Windows Longhorn System Requirements

[Cheese Head]

Well, it turns out longhorn is something to do with a mountain:

Q: So why was Windows XP code-named Whistler? I thought Microsoft was using space names for their betas.
A. They were ("Odyssey," "Neptune," "Mars") for a while, and before that they were using city names ("Chicago," "Detroit," "Memphis"). But now they've turned to mountain names: Whistler and Blackcomb are popular ski resorts a few hours from Seattle, located in British Columbia, and Longhorn, the next interim release, is a tavern at the base of Whistler mountain. However, the space names continue with other projects: The new Whistler user interface found in Windows XP was code-named "Luna."

Source: http://winsupersite.com/FAQ/whistler.asp

[jaronbrass]

In my experiences using Windows, the only system requirement I was required to have was functioning CTRL, ALT and DELETE keys on the keyboard. That's why I switched to a Mac. Even running Windows on Virtual PC it still crashes which has become more of an amusement rather than a nuisance.

[Ed Hammond]

That sounds about right. When I was running Win 98SE my machine was crashing pretty much every time I used it, and it was so memory hungry that after I'd been fiddling about with a graphics package I could never connect to the Internet - I'd have to reboot.

Then I got XP and an extra 128 MB of RAM, and suddenly it's running like it's brand new. Pretty impressive for a four year old computer.

I had been thinking of making the jump to Linux, but XP will do for the time being.

As for MS codenames, Chicago was the code name for Windows 4, aka Win95, wasn't it? I recall the shock at the time when the news came out that it would be an embedded operating system, doing away entirely with MS-DOS - I was outraged.

[cwathen]

That sounds about right. When I was running Win 98SE my machine was crashing pretty much every time I used it, and it was so memory hungry that after I'd been fiddling about with a graphics package I could never connect to the Internet - I'd have to reboot.

More the fault of badly written drivers and applications software. I still run Windows 98SE on my desktop machine and I have no problems with it. It's not Microsoft's fault if that £5 from a computer fair TV card with drivers barely out of beta make your Windows 98 installation unstable.

I won't deny that XP, built as it is on NT, is more stable, and I will freely admit that the original Windows 98 was quite buggy, but Windows 98SE was fine for it's intended use - if it was designed for an environment where the computer would only usually be on for a few hours at a time, then that on my system it runs 24/7 for around a week at a time without crashing I think is very impressive.

It does annoy me when people blast Windows 98 for being unstable but then tell you that they are trying to use it to run their mission-critical server which they need up 7 days a week, 365 days a year (I'm not of course claiming that you personally said that). For it's intended use, and if decent hardware with proper drivers and decent applications software is installed, it's fine.

Then I got XP and an extra 128 MB of RAM, and suddenly it's running like it's brand new. Pretty impressive for a four year old computer.

That extra 128MB of RAM would have helped Windows 98 too, but anyway, a good reinstall and general updating of drivers would make your machine run Windows 98SE like it's brand new too.

As for MS codenames, Chicago was the code name for Windows 4, aka Win95, wasn't it? I recall the shock at the time when the news came out that it would be an embedded operating system, doing away entirely with MS-DOS - I was outraged.

Windows 9x might have been marketed and packaged as standalone operating systems, but they weren't reallly. They were MS-DOS running Windows as a shell ('operating environment' if you want to use the slightly haughtier Microsoft terminology) just like Windows 3.1. Even Windows ME, coming out right at the end of 2000, was still running on top 16 bit MS-DOS; it was just a bit more hidden away that it was in 95/98

No real reason to mourn the loss of DOS though. It wasn't bad in it's day (and despite being harder to use, I do think that had it's advantages - back then people were much more aware of how their computers worked and carried out basic housekeeping tasks like defragmenting the hard disk which so many people today don't have a clue about - and then promptly complain when their computer runs like crap) but hardware had left it behind by the early 90's. Many of the stability issues with Windows 9x (which I don't deny do exist - although I refuse to accept they are as big a deal as many people claim, when as I've said a properly maintained Windows 9x installation should provide perfectly good service for it's intended task) resulted with having too much bolted onto the side of DOS.

It had rotten memory management that was always an awkward cludge to work around, it didn't support true multitasking, nor multiple processors, it had no security, it quite simply isn't suitable for use in the modern world - or even the world of 10 years ago.

I do sometimes find the command line easier to use, and I hope the DOS emulation and command line based on DOS which Windows presently has continues to survive, but actual DOS itself has pretty much gone as far as it ever can.