On Frogboy's report of the PDC...

Not sure I understand. You're saying that you'll have no more need for Stardock stuff because Longhorn is gonna be all you need? Doubtful. Might hurt DesktopX a little, but once people get tired of looking at Longhorn they'll just want something different, even if the features are the same. Besides, by the time Longhorn gets pushed back over and over no telling what DesktopX will be capable of.

I think what he's saying is that Longhorn may make it harder to customize the OS to his needs.

That's my worry - Longhorn is looking like it's great for develoeprs to make really cool looking apps. Great for develoeprs. But what about users? I want to be able to tailor my system to work for me.

I personally don't get too jazzed at the idea of each app being as unique as each website is.

So, if I understand the implications of this, it seems that if all apps have a different look, a program such as Windowblinds won't be able to skin them all. So we'll be stuck with the GUI the app developper gives us. Bummer.

That's my worry - Longhorn is looking like it's great for develoeprs to make really cool looking apps. Great for develoeprs. But what about users? I want to be able to tailor my system to work for me.

I tend to think the other way. i like the direction longhorn is taking. After all, look at my SS. Ol gray taskbar is great!

Kona...it's safe to say that any potential impact regarding skinning, on a skinning site will be treated with concern and trepidation.

Your non-use of skins and/or skinning is immaterial to both this topic AND the general populace...

It was just a opinion.

I do use LiteStep and Sysmetrix and Rainy skins. Just not WB or DX.

anyways if it isn't to much of a bother, delete my last post please because I see your point.

Ah Kona, we can always count on you for an interesting response..

Why thank you Frogboy... now would someone remove my insane post above?

BTW just because I do not use DX or WB dosen't mean I dislike/hate them. In fact once I get my new PC up and running I will have to give WB a try again.

If system hooks aren't allowed on Longhorn, the only desktop enhancements you'll be able to use are ones where the developers learned out to create signed drivers. So Longhorn won't be bad news for us but it could be bad news for customization.

It's too early to tell. I don't want to make it out like the sky is falling. There are tremendous technologies in Longhorn that make it a customization pannacea.

The issues come down to:

1) Is there going to even be an overall...UI that will be skinned? Certainly the most common things will have something that can be skinned. Photoshop and Office 2003 have very different UIs but are skinnable still.

2) With the advent of managed code, will third parties be able to extend the feature set of the OS easily?

Brad: look at it from a positive side. New progams for Stardock to create for Longhorn!!!!

Development is a business, and the best OS possible isn't always what is best for the bottom line. Decisions are gonna be about making sure that the next OS replaces the old one on as many machines as possible. If there are flaws and annoyances involved, what are people gonna do, migrate to Linux?

Unless there is a significant change, there isn't much real need in upgrading an OS. MS always has to reiterate with a new release that their main competitor is their previous release. Frogboy might disagree, but I don't think MS can't pay the rent on what was productively different between XP and Win2k. The only people that I know offline that have XP either bought it already installed, or develop for it. Poor performance, security flaws and impending lack of support sell more upgrades than features. Why not plan ahead?

Which leads me to my real point. Developers and manufacturers are the people that give MS their real power, not the product itself. People hate MS, and buy their product religiously. If you ask 99% of people why they don't migrate to another OS, they'll tell you about all the hardware and driver 'issues', and the disappointment every time the newest killer app is Windows only.

That's why the trepidation we are talking about here is good for MS. All eyes on them. Such 'features' keep developer's minds focused on the upcoming OS, and keeps them reliant on the MSDN family lifestyle. Every developer updating their broken apps to run on Longhorn is one less developer with the free time to port their existing apps to an alternative OS. If you only have the resources to develop one version, you aren't gonna pick Linux, and a new Windows version every couple of years is good way to ensure you stay busy.

If the industry as a whole took the time, though, the incentive for more people to use it would be there. Once people had an alternative OS installed and running, there would be plenty of demand. No offense intended to anyone. I just think it takes a lot more than MS to keep MS's monopolistic position intact. We buy this trepidation with our participation, as it were.

In the coming years, I'm afraid we're gonna have to accept a lot of annoyances because we don't have a choice, especially when the mandatory jump from windows 3.1 to 98 is reenacted with 64bit processors. God only knows what they will use that leverage to accomplish. At that point we will be at the mercy of hardware. Before then, I wish the industry as a whole would say 'enough is enough', promote competition by supporting alternate OSs, and give Microsoft a reason to care more about the product and less about marketing it.

It sounds to me as if Microsoft doesn't like the revenue that Stardock is creating, being taken out of their pockets. So, they eliminate the competition this way. By creating a new system that is very difficult to customize. Sad, but this seems that is the way that Microsoft operates. They had the right idea with WindowsXP. But, like I said, I guess Stardock took too much revenue out of their pockets. >

Nah. Stardock hasn't diverted any money away from MS. On the contrary, they have given people reason to upgrade to XP with several of their products.

If anything, the changes Longhorn are just a way to force people to eventually upgrade, and usher in other more unpalatable changes at the time. If they can keep a stranglehold on developers, we'll all have to eventually upgrade to keep up with the newest versions of our apps. When that happens they can slip in all the underhanded DRM and whatnot and we won't have any choice but to accept it.

Honestly, I think we were just about to see a new genre of apps. I have been working on a couple of theories of my own, and following a lot of budding apps. 'Mind management' solutions have become something of a race, and it looks like Microsoft is just trying to envelop them before they are born. The new file system seems to be an extension of the idea.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but I don't like the idea of making raw information somehow equivalent to our concept of a 'file' by equating the file system with a modern database. Templatized storage seems, to me, to be an easy way of forcing a definition of what can be done with what you have stored. For an address book that is no big deal, but with media and such I can see how it could be pretty invasive.

I mean, wouldn't this put the file formats eventually in the hands of the OS, instead of independant parties? Maybe I am not getting the gist of it.
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