Microsoft Accommodating Eee With Lightweight XP 386
KrispyChips writes "In what could be a first Microsoft is working to create a special build of Windows, just because Windows doesn't run very well on a certain computer. ASUS' runaway success Eee PC is now 'officially' available with Windows XP, but (according to APC magazine) is not exactly a great experience. There are none of the nice pre-loaded apps that come with the Linux version, for example. And XP has some real problems coping with the screen size and limited system specs of the unit. As a result, ASUS says it is going back to Microsoft and working on a special XP build that will be lightweight and more suited to UMPCs."
Open Source CD (Score:4, Interesting)
Add in a little splash screen blurb that all of this stuff ALSO comes on the Linux EEE, which runs faster, more reliably, etc.
C'mon ASUS, whatdya say?
BWAHAHAHAHA! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, will this OS be generally available? It would be nice to be able to breathe some extra life into some of the slower systems I have here at work.
Why XP (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Open Source CD (Score:5, Interesting)
New cut-down version of XP when they're just about to drop XP completely for normal systems?
I smell fear of linux gaining market share. Looks like it's already the year of Linux on the desktop.
Re:Why XP (Score:5, Interesting)
Really.. that's the reason. CE is Windows 3.11 with a boob job. You can't pitch that as a Linux competitor and not be laughed out of the room.
the significant factor here (Score:5, Interesting)
Now as I understand it, the way Linux is designed, everything is incremental improvements. The kernel is the only linuxy part shared across all linux distros and everything else bundled in is at the discretion of the distro owners. So even if some parts of the distro get a rebuild, there's more incrimentalism here than "chuck the baby with the bathwater" rebuilds leading to Vista-style clusterfucks. Is my understanding correct here?
Logically, Microsoft should have stuck with the incrimentalism. If they wanted a full rebuild of the OS, they should have done so, made sure it ran fast on the hardware out at the time of release, and included a VM-bundled copy of XP to provide backwards compatibility, the way OSX comes with a copy of OS9.
What I'm seeing here is Microsoft is forced to keep XP around longer which means there's less and less reason for people to think about moving to Vista. With all of the web 2.0 apps and things like terminal services, the laptop becomes a powerful dumb terminal. I've seen laptops that crawl running normal apps run like greased lighting once an rdp session is open, they can handle the client just fine. So the Vista upgrade strategy, already suffering from massive consumer blowback, is struck another blow. XP remains viable and on the market and Vista remains the "Now why the hell would I want to do that to myself?" OS. XP will continue to sell as machines wear out but there will not be the huge windfall of the entire install base making a migration to a brand new OS over the next several years. Seems like a proper marketing disaster here. Interesting.
nLite anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Pre-loaded apps (Score:4, Interesting)
Already Out? (Score:1, Interesting)
Lightweight XP (Score:5, Interesting)
(reality sinks in)
Wait, standard XP was lightweight when it first came out. It was also horribly insecure, that's why the service packs came out. The service packs made XP slower and of course your going to need an antivirus...
Never mind, it's a horrible idea. They might as well start from scratch on a whole new OS.
Re:Why XP - Are you kidding? (Score:4, Interesting)
I own a Windows CE handheld (HTC Wizard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Wizard [wikipedia.org]) full of hardware capabilities and the pre-installed Windows Mobile 5 renders it almost unusable.
Luckily I could join a development team that were porting Linux to it.
not necessary, runs fine with XP pro (Score:1, Interesting)
Eee pc can do without XP (Score:5, Interesting)
In my point of view, this article shows how desperate Microsoft is in the light of newly educated consumers making a valid choice to go with a free and friendly OS over their bloat-OS.
Not to take anything away from XP, as it has its place in the desktop arena and runs just fine for me as a gaming rig.
Re:Open Source CD (Score:5, Interesting)
UMPC's were a great idea running shoddy software. Nokia's n750/n800/n810 the iPhone, and a few others are showing that you can get lightweight device with decent battery life if you use lightweight software. what's even better is that people are willing to buy them if the price is right.
Hardware can't ignore the trend, either (Score:3, Interesting)
But, Microsoft can't ignore the prospect of small, cheap, low-end laptops becoming widespread which are being shipped with Linux by default.
Neither can Dell, HP or any other hardware manufacturer. This trend impacts them every bit as much as Microsoft, although on the whole I think hardware manufacturers should be able to adapt easier than Microsoft.
For decades we've been subject to the hardware/software upgrade circle jerk. When Vista hit the market millions of PC users, particularly in the enterprise, thought their hardware was still serviceable and Vista didn't represent any compelling value. Couple a grown up Linux, that's functional and modular, with low cost hardware and all of a sudden the cost of Vista became a very big issue. And the cost of the hardware to carry that bloatware created a reverse circle jerk vortex in the minds of many technology consumers.
Re:Why special version. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple was smart when they designed the iphone. there is no dock in sight anywhere. Nokia created a new interface for the N750/800 that is simple to use, and yet is easily adapted to older software interfaces.
MSFT has everything so bundled into each other that putting a new interface on windows becomes a pain. let alone taking out the stuff that isn't needed to improve speed and performance.
Re:Open Source CD (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why special version. (Score:4, Interesting)
Processor 233 MHz
RAM 64 MB
Free hard drive space 610 MB
All they would need to do is add Outlook Express, back in and it would probably work good
I have installed VS 2005 and MS office 2003 on WinFLP so it can't be that bad.
Re:If you were doing it right (Score:1, Interesting)
I personally keep my Firefox window at about 800x600 (my desktop is 1680x1050). Many sites require scrolling. If I maximize, many sites do not take advantage of it. Instead I'll get maybe 1024 pixes of the site in the center, with 340 blank pixels in both sides.
I do web development. It's really not hard to do a fluid layout, especially if you make use of XHTML Strict and CSS.
Microsoft Windows CE-Vista for Eee pc (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as how I see Microsoft moving on this goes, I see a new OS from them called Microsoft Windows CE-Vista for Eee PC or UMP Edition. I doubt they can get XP down to the size which can compete with Linux so putting a new face on a Windows CE variant and calling it XP or something like that to make people think it's something of value. In other words, they'll spend millions on marketing and throw garbage out as the product. But this time, it'll fail because they can't rely on quad core CPUs to hid their technical failures. IMO.
LoB
Re:Open Source CD (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a misconception to say the least. OEMs hate the release cycles with Windows, they hate being dictated to, and they hate having to support stupid features, they hate not having control over OS changes.
"Back in the day" when I worked at a tape drive company working with Compaq on OS/2, there were *always* "fire drills" about this dictate from Microsoft or this change they made in the OS. Compaq, one of the bigger OEMs at the time, had advance notice and input to changes Microsoft was making! The smaller guys have no control.
I've been to enough WinHEC conferences and talked with enough product managers to know that if the OEM's could take control over the OS their computers ran, they would have a better life.
Just look at the EeePC, this is an example of an OEM rolling their own and being successful. Now, seeing it, Microsoft is scared, obviously, and making concessions they otherwise would not have.
Re:Why special version. (Score:3, Interesting)
I know why Microsoft omitted it: because it won't run XP software and most of the CE software is meant to work with touchscreens, not mouse.
Basically what caught MS on the wrong leg wasn't any one factor, but a combination. To successfully exploit the UMPC platform they need a (1) lightweight (2) desktop OS and (3) as large an application mass as they can get.
Vista is too heavy; CE, XP embedded and Mobile are light but don't bring in the right apps; some of the server variants of Windows may have made the cut but they weren't meant for desktop use. So it was either retrofit XP or give up on UMPC's. Or ressurect Windows 98, but seriously.
Linux not catching on is the reason (Score:1, Interesting)