Microsoft on skinning, Windows, and the future

http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/EXEC/jones_040402.asp
from WinCustomize Forums
During the interview, Microsoft was asked point blank about whether they'd be making more visual styles for Windows XP. Their answer was essentially to use WindowBlinds.

That said, Microsoft is working hard to make the next version of Windows have all sorts of cool extensions (which I cannot publicly comment on except to say they're cool). Those of you with Object Desktop and have the WindowFX 2 alpha already have seen the benefits of some of the extensions to Windows Microsoft has been putting in and has opened up to third parties.

The trend we've seen in Microsoft has been for them to focus on making Windows solid, reliable, and more open and allow third parties "like Stardock" to then extend it to suit specific needs. So rather than throwing in everything but the kitchen skin, Windows (which we've seen with XP) has gone the direction of having hooks in for others to exend. WindowBlinds 3.3, which is Microsoft Windows XP certified, basically turns WindowBlinds skins into a new visual style format by hooking into Microsoft's visual style architecture.

This bodes well for the customization community who want to be able to customize their PCs to match their particular ways of using them without having to suffer from loss of performance, instability and other problems (as a side note, compare how Stardock's Object Desktop functions on say Windows 95 compared to how it functions on Windows XP! The seamlessness gets better and better largely thanks to Microsoft making it easier for third parties to integrate as part of the operating system).

Of course, this isn't necessarily good news for Linux advocates as many Windows ISVs now get to have their cake and eat it too - they can extend Windows and Microsoft seems to look at developers much more like partners than potential competitors.

While the next version of Windows is years away, Windows XP is proving to be a really fantastic desktop OS for most people and the philosphy behind Longhorn/Blackcomb sounds very exciting.

What do you think?
20,028 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Good. Sounds like a plan.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sounds like you've got the "skinny" on this one.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I always thought Stardock had some sort of an exclusive deal on this, but judging by this:

"With Windows XP, we introduced new visual styles but did not have the time to really make them extensible. There are some companies (like StarDock -- www.stardock.com) that provide some solutions today.

We are looking at more extensibility for a future version of Windows."

...they have their own plans and WindowBlinds is merely one way of doing it.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You have to remember the next version of Windows is not due until late 2003/2004.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
and i desperately hope that Enlightenment 17 will be finished before that. wonder if your reactions would be that enthuastic, hehe
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
@ Moshi!

You never know - MS may come up with a patch to extend the Styles system, or it may release an SE version of XP.
Anything for another sale...
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
WindowsXP RX!!

Windows ZX100 due by Spring 2003!!

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Microsoft should completely integrate StarDock's programs into it's new versions of Windows. This would REALLY save on RAM used for their progs. I have ObjectBar, WindowBlinds, Norton Anti-Virus 2001, eBoard, SmartException, MouseSuite, SysTray, Resource Moniter, and Explorer (plus a few others in the bg) running with 71% resources free. If I got rid of OB, WB, and SE that would probably bring it up to 85% . btw I have 320 Mb of RAM, so the universe only knows exactly how much they're taking up. It's common knowledge that WinXP eats up resources, so if they incorperate progs like ObjectBar, WindowBlinds, IconPackager, and DesktopX into the shell, that would help a lot. That's just my thoughts, so c-ya!
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yeh, right, not believin' it for a minute....HELLO... >
Reap what you Sow, Mondo >
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you're still monitoring OS GDI system resources, you must not be on XP yet, and your 320 mb of ram is going to waste.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
mdbarriault, how would incorporating them into the shell help at all? The shell would simply use that many extra resources then instead of the other programs using them. It's not like integrating it into the OS magically makes you able to do whatever you want without using any memory or resources... Also, resources are not memory, and the amount of resources you have does not increase with the amount of memory you have. Resources are limited to 128k, whether you have 16 megs of memory or 512 megs of memory.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
ok. The 128k thing is visuals, and I believe that Win9x, ME, and 2K are the only ones limited to 128K. WinXP has more. And yes, having WB, OB, DX, and IP in the shell WOULD free up memory/resources. What WB and IP does is redirect the DLLs of the system's GUI. Having them be a part of the shell would make things faster. DX and OB, when perfected (OB has a problem with ToolTips), would make things better because right now, they cover up the taskbar and/or desktop. If they were part of the shell, the software DLLs would be redirected to a different place. Plus, Microsoft should work on making the XP Explorer take up less RAM. I currently use Win98 because fellow family members don't like XP, but I can get it if I want it. I had it once, and with 320 Mb of RAM, 167Mb were being used. You can get top-of-the-line games that take up less than that on your hard drive. And one last thing, "resources" are places that your PC can go to for extra memory, like RAM, or on computers with low RAM, the hard drive (I had a laptop once that had 31 Mb of RAM, and the space left on the drive varied between 17 Mb to 50 Mb). And, right now, running MSN Explorer, AudioGalaxy, WinAmp, OB, WB, Smart Exception, and a few low-costing progs, my Resource Meter says:

System Resources: 34% Free
User Resources: 34% Free
GDI Resources: 45% Free

And I'm running Win98 SE.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Mr mdbarriault,
I'd just like to hit your latest points in succession:
One : resources for visuals... ALL NT based OSes do away with the GDI/SYSTEM/USER heaps that the 9x series OSes suffer from... 2K and XP have BOTH increased the heap size to the point that it's not even bothered with. As an example, my current desktop is running with well over 40 processes, with a total of approximately 7000 GDI objects listed. No problems with stability whatsoever.

Two: WB does not "redirect the DLL's of the system GUI". WB accesses drawing API calls to render the new windows. IP accesses the system Registry to change the icon paths for shell folders and file types. If you want to talk about "redirecting DLL's", look to StyleXP, which patches the DLLs in use to allow the use on unsigned Visual Styles. Similar amounts of system RAM are used, but StyleXP hides it under a SVCHOST.EXE process instead of being upfront and attaching it to a named process like windowblinds(WBLOAD.EXE)

Three: you are (apparently)confusing system RAM usage with hard drive space. MS SPECIFICALLY recommends that you provide an XP based system with 256 MB or more of RAM in order to function well.

Four: "Resources" are NOT "places that your PC can go for extra memory, like RAM". What you are describing is the PAGEFILE, or Virtual Memory.

Five: This is just a general comment. NT based OSes are NOT 9x based OSes. The core is fully 32-bit, and does not worry about full DOS compatibility the way the 9x OSes do. I have been running with 4 instances of Craxy Browser, uses over 100 MB of system RAM, with NO slowdown, so long as I kept total RAM usage below my system RAM total. NO graphical anomalies, NO system instability... the worst that has happened to me is Windows complained about insufficient memory and increased my pagefile size.