Has microsoft done anything good for the computer industry?

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Dos?

Probably ... but who still supports dos ?

[Aloone_Jonez]

http://www.freedos.org

[H_TeXMeX_H]

great ... I prefer Linux tho

[worker201]

One might also go so far as to say that Microsoft's open license with IBM allowed cloners to get into the market, forcing IBM to compete, and lowering the prices on hardware.  And once the prices were lowered enough to get new users into the market, prices dropped even further.  All personal computing hardware is ridiculously cheap now, much cheaper than it should be.  In fact, the majority of companies barely even take a profit on consumer hardware - they make their money back on servers and workstations.  For that, I guess we have Microsoft to thank.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

They only did it for their own profit though ... I don't think it should count ... after all ... all hardware is "designed for Microsoft Window$ XP", at least that's what it says on the fucking box ... same goes for computers (with a few exceptions)

[Dark_Me]

Yeah, that sucks. Thing is nowdays that hardware and OS are made by different companies so it shouldn't matter to the hardware companies. So then why are computers  made for Windows? Hmm, I smell anti-trust in the wind. Interestingly XP runs fine... if, like me you have a top of the line box. An OS's stability shouldn't be reliant on the hardware it's running, speed yes, but not hardware, that's just stupid. How would you even manage it?

[Aloone_Jonez]

An OS's stability shouldn't be reliant on the hardware it's running

That's just the way it is, if you run any OS on crappy cheap and nasty hardware you shouldn't expect it to be reliable, an OS is only as good as the hardware and vice versa.

[Dark_Me]

I should have clarified more. What I meant was (with Windows) you have to have the very best hardware or close for it to work properly. Such as with my comps, I got one that's all right (2.3 GHz 256MB RAM) and Windows earns it's bad reputation on that but on my new box, which is pretty good (3GHz 512MB RAM), it runs like a dream. I understand that hardware relates to the OS but it should not relate to the extent that it does with Windows.

[187nimd4]

I totally agree, of course .. it is like winamp: version 2 would load blazing fast, then they added 'eyecandy' and version 5 even without everything has trouble loading in the new skin mode, not classic mode: and even without version 2, just looking at version 5 in classic and other mode the difference can be seen; same thing with windows: just an example of bad programming (on a global scale); now this MUST be obvious to all but the blind .. sry off topic.

[MarathoN]

I should have clarified more. What I meant was (with Windows) you have to have the very best hardware or close for it to work properly. Such as with my comps, I got one that's all right (2.3 GHz 256MB RAM) and Windows earns it's bad reputation on that but on my new box, which is pretty good (3GHz 512MB RAM), it runs like a dream. I understand that hardware relates to the OS but it should not relate to the extent that it does with Windows.

I disagree, I run win2k on a 4 year old machine (AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1.53ghz, 512mb pc2100 ram) and it runs like a dream, no speed problems at all.

But when I tried it on xp, it was sooo slow and unbearable that I had to uninstall xp in the end, couldn't put up with it any longer. :rolleyes:

[piratePenguin]

I disagree, I run win2k on a 4 year old machine (AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1.53ghz, 512mb pc2100 ram) and it runs like a dream, no speed problems at all.

But when I tried it on xp, it was sooo slow and unbearable that I had to uninstall xp in the end, couldn't put up with it any longer. :rolleyes:

Err, that machine is newer than Windows 2000, so I'd expect it to run it pretty-damn-well.

You kinda shot yourself in the foot by bringing a slightly-newer version of Windows into it.

Windows needs fast and otherwise-good, recent, hardware. Enough said.

[Orethrius]

Err, that machine is newer than Windows 2000, so I'd expect it to run it pretty-damn-well.

You kinda shot yourself in the foot by bringing a slightly-newer version of Windows into it.

Windows needs fast and otherwise-good, recent, hardware. Enough said.

 So, basically, you're saying that Windows perpetuates itself through unrealistic expectations of existing hardware, driving the market for "better" hardware whilst simultaneously obsoleting a vast sea of otherwise usable systems?

[piratePenguin]

So, basically, you're saying that Windows perpetuates itself through unrealistic expectations of existing hardware, driving the market for "better" hardware whilst simultaneously obsoleting a vast sea of otherwise usable systems?

Well yes.

Try running XP on a computer three years older than XP. Try doing the same with Windows ME, 98, 95 (I wouldn't be so sure about 2000)...

I can run, and run-well, a modern GNU/Linux distro with GNOME and all the bits on this box (2600+, 256MB RAM, on-board sound/graphics (nForce 2)).

[piratePenguin]

unrealistic expectations of existing hardware

Unrealistic expectations of not-so-modern hardware.

[Aloone_Jonez]

I disagree, I run Windows XP on an 1800MHz 248MB (32MB for on board graphics) machine and it's not too bad. Right now I'm running Opera with a couple of tabs open and it's using 104MB of RAM up, and just 80MB with nothing running. Wow XP is using up just 32.25% of my physical memory!

Why should I need 512MB when 256MB can give acceptable performance?