Windows XP Starter Edition Review 430
Digitalommm writes "Paul Thurrott has a story on the latest developments on Windows XP Starter Edition. There are some very good points that the Linux community could adopt. An example is end-user training videos such as how to use a mouse." This is an optimistic, even glowing look at the Starter Edition, which even for Thurrot was not available for unsupervised use, only demonstrated by Microsoft for him. (For using-a-mouse videos, I would suggest also Roblimo's book Point and Click Linux .)
Review, my arse (Score:5, Insightful)
This could be dangerous! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's really nothing more reliable for support than having a friend who knows what he/she is doing anyway.
computers + old age. (Score:1, Insightful)
i built him a computer to check his email with and run a small webserver with the "family dot com" as he says.
or anything else... sure, he fumbled with XP for a little bit. since then i've brought him to linux though.
but everybody takes time to adjust to the os for a little while.
also note, every community college, and adult-education center, and public library i can think of in every place i've lived,
offers FREE, yes.. FREE basic computer instruction for those who actually have lived a sheltered life
and have never seen/used a mouse before.
(and of course i have taken into consideration those who do live in extreemly rual or remote areas,
in which they may need a 'howto' on how to operate a pc.
but don't most investigate how to use one, BEFORE they buy one?)
Too Dumbed Down (Score:1, Insightful)
Max. 3 programs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good Job Timothy (Score:4, Insightful)
But afterall, that's what a good business does. Only look short-term how to make the most amount of money.
Personally I hate windows not because I'm a l33t linux user. Or that it's cool to hate Windows. I hate Windows because it's fucking annoying. No developement tools, one desktop, totally exploited every 8 seconds, the kernel isn't that stable, you can't restart the desktop without rebooting, etc....
Rarely if ever do I have to cold-reboot my linux box. Usually restarting X will fix any problems [which also happens rarely] with the desktop.
That and I can hack the kernel if I want [which I have had todo once when cpufreqd was a bit whiny about my buggy bios having 2 PST entries]. Can't do that in Windows...
Tom
Re:This could be dangerous! (Score:2, Insightful)
Lots of things the Linux Community should learn... (Score:3, Insightful)
If Linux is ever going to conquer the desktop, it will take the effort of many dedicated people who not only have the time & the patience, but also obsess about the user experience of the aforementioned unwashed.
Unlike the average /. reader, the majority of people view the computer as a tool, a means to an end, not as a hobby and not as the end itself.
Customers in emerging markets? (Score:1, Insightful)
I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
Misplaced priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
There are so many things Microsoft needs to be concentrating on
Instead, they give us this crap.
How nice.
Re:Review, my arse (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is exactly what everything Paul writes can be described as. He's a shill, pure and simple.
Re:Max. 3 programs (Score:3, Insightful)
What about services or background apps; my windows box runs software like antivirus on startup (as it should) but also what about dhcpd or similar. It also defaults to running things like MSNMessenger on startup and if I actually want to launch software myself MSOutlook also uses word as its default editor... there are 2 more programs starting as 1
If the standard windows build was limited to just 3 apps it wouldn't even start up so how are "programs" classified?
Re:Review, my arse (Score:1, Insightful)
This IS Paul Thurrott we're talking about. Anyone who can consistently praise Microsoft, consistently put down anything that's NOT Microsoft either lives in a world where Microsoft is perfect and everything else is the devil, or is a shillfanboy without the ability to think critically.
For a tip on which way Paul falls, in this world Microsoft isn't perfect.
Remember, Paul is the guy who described the MyDoom attack on Windows PCs as "A worm that is spread via email passing through servers, chiefly UNIX systems".
Way to try deflecting the blame.
My favorite quote from the Article (Score:3, Insightful)
Why yes, yes I would call Windows XP Home Edition crippled, and yes I am an IT professional. Why, yes, our envionment does oave over 20,000 seats.
Does crippled==sucks? Not really, but please...if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, call it a freaking duck!
Mouse training: MS is catching up withApple (Score:3, Insightful)
When it comes to catering to the home user, Microsoft is definitely catching up to Apple. Watch out, Apple--they're only twenty years behind you now!
Give Microsoft some credit here (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have to train for mouse, consider CLI. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) mostly because I forget where I left the cursor,
2) because it's comfortable (I hold it between thumb and little finger),
4) see (1).
My mother has a terrible time with a mouse, and does 3 and 5. I've found that a trackball deals nicely with 5, and 3 responds to nothing but more practice time than she's willing to give.
She's a touch typist, though getting rusty, and it's still quite painless for her to type mozilla &. Remembering that you finish up commands with an apersand so you can do this AND something else seems pretty painless, too. Finding the little icon with the lizard head, and clicking on it, is difficult, even with a trackball. A big part of that is that the name of the program is mozilla, not lizardheadicon.
The cli needs just as much training as the gui, but the basic skills for the cli are more likely to be present in seniors. The fast-twitch-to-double-click requirement of the typical gui is a real problem for old farts, too.
If you're going to have to train folks to use a mouse, consider training them to get by without, using their keyboard and tab, alt-tab, et cetera.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all about getting new users into the Microsoft habit. They're like drug dealers, who offer the first hit free. In the west, the market is already sewn up, and your schools are educating your children that Microsoft is the only way. But out in India, Thailand, China, and so on, there are many millions of people who will get their first computer in the next 5 years. XPSE means these people will be getting their first hit free.
Microsoft don't want to sell Windows on shelves, they want to bundle Windows. Bundled Windows, taken for granted Windows, gives them Power. Power they can use to sell the things that really matter: big bucks corperate licenses, OEM deals, and so on.
With XPSE they will extend their awesome power over the 'long tail' of non-'power' users.
Re:Lots of things the Linux Community should learn (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple or MSFT can simply instruct their employees to do it. They have an incentive to do all the boring gruntwork that turns a bunch of lines of code into a good user experience: a paycheck.
For example, I installed KDE a few weeks ago, and there's a lot of good stuff there. But the way it set all the menus up out of the box was, frankly, moronic. There didn't seem to be any sense to it, it was completely unintuitive. Some items were repeated in just about every sub menu, others were impossible to find. The various dialogs and configurators and menus were anywhere from ugly to confusing to downright useless.
Some person, or group of people, need to sit and decide where to place menu items, how to lay out the forms, basically polish the GUI until it's on the level of OSX or Windows, out of the box.
Who's going to do that for free? Whoever does will get absolutely no credit, and will probably just get a lot of static and disrespect from geeks and coders who wouldn't appreciate any effort that doesn't result in new lines of code. Noone's exactly lining up to spend all of their spare time getting cussed out by a bunch of coders.
Linux just isn't a consumer-grade desktop OS, and I doubt it ever will be.
I read the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider why MS couldn't just take a regular version of XP Home and add some handholding features without sacrificing others. Besides possible limitations of the hardware, what's the big deal? The big deal is that this software will probably be sold or bundled for $10, not $99. If MS started selling Home for less, other countries/institutions/companies would demand to know why they can't get it for that price as well.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:3, Insightful)
Inherently addictions are to things that are enjoyable... I don't see how using a terribly stripped down version of windows is going to foster their "microsoft habit". If anything, I think it's going to drive them away from MS into the arms of something else. (most probably pirated copies of windows).
Who knows.
Re:This could be dangerous! (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile, if an illiterate user installs a keystroke logger and loses his credit card number, he then has to contact his credit issuer, at tremendous hassle to himself and the bank, and he may incur great losses on the credit card that the bank then has to write off. Meanwhile, someone else will have to clean up the mess on his computer.
The example may be somewhat hyperbolic, but such things do happen. I'm not trying to be patronizing or an asshole or anything else, but I live in the real world and in the real world ignorance has consequences. Please don't interpret this as a call for the requirement for an internet license or never messing around with computers; that, after all, is how one learns. The point is that, in a public environment like the internet, users don't exist in a bubble and what they do affects the rest of us. So when another user harms others through ignorance, the harmed party has some right to be irritated.
Re:Give Microsoft some credit here (Score:3, Insightful)
But maybe you use a different dictionary than I have...
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:2, Insightful)
That is precisely the reason why XP Starter Edition would be helpful for MS. It will be bundled legally with computers instead the full version of XP, so competing operating systems (i.e. Linux) are more likely to left out. The users of the crippled windows will be more likely to stick with it, or switch to the full version (either legit or copied), increasing Microsoft's market share. Then, they get the lucrative corporate/government contracts, and linux is left out of the picture.
Re:My favorite quote from the Article (Score:3, Insightful)
- A car with the exact same engine but with software to make the engine perform worse
- A camera identical in hardware to the higher-end models, but with firmware to make it do less or be less accurate
- An operating system identical to enterprise or server-class operating systems, save for a few programs having been removed and save for some registry keys which you may not change under the End User License Agreement
- A graphics card identical to higher-end models but with a chip on it that clocks it slower
- A phone that does Bluetooth OBEX transfers and DUN but which the cellphone network provider (e.g. sprint, Verizon) leaned on the phone vendor to remove OBEX or DUN capabilities from it
crippled.Not saying the company is evil for crippling the hardware, but the item itself is, yes, crippled.
Desktop Linux rocks and free=good attitude. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it comes down to this. Linux is essentially developed by geeks for geeks, and, as a generality, geeks have little time/patience with the "clueless newbie unwashed" who need their hands held.
And somehow closed source developers who have little time/patience for even their PEERS are better? What crap, the thing that support people are sick of is M$ problems, not the users Microsoft likes to blame for them. Users themselves are sick of junk that breaks so easily and being blamed for the problems. If you want real attitude problems, look to Redmond.
M$ computer "support" comes from two places, people who help their friends and $50/hr phone calls to M$. The second group is famous for being as helpful as psychic friends network, but less friendly [google.com]. The first group is dumping Microsoft and all of it's problems and insults.
If Linux is ever going to conquer the desktop, it will take the effort of many dedicated people who not only have the time & the patience, but also obsess about the user experience of the aforementioned unwashed.
Where have you been? Desktop Linux is here and it's easier to use than Winblows. Distributions like Mepis [mepis.org] install in less than 20 minutes and run great. The kernel does the hardware detection, so the user does not have to read arcane manuals, feed the computer floppies and CDs and reboot six or seven times. Printer configuration through CUPS and KDE is likewise a walk in the park. The KDE UI is both more powerful and easier to use than Winblows' pathetic, single screen ugly. 99% of what normal users want is there by default, where M$ users have to visit a store and spend hundreds of dollars and get the extra pleasures of DRM, DLL hell and other nasties. Getting specialized software is as easy as a no cost click with programs like Synaptic or Kpackage. Most importantly, free software keeps working. It stays up longer, for those who care, and it does not get eaten by automated worms, spyware, malware and other M$ born infection.
Unlike the average /. reader, the majority of people view the computer as a tool, a means to an end, not as a hobby and not as the end itself.
The average slashdot reader is well aware of that. Those that want to keep their reputation for recommending the best now recommend free software.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:3, Insightful)
Also I can't think of any use for it besides rising nations, it would be useless in schools, buisness, libraries, anywhere (including the home IMO). Unless their gonna get a contract from the US gov't to airdrop them on war-torn villages in Iraq, or something. Giving a people a choice though would be a bad idea, since people wouldn't choose it. There are enough tech savvy individuals in China and India to know that this is crippled, and it will be more than five years before the yokels in outer China and India have the means to afford something as superflous as a crippled computer. Then there is the problem that a lot of rural areas in the places you describe lack the infrastucture to make these computers feasable, mainly phone and stable power.
It is sad that our schools do this, indoctrinate us into MS. I remember when our school moved away from their cute little AT&T DOS terminals, to a full blown win 95 network, it was a sad day, they spent a couple million on two 95 labs, and one measily Mac lab. And then forced his students to tech the new machines. But Apple was guilty of this too. With young people though I don't think that this type of exposure actually matters. How many of the younger
I think they need to hit the older market, older people are more fixed in their ways. Force older computer novices to use one type of computer, and that is all they'll get.
Just install Linux dammit! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give Microsoft some credit here (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because all the program's options are visible in a menu and big fancy buttons doesn't mean that it's easy to use. It's just easy to learn .
Microsoft, I hereby credit you with being conniving, greedy, unscrupulous scum, that care only about making money.
Is that what you meant? MS did not cripple the software to make it easier to use, or even to make purchasers later buy more expensive versions. They did it to make it unsuitable for their existing markets, so that no companies will fight to get it sold in the U.S. or in other markets they already dominate through sales. This is an OS to be shipped in countries where the current OS is already windows, just pirated versions thereof. The reason is to stop Linux from gaining a share of those markets. You see the WTO is pushing hard for enforcement of copyrights, and some countries may have to comply to some degree. Right now, the only option is to go with Linux, which has the added benefit of being customizable to a culture and language.
To counter this threat MS creates a new version, that they can sell very cheaply or give away. They won't make much money on it, but with luck they can stop Linux from snowballing. This means if a country does ever become a viable market, then it will already be dominated, and even if it doesn't, it won't become a breeding ground for those darn Linux hippies. It makes perfect business sense, especially for someone who only knows how to be a monopoly.
So yes, I give MS credit. Credit for being smart and ruthless, but not innovative, nor for trying to help people. In the long run, they are just trying to take as much from as many as possible. And that is not going to help humanity, only hurt us.