Microsoft Plans WinXP "Reloaded" 871
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Microsoft changed their minds and are planning a new OS release before Longhorn. They are calling it XP Reloaded."
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Microsoft Plans WinXP "Reloaded"
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Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. - Alan Turing
OMFG ROTFLMAO ROR! (Score:5, Funny)
Based on the results page, I think they really do need another release -- nearly every single query result was a question about how to reload the operating system because a bunch of shit just stopped working!
Once XP Reloaded comes out, I can't wait to query for "XP Reloaded Reloaded" and see if the number of results returned decreases at all, or if the MS tards just add more bugs with every "bug fix". Hahahaha!
Re:OMFG ROTFLMAO ROR! (Score:5, Funny)
Prior art. "Reload(ed) Windows" has been used many, many many times. Many times. Many....we're talking astronomical mathematical scales, here. At least.
The only thing that surpasses it is "restarted windows".
SB
Re:OMFG ROTFLMAO ROR! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OMFG ROTFLMAO ROR! (Score:5, Funny)
Whether windows "reloaded" or "restarted" is more popular.
Heh. Heeeeeeeeee
Slashdot is not experiencing a laughter shortage today. Thanks, Microsoft. We needed it. It's winter...
SB
Re:OMFG ROTFLMAO ROR! (Score:5, Funny)
Only in the temperate regions of Northern Hemisphere, you insensitive clod!
Re:OMFG ROTFLMAO ROR! (Score:5, Funny)
See what two consecutive bullshit stories regarding Microsoft IN ONE DAY can do to your brain? Turns it to recycled mush! This is your brain...and this is your brain when you start believing MS PR (pours brain out into saucepan)
I think I need to go outside....
SB
There are better movies to name it after. (Score:5, Funny)
I think "you got served" is a pretty good candidate myself.
Re:There are better movies to name it after. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. Reloaded sucked. I would have thought they'd call it: X2. Especially if they're gonna name it after movie sequels.
Thank God, they didn't call it The Butterfly Effect.
On the other hand, House of Sand and Fog would describe XP pretty well.
Re:There are better movies to name it after. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There are better movies to name it after. (Score:5, Funny)
And the next Linux Kernel could be named "Kill Bill, part 1 and 2".
Re:There are better movies to name it after. (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense. IIS has never served to anyone, except as a cautionary tale.
Re:There are better movies to name it after. (Score:5, Funny)
The *REAL* XP Reloaded (Score:5, Funny)
It's really quite funny.
Re:The *REAL* XP Reloaded (Score:5, Funny)
Reloaded? Revolutions? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reloaded? Revolutions? (Score:5, Funny)
Windows XP - Millenium Edition (Score:5, Insightful)
a patched up version to keep the income stream happening. Which doesn't mean it won't have some interesting stuff, but the MS history is that it will wind up as another dead end.
and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Actually what I'm thrilled about (even if others say its horribly inefficient) is the 3D accelerated desktop that is supposed to be in Longhorn, and doing away with 2D acceleration. The Mac has it, why can't we?
Though I doubt Reloaded will have it as it would take away the Longhorn hype
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Informative)
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
No, no, no... the real name will be XPF (Score:5, Funny)
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
But it uses the NT kernel so it could also be called Windows NTXPSE.
I'm sure MS can get more letters in that abbreviation.
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Could be.
Or what about Windows Special Edition XP ?
Since, as you say, it still uses the NT kernel it could be Windows Special Edition XP Original Technology.
Windows SEXPOT.
Sounds like a winner.
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Okay. It ptobably wouldn't. Ignore this post.
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
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Important Notice! The choice of visiting this site has been taken away in Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Sweden. Residents of these countries must _click here_!
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Now, let's think about this for a minute. They're on the site and from (e.g.) Belgium, so they need to click the link...but, if 'the choice has been taken away', how exactly did they get there?
Setting themselves up... (Score:5, Funny)
"Like the original, except everyone's disappointed with it."
"Reloaded? More like reBOOTed! BURN!"
"Here comes Desktop Agent Clippy Smith! 'It looks like you're trying to type a letter, Mister Anderson...'"
"XP has you!"
And so on.
Re:Setting themselves up... (Score:5, Funny)
"Ok, so what do you need, besides a license?"
"Hardware. Lots of Hardware."
Re:Setting themselves up... (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome back, Mr. Idiot User. We've missed you.
SB
Re:Setting themselves up... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Setting themselves up... (Score:5, Funny)
Smith: "One of these opertaing systems has a future. The other does not."
Neo (looking confused and stupid as always): "I know my rights. You can't scare me with this XP crap."
Smith: "And how are you going to tell anyone about Linux if our search engine returns no results."
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Umm... the Macs don't. The macs use display pdf which can be scaled much like vector graphics that longhorn will include. However Longhorn will do almost all of that on the card (Which macs are starting to do (Quarz Extreme which still does some things in software (CPU)).
Nor will longhorn be a '3d' desktop for the most part, instead it will be more like doing 2D acceleration in 3D spaces, which most cards cannot do efficiently. They mostly flush the render buffer for every switch & the 3D part is still seperate from the 2D portion with the end 3D buffer being blitted to the 2D buffer when it isn't full screen. The main benefit is: vector grapics (which can be done in 2D easily, (example: kde's crystal svg icons) but all 3D apis provide this accelerated if the hardware does it.) which allow smaller sized icons which can scale up & down better than bitmaps, and is useful for high resolution windows so that even if you need large things (poor eyesight) it can only look better running at higher resolution (by having the computer calculate how to display something at 200dpi to a monitor which was at 100dpi (it isn't hard, and if you don't use vector graphics, it is essentially just pixel quadrupling, however with vector grapics & aa, it looks better)
And for anyone who doesn't think cards need a lot of ram: my current desktop is using more than 12MB, and that's only going to go up.
Re:and in other news (Score:5, Funny)
Which will be another similarity between the next version of Windows and the Matrix movies -- gratuitous eye candy effects, rendered in slow motion...
Re:Doing away with 2D acceleration? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Doing away with 2D acceleration? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doing away with 2D acceleration? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quartz Extreme. (Score:5, Interesting)
And it's not wastefull at all. It is simply taking advantage of commonly existing hardware that didn't exist when the original 2D API was created.
The reality is that unless you buy a Matrox card, the 2D acceleration that your video card brings to the tape hasn't improved that much at all in the last five years. The 2D core is more than good enough to do what's required of it so most video card companies don't bother expending much energy improviing things. 3D acceleration, on the other hand, has improved at rates that throttle the imagination.
Brings up an old, old saying.... (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't that be... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
insert Matrix joke here (Score:5, Funny)
Re:insert Matrix joke here (Score:5, Funny)
Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you install Linux, you won't have to.
Gotta keep the upgrade revenues... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember what happened when XP missed its deadline... Microsoft ended up shipping WindowsMe which in most circles stands for "Mistake Edition".
We know the real reason they're putting this out. It's not for the innovation value, but that sales of the XP Update have started to tail off, and this will convince some people who already have XP to buy the upgrade...
Re:Gotta keep the upgrade revenues... (Score:5, Interesting)
Real big architectural changes a-coming (64 bit CPUs, PCI-X, BTX (more of a form factor but i believe ties into OS controlled temp and whatnot), etc..), and the current OS doesn't support them, and the next OS is too far off.
I wouldnt be surprised if they merged the 64bit and 32bit code trees, or something of the sort.
Wait a minute .... (Score:5, Funny)
Not much difference from what they did with 98SE or 95B (or 95C).
Surprised to see me, Mr Gates? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh how I long for Windows Really Good Edition (Score:5, Funny)
XP Rebooted (Score:5, Funny)
That's like in high school when you'd be hanging out at your friend's house and his dad would be one of those guys who thought he was cool but he was actually terribly out of touch. You know, the kind of guy who would come downstairs in like 1998 and say something like, "What are you guys doing? Listening to Nirvana?" in a desperate attempt to seem cool and "with it."
Re:XP Rebooted (Score:5, Funny)
I saw the XP BSOD Today... (Score:5, Insightful)
While that was happening, I realized it had been about two and a half years since XP came out. It seems like MS operating systems aways start to wear out after 2-3 years, just in time for the new release to claim it fixes all of those bugs...
Re:I saw the XP BSOD Today... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, today's bits just don't seem to age as gracefully as the bits o' yore. I blame it on the advent of antivirus software. Software doesn't get the chance to build up a natural immunity anymore...
Re:I saw the XP BSOD Today... (Score:5, Informative)
It may be a hardware problem - dodgy RAM, something overheating, etc. Seriously, it might be an idea to open the machine up, clean all the fans, heatsinks, etc, and take a look. Actually investigate the problem, rather than just shrugging and saying "Windows, huh?".
Re:I saw the XP BSOD Today... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they installed some "free" program. It installed spyway/malware/hijackware on their system. They have 20 processes in the background that they do not even know is running. The machine is crawling along, and then their 90 days of anti-virus updates ends. Now a month later, the next big virus is out, they are using outlook express (with default) settings. Now they have at least one virus on their system.
The person of average intelligence who does not spend several hours a month keeping up on firewall, antivirus, malware, adware and other security/performace issues, will soon have a constantly rebooting, locks often, won't shut down box.
Not a blue screen, but just about the same thing, The big lie microsoft has always told, just plug a computer in with windows and start working, everthing will work find and stay working fine.
I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Which will it be? (Score:5, Insightful)
XP Reloaded bundle... (Score:5, Funny)
Got it already (Score:5, Funny)
Deja vu? (Score:5, Funny)
*crickets*
sorry.
Obligatory Keanu quote... (Score:5, Funny)
Adding value? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds more like they are Exploring (TM) ways to add value to Microsoft.
Belloc
How appropriately named. (Score:5, Funny)
Probably good for Linux (Score:5, Informative)
And delayed. Point is, to me this indicates that Longhorn's release date just became slightly more tentative than it was before. Which is a good thing for alternative operating systems like the growing and ever-improving GNU/Linux.
And in the short term it's a good thing for Microsoft, as some people are likely to fork over the $100 (or whatever) upgrade.
Re:Probably good for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
'Overly-hyped'?
I'm no Microsoft apologist but Chicago became Windows 95 which completely dominated the desktop, and NT 5.0 became Windows 2000, which is probably the most popular, stable server OS Microsoft ever made...both of these operating systems made a kajillion-bazillion dollars for Microsoft. That's not just hype.
Although I will concede that they took a long time to make it to market...
MeepMeep
XP Unplugged (Score:5, Funny)
Re:XP Unplugged (Score:5, Funny)
Shhhh. Quiet. That would be the most secure OS ever.
My Dell already has XP Preloaded (Score:5, Funny)
Software Assurance (Score:5, Interesting)
a full release not really needed (Score:5, Informative)
Screw Fermat's Last Theorem. MS spending time adding a _popup blocker_ to IE when the PNG & CSS issues remain is the biggest mystery of our time. If they add tabs and _still_ don't fix CSS & PNG, I'm gonna totally lose it.
Re:a full release not really needed (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not using Firefox, but Mozilla itself crashes _far less_ than IE does on the machines I use. I think I've only seen Mozilla crash 1 or 2 times since I started using v1.6. IE would crash at _least_ every other day on me, quite often multiple times a day.
And all the developers screamed in agony (Score:5, Funny)
adding value (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I read the article, and I loved this quote from Window's lead project manager:
"We are exploring ways to add value to Windows XP."
To me, that sounds like newspeak for "We are exploring ways to get existing XP users to pony up extra cash."
What's funny about all this is the article talks all about the prospect for this new XP release, without mentioning even one feature Reloaded would contain. Go figure.
Here's some wild speculation: Longhorn development is running into problems that are further delaying development, so Microsoft is responding with a stopgap operating system. Maybe they should call it OS9 instead of Reloaded.
Anyway, from a Linux advocate's perspective, anything that pushes back Longhorn has to be considered a good thing. Longhorn will no doubt come with some compelling features that will make Linux a harder sell. So the longer it takes to be released, the more time Linux has to establish its foothold.
Note that I'm not saying that Longhorn will be a product I'd want to have. Every new release of Windows seems to be more restrictive than the last, and what little I understand about .NET terrifies me. Still, there's no denying that some users will view Longhorn as sort of the OSX release of Windows.
Re:adding value (Score:5, Insightful)
Please - no flames - but isn't that kinda backwards? The whole case Linux Zealots have been trying to prove is that Linux is better than Windows. Now are we afraid that Microsoft will get better and force Linux to get better too? Don't we want Microsoft products to get better? I know I do, even if Linux is still a better option. C'mon man, they aren't really evil, they're just big. I hope the next Windows OS is the WhizBang MS Solution to OS X. I hope the same for Linux distros. I hope the next version of Mac OS is better too. We're all going to have to deal with them (Windows users) at some point, lets hope for the best possible OS Microsoft can develop. I'd like to believe that all platforms will be stable, secure, and scalable for beginners to tech users.
Re:adding value (Score:5, Funny)
To me, that sounds like newspeak for "We are exploring ways to get existing XP users to pony up extra cash."
I read it as Microsoft admitting XP currently has no value. But maybe I'm just cynical...
Which just goes to show... (Score:5, Interesting)
Today we have learned that "new intermediate version" means "omigod, I am up to my eyeballs in delays, and I don't want to look like an ass to my users^W customers"
Service Pack (Score:5, Insightful)
Not its final name (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that the only MS person quoted in the article is never quoted as calling it XP Reloaded, its only implied ("Sullivan said that the possible release of XP Reloaded does not indicate a delay for Longhorn." is not a quote, but sounds more like something Cnet bodged together out of the info it had to hand), but an external analysist did, clear indication that this is a pet name for the project and not its official title.
Isn't everybody? (Score:5, Funny)
everyone runs Windows, reloaded. (Probably more than once).
Wrong Movie.... Its Mini ME! (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it's better than some other names. (Score:5, Funny)
Or, as someone else said, Windows XP: Return of the King.
Maybe a better name would be Windows XP: The Phantom Menace.
Or Windows XP 2: 2 Farked 2 Frivolous.
An Open Posting for Steve Balmer... (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Balmer,
I am not an idiot. The company that I work for is not populated by idiots, either.
It has become increasingly apparent in the past few years that Microsoft is clearly more interested in Microsoft's business and less and less interested in ours. Your penchant for adding meaningless and often useless features to your software while ratcheting up the "Draconian" knob on your license amplifier is blatent, obvious and conveys a serious lack of respect for your customers.
Now go away before I taunt you a second time.
Re:An Open Posting for Steve Balmer... (Score:5, Funny)
Whilst I appreciate that neither you or your company are idiots, the fact is that you will probably continue to use Microsoft product like you have in the past and have to pay for this upgrade.
Our research shows that very few if any of our customers have made a switch or are likely to switch to an alternative operating system, and thus we feel that we are providing a service to you by upgrading your operating environment to a more modern version and charging you money for the privilege.
Thankyou for choosing Microsoft!
Lots of Love,
Steve.
Lacking focus... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it's time to stop adding value and start subtracting crappiness.
Love, Masque.
P.S. Please open the enclosed attachment.
Wouldn't it be amusing if.... (Score:5, Funny)
Pop Up Blocking in IE is bad for us (I'm serious) (Score:5, Insightful)
Once pop-ups cease to be effective for the advertiser, they'll disappear. Instead, they'll find new ways of getting to their audience, like flash movies in the middle of a page, that will affect everyone, regardless of browser (except lynx).
Right now, I'm happy with the unwashed masses dealing with advertisements so I don't have to.
SPOILER: (Score:5, Funny)
The Problem with Letter Versions (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows XP
Windows XP Reloaded
Windows XP Revolutions
Windows Xtreme
Windows Xtreme Unleashed
Windows Opposing Force
Windows Blue Shift
Does that stuff mean anything? No. With letter versioning and now this word versioning, to know what is newer than the next the user is just required to know. 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, it all makes logical sense. Words, unless they come up with alphabetical names (which would be kinda cool, but still limiting) mean nothing other than "this one is kinda different".
Complie that with other pieces of software which will follow suit (Look at all the software using 2 letter naming convensions for their versioning already) and we'll have very little knowledge what version is actually what.
Additionally, a benefit to number versioning was it allowed us to say "ok, this is 1.0, this software is really new and hasn't undergone any revisons," or "alright, this is version 3.2, they've taken a couple cracks at it and added some fixes." What if I told you I just made Gigawhop Reloaded. What the heck is that? Unless you knew the name of the software already, is it called Gigawhop or Gigawhop Reloaded as a whole? Is Reloaded actually the version? What does that even mean to me? Is it my first release? Second? Third? Tenth?
You have been warned...
Re:Well it can't be much worse than the movie (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well it can't be much worse than the movie (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well it can't be much worse than the movie (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well it can't be much worse than the movie (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, and while we wait: AniXPrick will let us know more of the XP mythology (security, usability, TCO and the real reason why a web browser, an instant messenger and a media player are integrated parts of the XP). And don't forget to buy the sound track, with unforgettable hits like tada.wav, chord.wav, notify.wav and the incredible recycle.wav!
Re:Well it can't be much worse than the movie (Score:5, Funny)
"XP Rebloated"
Hell if it's anything like Windows ME was to Windows 98 than that name would apply.
Re:Well it can't be much worse than the movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like a good combination of "XP Reloaded" and "XP Rebooted", with a little slice of truth added for flavour...
Re:Proportions? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:(TM) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:(TM) (Score:5, Funny)
You mean Hippocrates as in the Hippocratic oath? Part of which reads:
I will follow that system or regimen which, according to my ability and judgement, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.
I don't think Microsoft could ever be credibly accused of being a bunch of hippocrites.
Re:XP reloaded (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Enough with the fucking reloaded! (Score:5, Funny)
Did you read the article? (Score:5, Insightful)