Of Windows and Doors
Microsoft Windows - Every person who has ever used a PC in their life has used this operating system. Whether or not he has stuck with it is a different story. William Gates' dream of ruling over the world of computers came true with Windows. But now looking back at windows - does it still have what it takes to be a great operating system? Without doubt no one can beat the popularity of Windows in todays PC market. It was so difficult to beat it that even Apple has now started allowing dual boot on Mac's a feature which I was previously unaware of.
So who can compete with this Goliath of Operating Systems? In my opinion no one. The market share of Microsoft Windows beats any operating system hands down. Windows has more desktop users than any other OS. I have been using Windows since it's 3.11 release. I remember we had to run win.exe to start windows on MS DOS then. It wasn't an operating system in the real sense. I then upgraded to Windows 95 which in my opinion revolutionized the world of PC's. Unix then was not a viable option for desktop users and India hadn't really heard about MAC's.
So what made Windows 95 a success ease of use, the new GUI was amazing and speed with an option of running on older systems. It just was the complete OS a desktop user ever wanted. It supported Internet flawlessly which at that time was New Technology in India. Internet Explorer was always available to those who were stuck on Netscape. IE later on went to become the most popular browser in history but we can talk about browser wars later.
Microsoft made 95 better with Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE. Both these operating systems were truly great successors. Then personally I felt they lost it. Linux started coming up in a big way and the open source revolution started driving MS nuts I would say. They came up with Windows ME which I would say was amazingly fast in booting up but took my hard disk with it to the grave when it crashed. I called it Mandabuddhi Edition and not Millennium editon. Desktop users were feeling the pinch of Microsoft not being able to deliver a stable OS since 98SE. Then I would say Microsoft hit the jackpot of getting out XP which is popular even today and Windows 7 coming out has in house competetion on hands. They really got their heads messed up big time with Windows Vista. I don't know what those guys were thinking. It looks good but I feel it is just a look good factor which has kept it alive.
Windows 7 is coming up now and it really looks promising. But the requirement for a high end system to run an OS is just not getting through my thick skull.
I have switched to Linux Ubuntu for quite a while now and I feel no need to go back to Windows. I genuinely feel Windows is losing it's grip on the desktop user and probably in a decade it will lose it's huge marketshare to linux or even apple. The google threat of Chrome OS is something which I feel is stupid. Linux is slowly becoming a threat to Windows on Desktops. It was anyway a big threat on production systems. With an amazing UI experience people might find linux more 'usable' than Windows. It has full compatibility with Windows and most Windows applications have linux counterparts. Also you can run Windows inside of linux with an image file which runs faster than normal windows.
Personally I feel MS was pushed too hard. The PC community only found flaws with Windows. Hackers and darth vader's of the computer world targetted Windows to get famous. Today the antivirus programs on Windows are so heavy that some of them take 50% of CPU cycles to run! Linux on the other hand has no virus program necessary because the darth vader's are too lazy to create viruses for a such a small population of users. They can't get famous by targetting Linux. I feel Windows was targetted and brought down all the time. I mean look at the amount of pirated copies of Windows going around. If MS decided to sell Windows at 50 bucks damn they would be surprised by the licensing revenue in India alone. Agreed that each OS has it's problem but then that's software :)
Windows is slow not just because of the OS. It's because of those damn Antivirus, anti spyware and anti PC programs running on your system. And then there is the eventual 'BLUE SCREEN' which Windows is famous for. Hopefully we won't get that in Windows 7.
Looking forward to the OS Wars. Will Chrome OS actually hit the market? How will Windows 7 fare? Will Ubuntu become the next big thing? We all have to wait n watch.
Personally I love MAC OS and have even themed my linux accordingly. It has amazing usablity and great effects and compatibility.
So who can compete with this Goliath of Operating Systems? In my opinion no one. The market share of Microsoft Windows beats any operating system hands down. Windows has more desktop users than any other OS. I have been using Windows since it's 3.11 release. I remember we had to run win.exe to start windows on MS DOS then. It wasn't an operating system in the real sense. I then upgraded to Windows 95 which in my opinion revolutionized the world of PC's. Unix then was not a viable option for desktop users and India hadn't really heard about MAC's.
So what made Windows 95 a success ease of use, the new GUI was amazing and speed with an option of running on older systems. It just was the complete OS a desktop user ever wanted. It supported Internet flawlessly which at that time was New Technology in India. Internet Explorer was always available to those who were stuck on Netscape. IE later on went to become the most popular browser in history but we can talk about browser wars later.
Microsoft made 95 better with Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE. Both these operating systems were truly great successors. Then personally I felt they lost it. Linux started coming up in a big way and the open source revolution started driving MS nuts I would say. They came up with Windows ME which I would say was amazingly fast in booting up but took my hard disk with it to the grave when it crashed. I called it Mandabuddhi Edition and not Millennium editon. Desktop users were feeling the pinch of Microsoft not being able to deliver a stable OS since 98SE. Then I would say Microsoft hit the jackpot of getting out XP which is popular even today and Windows 7 coming out has in house competetion on hands. They really got their heads messed up big time with Windows Vista. I don't know what those guys were thinking. It looks good but I feel it is just a look good factor which has kept it alive.
Windows 7 is coming up now and it really looks promising. But the requirement for a high end system to run an OS is just not getting through my thick skull.
I have switched to Linux Ubuntu for quite a while now and I feel no need to go back to Windows. I genuinely feel Windows is losing it's grip on the desktop user and probably in a decade it will lose it's huge marketshare to linux or even apple. The google threat of Chrome OS is something which I feel is stupid. Linux is slowly becoming a threat to Windows on Desktops. It was anyway a big threat on production systems. With an amazing UI experience people might find linux more 'usable' than Windows. It has full compatibility with Windows and most Windows applications have linux counterparts. Also you can run Windows inside of linux with an image file which runs faster than normal windows.
Personally I feel MS was pushed too hard. The PC community only found flaws with Windows. Hackers and darth vader's of the computer world targetted Windows to get famous. Today the antivirus programs on Windows are so heavy that some of them take 50% of CPU cycles to run! Linux on the other hand has no virus program necessary because the darth vader's are too lazy to create viruses for a such a small population of users. They can't get famous by targetting Linux. I feel Windows was targetted and brought down all the time. I mean look at the amount of pirated copies of Windows going around. If MS decided to sell Windows at 50 bucks damn they would be surprised by the licensing revenue in India alone. Agreed that each OS has it's problem but then that's software :)
Windows is slow not just because of the OS. It's because of those damn Antivirus, anti spyware and anti PC programs running on your system. And then there is the eventual 'BLUE SCREEN' which Windows is famous for. Hopefully we won't get that in Windows 7.
Looking forward to the OS Wars. Will Chrome OS actually hit the market? How will Windows 7 fare? Will Ubuntu become the next big thing? We all have to wait n watch.
Personally I love MAC OS and have even themed my linux accordingly. It has amazing usablity and great effects and compatibility.
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