Windows Longhorn and Drive Letters

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

I don't think asking for continued security patches and key compatibility updates is in any way unreasonable.

That aside, the loss in production migrating to XP from 2K for so little gain could be and appears to be cost prohibitive for many large companies. If they choose to put off the migration even though 2K will lack those key updates, that should tell Microsoft a thing or two.

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I don't think there's that much loss in production, most of the work PCs here are P4 2Ghz Willamettes with GF4s, they were bought with Win2k and run it all their life. These machines are coming to the end of their life, once we move onto developing next generation games, we are going to need new PCs, when those are bought they will come with XP instead of 2K and work will continue as normal afterwards, there's no more disruption than if the machines came with 2k loaded instead. Like Skydog, I prefer XP over 2K as there are functional improvements which I miss in 2K, especially the offline domain management for laptops.

John

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

I don't believe I'm missing that point at all.

It is not the cost I'm even discussing. It is the fact that corporations that have a vested interest in Windows 2000 Pro may prefer to stay there as opposed to being forced to migrate to yet another platform. It was bad enough having to go from a Primary/Backup domain controller setup to Active Directory, why would they want to have to update their machines to an OS that is bloated with consumer niceties like Windows Movie Maker, MSN Messenger, a fancy Media Player and crap like that? Who wants to have to upgrade 5000 desktops with more hard drive space, more system memory and more intense video requirements when the NT platform you already have works fine for you?

It is very telling that such a high percentage of people prefer to keep their Windows 2000 Pro installations instead of moving to Windows XP.

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I have not seen a single installation that requires anything more than the hardware required for Win2k. Also, most companies will replace most of their computers before an OS is not supported anymore. It's nothing for a company with a contract with Dell or HP to roll out 5000+ computers every 4-5 years with the latest OS.

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

I don't think asking for continued security patches and key compatibility updates is in any way unreasonable.

That aside, the loss in production migrating to XP from 2K for so little gain could be and appears to be cost prohibitive for many large companies. If they choose to put off the migration even though 2K will lack those key updates, that should tell Microsoft a thing or two.

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It's not cost prohibitive for large companies and have seen two examples first hand where it's part of a schedule to move forward. There really isn't an migration like you reference. It's more like, buy a PC with Win2k, it gets old, buy a PC with WinXp, it will become old and replaced with a new PC with Longhorn, and the schedule continues. Software like Office that updates more frequently is just pushed out over a couple weeks over night.

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

I don't believe I'm missing that point at all.

It is not the cost I'm even discussing. It is the fact that corporations that have a vested interest in Windows 2000 Pro may prefer to stay there as opposed to being forced to migrate to yet another platform. It was bad enough having to go from a Primary/Backup domain controller setup to Active Directory, why would they want to have to update their machines to an OS that is bloated with consumer niceties like Windows Movie Maker, MSN Messenger, a fancy Media Player and crap like that? Who wants to have to upgrade 5000 desktops with more hard drive space, more system memory and more intense video requirements when the NT platform you already have works fine for you?

It is very telling that such a high percentage of people prefer to keep their Windows 2000 Pro installations instead of moving to Windows XP.

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Most dinks at my work still think the computer box is the "hard drive." They think the word "system" or "case" sounds stupid. Most of these commoners couldn't care less what is running on the system. They just work and go home. Thats the way my office is.

It certainly is much easier to do a staged roll-out than an all-in-one implementation. At least when you buy new machines that come with XP on them, you can pretty much connect them into an NT level network that is built of mostly Win 2k clients without much change.

I have seen a good number of companies, particularly large ones, that are almost anal about having any applications on their client machines that might interfere with productivity in any way. They strip out as many items as they possibly can, including the media player, built in card games, photo wizards, built-in cd burning and stuff like that, in an effort to prevent employees from goofing around on company time. When they compare XP to 2K, they seem to want to stick with 2K.

I'm not against upgrading, just don't dig microsoft kicking me in the pants and pushing me to do it. At least with software, all you have to do is make the patches available and people can download and install them if they want to. There is no huge cost for distribution like there would be with hardware modifications.

Guess I'm just too much of a Windows 2000 Pro fanboy. I really think 2k Pro was perhaps their best OS release ever and am kinda sad to see it being put out to pasture. Looks like I'm a hanger-on-er.

2k pro was a good OS, but XP is better - you say about all this work in stripping XP down, but 2k is just as bad the other way round, you've got to spend a while patching it and updating all the parts it's needing updated with (such as zip support and DX9) There are also other annoying minor things with 2k, it has no quick format in setup, I can build a work ready PC (all apps loaded and ready to go) quite a bit faster with XP than I can with 2k.

John

Why would a corporation want to patch it for zip support or direct x?

Besides, you can push those updates out over Tivoli or whatever method you use.

As for setup, why not just use imaging software like Ghost/Ghost Walker instead of doing each one individually? I can't remember the last time a mid-large size company I worked with relied on manual installs on client machines.

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

I wonder what it will offer that will make it worth getting?

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I know this is back from Page 1, but my only answer to this is Avalon. an Accelerated GUI.

I think this could actually help the server market as well, where cpu cycles are precious, and forcing the cpu to do all the work of rendering the desktop or whatever can eat up cycles used for other things.

Just my opinion though, I could be horribly wrong.

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Originally Posted by Johnmcl7

There are also other annoying minor things with 2k, it has no quick format in setup

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Really? I always thought it did, in fact I swear I have used the quick format option before installing Windows 2000.

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Originally Posted by James

I know this is back from Page 1, but my only answer to this is Avalon. an Accelerated GUI.

I think this could actually help the server market as well, where cpu cycles are precious, and forcing the cpu to do all the work of rendering the desktop or whatever can eat up cycles used for other things.

Just my opinion though, I could be horribly wrong.

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You might be right if it wasn't for the fact that the server versions of Windows don't have all the 3D effects and other eye candy found in XP. Their desktop is already pretty watered down so that it doesn't use up extra resources.

I wouldn't be surprised if the server version of Longhorn had most of Avalon's flashy features turned off by default. Whether they're being executed by the CPU or graphics card, it's still unnecessary on a server.

Anybody have any screen shots of that Avalon thing?

I had to admit, I never really understood why you would want acclerated 3D graphics and DirectX on a purse Server OS. If you only have base graphics, there is less to go wrong, no? Plus, is it true that MS put the graphics in the core OS kernel (one of the inner rings) to help speed it up? If so, wouldn't it be better to move the graphics out of that inner area so it won't bring down the whole server if something goes nuts?

I wonder if the Linux approach works better for servers. Where you can run the GUI as a totally separate process that can be killed and restarted without goofing up the underlying command-line OS that is running.

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

Plus, is it true that MS put the graphics in the core OS kernel (one of the inner rings) to help speed it up?

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The graphics code runs in kernel mode, but it is not part of the kernel. The GUI is made of 2 dll components - User32.dll and gdi32.dll.

So the graphics are not on the inner rings?

I guess what I'm asking is, in Linux, if the GUI goofs up, you can kill it and restart without bringing down the whole OS and requiring a reboot, correct?

However, in Windows 2k and later, if the GUI blue-screens or what not and becomes inaccessible, the whole OS will need to be rebooted, is that right?

Thanks. :)

I don't know what you mean by inner rings. Graphics runs in kernel mode but can be easily modified as its implementation is via dll's. Graphics are not part of kernel32.dll.

That said, the core Windows subsystems are made up of:

Executive and kernel = Ntoslrnl.exe
Executive and kernel with support for PAE (up to 64GB physical memory) = Ntkrnlpa.exe
Hardware abstraction layer = Hal.dll
Kernel mode part of Windows subsystem = Win32k.sys
Internal support functions and system service dispatch functions = Ntdll.dll
Core Windows Subsystems = Kernel32.dll, Advap132.dll, User32.dll and Gdi3.dll.

http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/435/01/1.html

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Memory protection

Windows NT prevents user applications from interfering with NT’s core operating system services (known collectively as the Windows NT Executive) by running these services in a protected layer called Kernel Mode. To understand how and why NT’s Kernel Mode is protected under NT’s design, we must first understand a little about the “ring” protection model used in modern processor design. In the ring architecture model, a CPU (Central Processing Unit) defines different levels or “rings” of execution, each with its own level of privilege and protection. Both Intel and RISC-based processor designs support this design, with RISC-based CPUs supporting two rings, and Intel-based CPUs supporting four. To effectively support both RISC and Intel CPUs, Windows NT uses only two rings in its design, Rings 0 and 3. Of these, Ring 0 (also known as supervisor mode) is the most highly protected ring in which an application or service can run. It is physically impossible for applications running in Ring 3 to interfere with those running in Ring 0.

As we examine Windows NT’s architecture more closely, we see that NT’s Kernel Mode and its services operate in the processor’s Ring 0, whereas user applications (running in NT’s User Mode) run in the processor’s Ring 3. This is what prevents user applications from interfering with core NT operating system services. Instead, these applications are forced to communicate with NT’s low-level services using a message-passing methodology: no direct physical access of the memory space used by these services is allowed. This design makes it virtually impossible for user applications to violate the integrity of the operating system. Although this method of communication between processes provides an enormous increase in overall system reliability, it also incurs some performance penalties due to the overhead of the continual message passing between User and Kernel modes. Each transition from one mode to the other requires a processor context-switch, which in turn burns additional CPU cycles.

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

Plus, is it true that MS put the graphics in the core OS kernel (one of the inner rings) to help speed it up? If so, wouldn't it be better to move the graphics out of that inner area so it won't bring down the whole server if something goes nuts?

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The answer to your question is in the article you quoted: "NT’s Kernel Mode and its services operate in the processor’s Ring 0, whereas user applications (running in NT’s User Mode) run in the processor’s Ring 3. This is what prevents user applications from interfering with core NT operating system services... no direct physical access of the memory space used by these services is allowed."

Being an integral part of the OS, would you want to run the GUI as a user mode application where it shares RAM address space with applications? And since NT/200x/XP have a 2 GB limit by default for kernel mode and user mode address spaces, do you want the GUI taking up space that could be used for the app the server's intended to run, like a database or mail server?

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

I wonder if the Linux approach works better for servers. Where you can run the GUI as a totally separate process that can be killed and restarted without goofing up the underlying command-line OS that is running.

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You actually can do that (to a point) by restarting explorer.exe in Task Manager. Honestly, though, the GUI on a properly maintained server almost never misbehaves, so it's generally not worth worrying about. Servers in general don't do a whole lot graphically. There shouldn't be anything like games, screen savers, demos, benchmark apps, or any of the things that usually stress the graphics subsystem and/or cause problems.

(Good find on that article, by the way.)

I guess I would prefer that Windows was more like Linux in that the core OS was command-line based and the GUI was run as a separate process on top of that fully functional command-line interface. I think that would be the best way to do it, especially from a server perspective.

But I guess we got what we got and we have to suck it up and deal.

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Originally Posted by Bearded Kirklander

I guess I would prefer that Windows was more like Linux in that the core OS was command-line based and the GUI was run as a separate process on top of that fully functional command-line interface. I think that would be the best way to do it, especially from a server perspective.

But I guess we got what we got and we have to suck it up and deal.

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But you ain't joe user. He doesn't know what the cmd line is, let alone know what to type into it.

The thing is though, you could still run the GUI all you wanted, just like in Linux. Have it default to load the GUI and the only commands you gotta worry about if the GUI crashes is STARTX or what not. It could work. :)

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Originally Posted by mr_oh_so_ice

Really? I always thought it did, in fact I swear I have used the quick format option before installing Windows 2000.

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Not in any of the versions I've used, over the last week I've been building Win2k PCs and the only format options are FAT32 and NTFS, unlike XP which gives you both those, and two quick format options.

As for the GUI and Windows, I still don't see this as a problem, as Skydog has said you can restart Explorer if you're having trouble but it's not an issue I've had or seen, the servers I administrator are all running very basic graphics, nothing fancy at all. You keep going on about this but I haven't seen why you do so?

Strange, I have a custom made slipstream CD using SP4, could that possibly affect it?

why hide the drive letters, i just don't get it

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Originally Posted by JakeDeez

why hide the drive letters, i just don't get it

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Ditto. :)

The idea is to access a resource on a system. There is no need for the resource consumer to know where the resorce is specifically located. It is similar to accessing a web page with a URL. You have no idea where that page is located.

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Originally Posted by JakeDeez

why hide the drive letters, i just don't get it

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Because drive letters actually hide the volume. Drive lettering is a concept that really isn't necessary and doesn't exist in other operating systems. If OSX, Unix, and Linux can operate with volumes, why can't Windows?