Next version of Windows is...

Mayayana wrote:
| Oh, it most certainly has been mentioned: apparently there's quite a lot
| of code around that includes something like
|
| if versionstring.startswith("Windows 9") then ...
|
| which loads the version/fetches the webpage/whatever that's suitable for
| 95/98. (I've seen someone ask "do they really look at strings when the
| version number is accessible", only for someone else to answer "yes they
| do".)

I saw the same theory mentioned on Slashdot, but
it seems *very* farfetched to me.

+1

On Sun, 05 Oct 2014 09:25:31 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

On 2014-10-2 18:9, Silver Slimer wrote:
[]
Maybe the next version is called "Windows 10" to avoid confusion with
Windows 95 and 98.

No one mentioned that but it's a valid assumption.

Oh, it most certainly has been mentioned:


See
http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+9+R...ticle36656.htm

After serious thinking Roderick Stewart wrote :
On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 15:35:40 -0400, Ron wrote:

I worked with about 600 people, each had at least one desktop and a
laptop. The maintenance people had lots to repair every day. A very
common problem was people spilling drinks on their laptop or desktop
keyboard.

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink and/or
food at your desk policy.

Most places I've worked at had a policy like that, but nobody paid any
attention. If the companies had tried to enforce it they'd have had
hardly any workers left.

Rod.

I worked for a chemical supply company that had a no food or drink
policy except for the break rooms. People paid attention because not
doing so could cause a multitude of health problems. I worked there 78
years and can't remember seeing more than a half dozen violations of
said policy. But that is an environment different from almost all
others.

--
Ed Propes

Caver1 expressed precisely :
On 10/02/2014 02:04 PM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 09:13:15 -0400, Ron wrote:

On 10/2/2014 3:43 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Wed, 1 Oct 2014 22:32:02 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

What does make sense to me is people who have a
laptop plugged into some kind of cradle that gives them
a big screen, keyboard and mouse when they're at home.
But I don't see many people who do that. I suspect
that those are the people who *really* need their
computer for business.

A laptop will only make sense to you until you drop it, or spill
something on its keyboard, or somebody steals it.

I've owned laptops for about 10 years and none of those things have
happened. Especially *spilling* something on it. Why in the world would
you spill something on a laptop or even desktop keyboard for that matter?


I've owned cars for about 55 years, and an accident has never
happened. Why in the world should I always wear a seatbelt when I
drive?


Boy you are young.

Good grief, you're older than dirt.

--
Ed Propes

On 10/6/2014 1:55 AM, Ed Propes wrote:
After serious thinking Roderick Stewart wrote :
On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 15:35:40 -0400, Ron wrote:

I worked with about 600 people, each had at least one desktop and a
laptop. The maintenance people had lots to repair every day. A very
common problem was people spilling drinks on their laptop or desktop
keyboard.

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink
and/or food at your desk policy.

Most places I've worked at had a policy like that, but nobody paid any
attention. If the companies had tried to enforce it they'd have had
hardly any workers left.

Rod.

I worked for a chemical supply company that had a no food or drink
policy except for the break rooms. People paid attention because not
doing so could cause a multitude of health problems. I worked there 78
years and can't remember seeing more than a half dozen violations of
said policy. But that is an environment different from almost all others.


78 years??????

On Mon, 06 Oct 2014 02:08:31 -0400, Ron wrote:

On 10/6/2014 1:55 AM, Ed Propes wrote:
After serious thinking Roderick Stewart wrote :
On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 15:35:40 -0400, Ron wrote:

I worked with about 600 people, each had at least one desktop and a
laptop. The maintenance people had lots to repair every day. A very
common problem was people spilling drinks on their laptop or desktop
keyboard.

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink
and/or food at your desk policy.

Most places I've worked at had a policy like that, but nobody paid any
attention. If the companies had tried to enforce it they'd have had
hardly any workers left.

Rod.

I worked for a chemical supply company that had a no food or drink
policy except for the break rooms. People paid attention because not
doing so could cause a multitude of health problems. I worked there 78
years and can't remember seeing more than a half dozen violations of
said policy. But that is an environment different from almost all others.


78 years??????

Not many people will be able to make the same claim. :-)

I sure can't.

On Mon, 06 Oct 2014 01:22:10 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

I worked with about 600 people, each had at least one desktop and a
laptop. The maintenance people had lots to repair every day. A very
common problem was people spilling drinks on their laptop or desktop
keyboard.

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink
and/or food at your desk policy.

Most places I've worked at had a policy like that, but nobody paid any
attention. If the companies had tried to enforce it they'd have had
hardly any workers left.

Rod.

I worked for a chemical supply company that had a no food or drink
policy except for the break rooms. People paid attention because not
doing so could cause a multitude of health problems. I worked there 78
years and can't remember seeing more than a half dozen violations of
said policy. But that is an environment different from almost all others.


78 years??????

Not many people will be able to make the same claim. :-)

I sure can't.

Shows how effective that food and drink policy must have been in
thwarting health problems. :-)

Rod.

Ed Propes wrote:
After serious thinking Roderick Stewart wrote :
On Thu, 02 Oct 2014 15:35:40 -0400, Ron wrote:

I worked with about 600 people, each had at least one desktop and a
laptop. The maintenance people had lots to repair every day. A very
common problem was people spilling drinks on their laptop or desktop
keyboard.

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink
and/or food at your desk policy.

Most places I've worked at had a policy like that, but nobody paid any
attention. If the companies had tried to enforce it they'd have had
hardly any workers left.

Rod.

I worked for a chemical supply company that had a no food or drink
policy except for the break rooms. People paid attention because not
doing so could cause a multitude of health problems. I worked there 78
years and can't remember seeing more than a half dozen violations of
said policy. But that is an environment different from almost all others.

Apparently your working career with that company predates the Fair Labor
Standards act passed in 1938 that regulated age and hours of work for
children.

If you worked for them that long you must be retired for at least a few
years too.

Just guessing but if you started at age 10 yrs old, worked 78 years,
retired 5 yrs ago you'd be 93. If you started at 16 you'll soon be 100
and possibly the oldest person on Usenet!

--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

In the last episode of , Ron
said:

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink and/or
food at your desk policy.

I suspect you'd quickly find that buying new keyboards periodically is
cheaper than hiring replacement employees unless you're in an industry
that has extremely high turnover to begin with, or has other industry or
health reasons why people can't have food or drink at their workstation.

Replacing an employee is expensive, between interviewing, training and
the associated HR costs, $1000 is a low ballpark. $1000 buys you a lot
of keyboards.

--
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

On 10/04/2014 06:01 PM, Neil wrote:
On 10/4/2014 11:13 AM, Caver1 wrote:
On 10/04/2014 10:54 AM, Neil Gould wrote:
Caver1 wrote:
On 10/01/2014 09:27 PM, Ron wrote:
On 10/1/2014 10:35 AM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 10/1/14 7:31 AM, Don Phillipson wrote:
"John Doe" wrote in message
...
"Don Phillipson" wrote:

"John Doe" wrote

Microsoft needs to stop trying to harness the ultraportable PC
business and start innovating in the desktop PC business.

Retailers do not nowadays sell enough new desktops to constitute
a market big enough to attract MS.

From what I can see, looks like they sell approximately the same
number as always.

All local indicators suggest laptops far outsell desktops nowadays
(not to mention also tablets.)

Just a thought on my part, but with the increasing size and power of
laptops, perhaps laptops and desktops should be lumped together for
a conversation like this. And to me, the Surface seems to be
moving towards being more of a laptop than a tablet.

MS is really pushing the Surface. It has been used on Hawaii Five-0
for the past 3 seasons. It's being used on another TV that I watch
but can't recall which one. There were ad banners for it in one of
the NFL games I watched this past weekend. And last week NASCAR
announced they were going to start using them for their inspection
process.



MS has lost nearly $2 billion on the Surface since it has been on the
market. MS is hoping to turn that loss into aleast a break even.

Perhaps their vision is larger than that. The Surface introduced the
idea of
a Windows-based tablet that offered features beyond those available from
iStuff and Androids. Now, Windows-based tablets are coming onto the
market
at very low prices, for example the Winbooks that run from $99 for a 7"
basic tablet to $199 for a 10" full version. Something had to kick-start
that market, and since MS' main business is the software, once could
see the
investment in the Surface as a marketing expense that will be recouped by
the sales of other products running Windows OS and software.


Just like MS to sell at a loss to try to capture the market. Don't think
it will work this time.
My daughter paid $219 for a 10" Asus Android tablet. $199-$219 not a big
difference. She does her office work, manipulates images and more with
it without unlocking. Unlock it and you can install anything you want
and have complete control. Can't unlock Windows and have control.


The number of Windows users that have ever wanted to "unlock" the OS is
not worth caring about. For most Windows users the primary requirement
for those users is that they can get work done efficiently. Managing an
"unlocked" system is contrary to that requirement.

I do believe that unlock was in reference to Android not Windows.
How is a system that you have control of contrary to getting work done
efficiently?
All Linux Users have control of their systems and have no problem
working efficiently.
Most Windows users don't have the capability to manage the systems that
they use.
Not giving control of the system is MS's way of controlling their customers.

Although there are apps that have some of the functionality of MS
Office, I've not seen one that is a true competitor in any sense. The
time wasted trying to execute the same tasks that users have done for
years if not decades in MS Office drives them back to that suite in
short order.

There are a couple. Then again most users don't need the total
functionality of MSOffice. Business or personal.

In short, MS doesn't have to "capture market", they just don't have to
lose a lot of what they already have, and that isn't as big a task as it
might seem. Remember, MS is a primarily software company.


MS is starting to lose portions in large chunks. The mobile market is a
long way from MS's capture. Being that users usually stick with what
they first use MS will never capture it.

--
Caver1

On 10/05/2014 09:37 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| Oh, it most certainly has been mentioned: apparently there's quite a lot
| of code around that includes something like
|
| if versionstring.startswith("Windows 9") then ...
|
| which loads the version/fetches the webpage/whatever that's suitable for
| 95/98. (I've seen someone ask "do they really look at strings when the
| version number is accessible", only for someone else to answer "yes they
| do".)

I saw the same theory mentioned on Slashdot, but
it seems *very* farfetched to me. First, it's unlikely
that anything running on Win10 would also run on
Win9x. Second, it wasn't Win9x in the first place as
far as version numbers go.

Platform 1:
Win95 v. 4.0
Win98 v. 4.1
WinME v. 4.9

Platform 2:
Win2000 v. 5.0
XP v. 5.1
Vista v. 6.0
Win7 v. 6.1
Win8 v. 6.3

When software checks the Windows version it generally
uses a method that returns those numbers. Win95 and
Win98 were not versions. They were just brand names. In
the same way, checking WinME returns 4.9, not "Millennium".

The .Net docs are he
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=vs.85%29.aspx

The Win32 API used by non.Net software offers GetVersionEx
to return the same numbers. GetVersionEx returns lots of things,
but a string version of the OS name isn't one of them.

Platform check isn't necessary anymore because it's all
NT and has been since 2001. There was never a Windows
version that returned "9" as the major version number.

In fact, Microsoft have screwed things up themselves
far more than numbers could. Starting with Vista they
brought in "virtualization". If software is set for XP
compatibility Vista/7 will tell the running software that it's
running on XP. (It returns v. 5 when it should return v. 6.)
But it's not running on XP! There's a difference and it matters.
I had to redesign my version checks when Vista came out
so that I could find the *real* version my software was
running on.

There may be a way to return a brand string, from the
Registry or some such, but software doesn't do anything
like that. It would only be used for something like a
system info program, to display official looking info about
the system.

I find it interesting that no one knows why MS picked
10 instead of 9. That seems to indicate that they didn't
have a good reason other than to compete with Apple
or simply because it seemed more impressive. Another
popular theory is that it's 10 to show how different the
new version is. But it's not different. And anyway, the
method they've always used to show that the new Windows
version is very different from the last is to increase the
major version number by 1. The internal version of Win10
may very well end up being something like 6.4. A very
different version might be 7.0. Either way, it's not 9 or 10.



From what they did say at the news conference MS wanted a fresh start.
They wanted to use Windows 1 but that was already used by Bill Gates so
they choose Windows 10.
It also gives more separation from 8.

--
Caver1

On 14-10-06 04:56 PM, Caver1 wrote:

The number of Windows users that have ever wanted to "unlock" the OS is
not worth caring about. For most Windows users the primary requirement
for those users is that they can get work done efficiently. Managing an
"unlocked" system is contrary to that requirement.

I do believe that unlock was in reference to Android not Windows.
How is a system that you have control of contrary to getting work done
efficiently?
All Linux Users have control of their systems and have no problem
working efficiently.
Most Windows users don't have the capability to manage the systems that
they use.
Not giving control of the system is MS's way of controlling their
customers.

And how exactly does Microsoft not allow a user to manage his own
system? I'm very curious.

Although there are apps that have some of the functionality of MS
Office, I've not seen one that is a true competitor in any sense. The
time wasted trying to execute the same tasks that users have done for
years if not decades in MS Office drives them back to that suite in
short order.

There are a couple. Then again most users don't need the total
functionality of MSOffice. Business or personal.

Agreed.

In short, MS doesn't have to "capture market", they just don't have to
lose a lot of what they already have, and that isn't as big a task as it
might seem. Remember, MS is a primarily software company.

MS is starting to lose portions in large chunks. The mobile market is a
long way from MS's capture. Being that users usually stick with what
they first use MS will never capture it.

Microsoft was NEVER close to capturing the mobile market though. Even
though they have the resources to innovate in any field they touch,
they're more of a me-too company rather than a creative one.

--
Silver Slimer
OpenMedia Supporter
Help control the parasite population, have your GNU/Linux advocate
spayed or neutered.

On 10/6/2014 4:35 PM, DevilsPGD wrote:
In the last episode of , Ron
said:

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink and/or
food at your desk policy.

I suspect you'd quickly find that buying new keyboards periodically is
cheaper than hiring replacement employees unless you're in an industry
that has extremely high turnover to begin with, or has other industry or
health reasons why people can't have food or drink at their workstation.

Replacing an employee is expensive, between interviewing, training and
the associated HR costs, $1000 is a low ballpark. $1000 buys you a lot
of keyboards.


Do you seriously think people would quit a well paying job over a no
drink policy? You do know that some companies already have such a policy?

In the last episode of , Silver Slimer
said:

Microsoft was NEVER close to capturing the mobile market though. Even
though they have the resources to innovate in any field they touch,
they're more of a me-too company rather than a creative one.

While true, they did have a reasonable percentage of the market in the
Windows Mobile 6 era. It's gone, for a number of good reasons, none of
which resolve around the state of Windows Phone 8 (which is actually
awesome, but likely not destined to challenge anyone)

--
You're so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece.

In the last episode of , Ron
said:

On 10/6/2014 4:35 PM, DevilsPGD wrote:
In the last episode of , Ron
said:

My company wouldn't put up with that. There would be a no drink and/or
food at your desk policy.

I suspect you'd quickly find that buying new keyboards periodically is
cheaper than hiring replacement employees unless you're in an industry
that has extremely high turnover to begin with, or has other industry or
health reasons why people can't have food or drink at their workstation.

Replacing an employee is expensive, between interviewing, training and
the associated HR costs, $1000 is a low ballpark. $1000 buys you a lot
of keyboards.


Do you seriously think people would quit a well paying job over a no
drink policy? You do know that some companies already have such a policy?

Yes, at least if you're in a market where you can find another equally
well paying job which not only allows you to be comfortable at your
desk, but has a custom coffee machine on-site.

Companies that place the value of trivially replaceable equipment over
employee happiness and satisfaction will rarely attract or be able to
retain the more skilled employees.

Your mileage will vary, but this is the case in most IT, and in my
experience, in most firms where skill is valued and staff is not
trivially replaceable -- If you make working difficult or uncomfortable,
you'd better be prepared to back it with substantially above-market
salaries or competent staff will move elsewhere and you'll be left only
with those unable to muster up the motivation to move, or those
incapable of finding employment elsewhere.

--
You're so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece.