What does Microsoft Lack?

Yes, we all agree that Microsoft does lack some good-programming skills, but where exactly? Imagine that you have just been hired by Bill Gates himself, in order to better present the entire Microsoft Corporation. What would you change, and create? Think about what you feel Microsoft lacks, and "improve" on it by giving your two cents.

I don't think that they lack programming skills. I think there is an issue where security was always placed on the backburner and marketing telling engineering when the software is done. What they should be doing is following id software's idea, that "it is done when it is done" and not set a date where it will be released, finished or not.

That said, they could fix some of the problems but I think that all the other programmers in the world that write software are aware of the problems and write their software with anticipation of these problems. MS fixing the problems could break many apps. So sometimes, it just seems that the proper course of action is to not fix.

well i like this thread even though its short but anyways what microsoft is lacking or shall i say not lacking is use of our memory we do not need 30+ processes running simontaneously. if they could just simplify the OS so that there are not so many things running at once it would make the average computer run many times faster. Windows over abundance of security is their security/black hole or w/e you call it. I mean look at an xbox it uses a processor with less mhz than a higher end p3! that tells you something right there and i think an xbox has like 64mb's of memory if im not mistaken. if we could simplify our OS then we could optimize our computers beyond our wildest dreams. do we really need a processor 20x faster then we did 10 years ago to send email or view images? i dont think so its all because of Windows. I'm a windows user myself just because everything (well almost) is compatible with windows and i use a large array of programs. so for me ill stick with windows i just pray that they will simplify their next OS but you know what its not happening! thats just my 2 cents about MS Windows thanks for reading

I have to agree it should take a page from Linux's book and make a slimmer version of windows, its far too bloated. Optimize it so its faster and uses less resources.

I want OPTIONS.

When I install it, i want to choose WHAT i want installed, not what Microsoft deems is normal. One thing i hate doing is ripping a window's cd, stripping it of all extraneous material (especially the seeming hundreds of language packs i'll never need and all the "help" materials), then burning it back to CD and explaining toa friend that "No, this is not illegal. I took my legal copy, stripped it down, updated it with the latest patches, and now when i re-install... it takes half the time and i don't hafta download any security updates"

I sometimes almost feel bad that I go to such lengths... but if Microsoft would just give us options like "Install languages - your own, all, select what you want..... and 'type of user - expert (no help packages installed), advanced (help installed, but not active), regular (normal help), beginner (all help/nooby packages installed to help them out)

stuff like that. I can optimize Linux all day long and make it the way i want it. However, I'd like to do the same with windows without it being such a hassle.

Man... i need to lay off the diet-coke... its makin' me delusional....

haha ya man windows needs to slim down and have more options! options options options! what doesnt bill gates understand about this? this is america well at least were i live and we want options haha!

Doesn't anyone have other opinions? How about changing Internet Explorer to become, small, compact, and fast, with added features that both Firefox, and Netscape have? Or how about, changing the entire theme and design of Windows Media Player to be like ITunes? Doesn't anyone have ideas like this?

tspier2 said:

Doesn't anyone have other opinions? How about changing Internet Explorer to become, small, compact, and fast, with added features that both Firefox, and Netscape have? Or how about, changing the entire theme and design of Windows Media Player to be like ITunes? Doesn't anyone have ideas like this?

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Get rid of Internet Explorer all together. It's just obsolete compared to FireFox.

(In my opinion of course)

a soul

tspier2 said:

What would you change, and create?

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Assuming I were to work on the next generation of Windows, it would be something along the lines of a better explorer shell. Something that doesn't attempt to copy 123818254178293478123 files at once, finds one file that can't be copied/written, craps out of the entire process, then doesn't tell me what was moved and what wasn't.

And, if it did do such a thing, it would clean up the huge public bathroom-esque mess it just made of my files.

dicecca112 said:

I have to agree it should take a page from Linux's book and make a slimmer version of windows, its far too bloated. Optimize it so its faster and uses less resources.

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Yea really. I don't need 80% of the services, 2 media player, a web browers, a crappy shell, IE, ect.

Plus I want to be able to interface with my OS with a CLI.

Everything the GUI can do, should be dooable with a CLI. Provided "dooable" is a word.

Trombe said:

Get rid of Internet Explorer all together. It's just obsolete compared to FireFox.

(In my opinion of course)

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Everything I use at work requires IE. Its a huge PIA because I'd much prefer to use Firefox, and I do as much as I can, but I just can't run any of the work related stuff.

This poses a problem for anything that is coded to work soley in IE, and unless firefox or some other 3rd part broweser is able to mask itself as IE, or people stop making IE specific web apps, I don't see IE going away any time soon.

i want it to be free

tspier2 said:

Imagine that you have just been hired by Bill Gates himself, in order to better present the entire Microsoft Corporation. What would you change, and create?

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I would change the amount of power the Microsoft Corporation has; I would create a powerful global empire, after fully aquiring the Microsoft Corporation.

Ascii2 said:

I would change the amount of power the Microsoft Corporation has; I would create a powerful global empire, after fully aquiring the Microsoft Corporation.

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I guess we know who to NOT give the job to...

One thing I would like to see from Microsoft is the continued usability and compatibility, but with less resource hogging habits. I'm tired of tweaking it to run well on a machine with 256 MB RAM. I think the OS should be able to run on lower-end machines out of the box, and be customizable to add more functionality with more powerful hardware capability. In one word, flexibility.

[Disclaimer: I'm not saying this is the true state of things, or that what I say is right, or that there is any proof implied or in existence. These are just my personally perceptions and feelings]

As to the tread question, some of the things I personally think that they lack are trust, respect, and real cooperativeness, among other things.

Being as Mircosoft is such a massive and complex company, it's not as if you can hire one person to just magically instill these things, but if MS could acquire them, it'd go a long way towards making the computing world a better place.

Nearly everything is compatible with Windows or made only for Windows because if it's not then Microsoft either buys them, bullies them out of business, or bullies them into making their competing product free. This has implications for a lot of things. It's not like people haven't tried to get serious and competetive alternatives off the ground, and it's not like they can't hypothetically be developed. It's just that Mircosoft refuses to let it happen. Good god, that's got to be one of the richest companies on Earth, it's not like a good competitor is going to run MS totally out of business.

If they would just acquire some trust, respect, and faith, it would help. Let other people see their source and improve it. Allow companies to financially-seriously develope competing products for Windows, or products for multiple platforms at once, give it a chance to see that it would benefit consumers and the computing world in general.

Most people, most of the time, generally want a choice. They don't want to be forced down one road, either conciously or unconciously, directly or indirectly.

Give people options. Give up the monopoly, allow alternatives to exist. The concept of Windows and other Mircosoft products are not bad in and of themselves, but it's the behaviors of the company that drive people to think so. Mircosoft has done a lot for the world from a software technology standpoint, but their desire to be the biggest, best, and only dog in the alley is really hampering things.

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Okay. Now, what would I change, as far as Windows itself goes?

- Well, give people options during installation. Like certain GUI installs of Linux, which allow you to choose exactly what you want. In other words, Check the box that installs everything so that it's all there and all the end user has to do is try the programs out and see which ones are their favorites. Also have a check-box that allows a person to install exactly what they want installed, you know, people like us that know exactly what we want and know exactly how we are going to be using our machine.

- And make the OS faster and less bulky. I'm sure there are processes, services, and functions that can either be integrated into other processes, services and programs or cut out completely. Not from the OS itself mind you, just not installed and/or running by default. I'm sure that it's feasible to get just a handful of programs to do the work that the 20+ processes in the task manager are doing.

- Back to options again, de-integrate IE from the system and make it a fully seperate, stand-alone, and optional program. Yeah there are a lot of websites that don't run right without IE, and some that won't run at all without IE, but let the user decide how they want to handle this. Don't force it down their throat by not only having it automatically installed, but hell, having it an integrated piece of the OS itself. Shady.

- Fix bugs a lot faster, and think to the future when writing programs (i.e. all the security holes that show up all the time and need patching).

- The annoying copying thing someone mentioned above. Jesus Christ, just make it so that Windows skips that file and continues on copying the rest. I can't tell you how goddamm annoying it is to have happen what that guy described.

- GET RID OF ACTIVATION.

- I know there is more, but they are beginning to elude me after all this.

TollhouseFrank said:

When I install it, i want to choose WHAT i want installed, not what Microsoft deems is normal. One thing i hate doing is ripping a window's cd, stripping it of all extraneous material (especially the seeming hundreds of language packs i'll never need and all the "help" materials), then burning it back to CD . . .

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OMFG. That totally never crossed my mind. How exactly do you do that anyways? Can you seriously just delete those folders before burning them back? XP won't b1tch during the install about missing those things?

What other things can you do without? Is there some guide somewhere?

Damm. I'm going to have to try this.

dicecca112 said:

I have to agree it should take a page from Linux's book

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Which page would that be?
A less finely grained access control system?
A weaker audit trail?
An archaic, inferior and less secure kernel architecture?
No trusted path support?
A lack of centralized security policies?
The enormous hole of a super user account?
The lack of a trusted facilities manual?
The lack of a secure logon sequence?
The lack of seamless file system encryption?
The lack of decent formal evaluations scores?

Wet Neophyte said:

Which page would that be?
A less finely grained access control system?
A weaker audit trail?
An archaic, inferior and less secure kernel architecture?
No trusted path support?
A lack of centralized security policies?
The enormous hole of a super user account?
The lack of a trusted facilities manual?
The lack of a secure logon sequence?
The lack of seamless file system encryption?
The lack of decent formal evaluations scores?

Click to expand...

I think he meant more along the lines of a MS Tux.