, and hardest is to make up for time you’ve been proving wrong and knowing you’re the one who is wrong. But only if someone answers with the facts as you did. Dear Thom and Eugenia, you could learn a lot from this.
btw. The easiest thing is to admit mistake, and hardest is to make up for time you’ve been proving wrong and knowing you’re the one who is wrong. But only if someone answers with the facts as you did. Dear Thom and Eugenia, you could learn a lot from this.
I haven’t made any mistakes I can admit. I’m sorry.
But anyway, good to have you back!
Yeah, right:)
Whatever
a true consistent HIG for windows!!!
Windows has always had a consistent set of HIG.
The problem is getting people to *follow* them.
Oh please… Look at the history of Windows, the minimum specs and the specs you actually need in the real world.
Looking at the history of Windows, I fully expect Longhorn to be installable on any P3 class machine.
After all, XP is (barely) usable on a ca. 1995 dual Pentium machine and quite usable on any PPro and up class machine with 256M+ RAM (and the fancy UI toned down).
Windows 95 was usable – slowly – on 386s that were released in the late 80s. Get the RAM up to 8+MB and it was faster (and more stable) than Windows 3.1.
NT4 was probably the “worst” for legacy hardware support – it required at least a 486, and they were “only” released about 4 years before it was.
When you are running multiple applications, in 3D mode, believe me you will need a heck of a lot more than 128 MBs on your graphics card. Try running this 3D desktop with a game as well. As usual, the only way you will be able to use this spec is if you do nothing with Windows but boot it up and look at it.
I would expect the minimum spec for a machine to be usable with multiple applications and none of the flashy graphics to be ca. 1Ghz P3 with 768Mb RAM.
Glass will also be the target for Microsoft applications and everything will have to follow.
History would not suggest this.
You may be able to run lower specs, but your applications will not look good, not take advantage of many features or not run at all, with a polite dialogue box telling you what you need. I’ve had too much experience with Windows and hardware specs.
Windows has always run quite usably on contemporary and reasonably older hardware (1 – 2 generations old). Legacy support has always been one of Microsoft’s main focus points – I can’t see any reason to think this is going to change.
Well, past history is one thing. Windows 95 running within 8MB (doesn’t run well on 32),
Windows 95 is blazingly fast with 32Mb of RAM unless you’ve weighed it down with lots of third party cruft and/or broken hardware drivers.
Windows 98 running on 64 MB (you need > 128)
Windows 98 is usable in 32 and quite fast in 64 unless, again, you’re weighing it down with third party code.
and NT 4 running on 64 MB (that was a joke).
I spent a year quite happily using NT4 on a Pentium 100 with 40Mb of RAM. It was quite fast enough – I regularly played Quake deathmatches with CDs burning in the background (at a blazingly fast 4x).
Windows Me politely tells you that you cannot run it on a processor less than 150 MHz, even though a 133 should be fine. You know, that sort of thing.
The line has to be drawn somewhere. Pentium 150s were released at the beginning of 1995. You really think requiring a machine no more than 5.5 years old is unreasonable ?
What makes it worse is that is I’ve seen Windows installed on thousands of desktops, and it is incredibly difficult to comprehend how bad things can actually be when you have it installed fine at home. I’ve never had any problems whatsoever with Windows 95, 98, XP or Office once I got enough memory to run them on. When I really started using them, with many different people, then it was a different story.
About 80% of Windows problems can be pinned down to bad hardware and/or bad drivers.
I’ve seen thousands of Windows machines as well, running just about every version of Windows ever released.
Saying that Microsoft has not produced any specs doesn’t alter anything. We know they will be way in excess of what is around today, and we already know you will need some very weighty 3D graphics hardware.
Based on what ?
Going from historical record, Microsoft has typically targeted Windows to be usable on hardware 3 – 5 years old at the time of release (NT4 being the only real breaker of that rule). So, with a predicted release year of 2007, I fully expect Longhorn to be quite usable on machines that are about a year old *right now*. I expect the base spec to be “Pentium 3 processor or better, 256Mb RAM” although I wouldn’t be completely surprised if the base processor was a Pentium 4.
You can archive that and come back to me in 3 years if you want.
I hate Windows in many ways because there are many poor people, and organizations out there, who are going to have to install and administer this thing (they’re going to have to do things with it rather than saying how cool it is) and buy new hardware for it.And then you buy more hardware. And more.
They’ll be buying new hardware anyway. Nearly every business I’ve ever seen (charities and the like excepted) works on a 3 year replacement cycle, so when Longhorn hits, the oldest machines will be the ones commonly available right now, stretching back to about a year.
A 3D desktop is going to bring organizations no increases in functionality (it does the same thing) and people are going to have to pay for it because that is what Microsoft thinks you need.
And, much like XP, it will be easily disabled if the hardware can’t handle it.
Yer, that sounds like religion to me so maybe I have way too much experience. Calling decent comments religious doesn’t make the other side look good
.
Your experience is either (apparently) highly atypical, or your memory is faulty. Your memory of Windows’ realistic minimum hardware requirements is off by about a year to 18 months and your predictions bear no relation to historical trends.
Just a wee minor correction, Windows NT 4 minimum requirements were 32MB RAM, oh, and it ran like a dog on Cyrix/IBM/VIA chips but fairly alright on AMD/Intel. Funny, running Linux on the Cyrix chips isn’t too painful.
NT 4’s minimum specs were a 486 CPU (it used some 486-specific instructions) and *12* MB of RAM. It will actually boot in 8, but won’t install on a machine with less than 12.
So at release, NT4 would run on hardware that was about 7 years old. This is reasonably consistent, as (IIRC) Win2k requires at least a Pentium, and they came out in 1993 – and I’ve personally installed XP on a ca. 1995-96 dual Pentium machine.
As I posted elsewhere, I spent a year or so (early 1996 – from NT4 beta 2) using NT4 on a Pentium 100 with 40Mb of RAM. That machine was quite capable of running many applications at once, including burning CDs (at an amazing 4x, off an IDE drive no less) while simultaneously playing Quake deathmatches. Of course, when I upgraded to a K6/233 and a whopping 128Mb of RAM it made a big difference, but the old machine was still *usable*.
Also, I think you’ll find it ran poorly on Cyrix CPUs because of a few instructions they weren’t very good/fast at executing, or possibly to do with not enabling the L1 cache by default – my memory is hazy – but it could be worked-around somehow.