back to article Microsoft WINDOWS 10: Seven ATE Nine. Or Eight did really

Microsoft has shown off Windows 10, and described it as a blend of Windows 7 and 8. Redmond thinks the new operating system is so revolutionary, it skipped over version 9 and went straight to double digits. "We will carry forward all that is good in Windows," Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the operating systems …

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  1. Christoph

    "right down to embedded devices such as life-support systems."

    Is that something that El Reg interpolated, or were Microsoft actually insane enough to suggest that and beg for an endless stream of jokes about it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sorry I can't give you more than one upvote

      Honestly!

    2. Steve Channell
      Happy

      Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

      This is not about hospital systems or "real" life support microcontrollers, but the LCD display panel which is about as life-critical as the speedo on a car. It is neat because it means they're going to go though the certification process.. which means there'll be Smart-Watch that does something that's actually medically useful.

      The bit about XBOX running winten means that the Kenetic control from the xbox will be integrated into the OS and the dump "chimes" gesture will actually be useful

      If they don't f3ck it up, could be the first "post-touch" (as in no more greasy fingers on PC display) OS

      1. getHandle

        Re: Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

        "Windows could not find a pulse. Please wait while we search for a solution online..."

        1. JJKing

          Re: Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

          "Windows could not find a pulse. Please wait while we search for a solution online..."

          What happened to the "call a friend for help" option?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

          "Windows has no pulse. Please wait while ... we ... guhhkkkk ... "

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

            And that'll be Bill Gates's last moments. Justice!

            (I'm not wishing him dead, just wishing upon the cause)

        3. VinceH
          Coat

          Re: Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

          ""Windows could not find a pulse. Please wait while we search for a solution online..."

          Sounds like the ideal time to bring back the annoying paperclip.

          "You appear to have died. Would you like some help with that?"

          1. Tom 13

            Re: Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

            "The embedded OS on your pacemaker does not appear to be Authentic. Please contact Microsoft Support for further information."

        4. Fungus Bob

          Re: Life support systems is actually going to be pretty neat

          ""Windows could not find a pulse. Please wait while we search for a solution online..."

          Have you tried turning the patient off and then back on again?

    3. Anonymous Bullard

      It makes the blue screen of death sound even nastier.

      1. Tom 35

        But it will just say something happened...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Me, hooked up to Microsoft Windows-based life-support?

      Over My Dead Body.

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        >Windows-based life-support?

        It's not for you. It's for Microsoft.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Over My Dead Body

        Gives a whole new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death.

      3. JDX Gold badge

        Loads and loads and loads of medical devices already run on Windows, such as x-ray scanners, etc. "that's not a life critical system" you might say but Windows is controlling how much x-ray radiation you are exposed to...

    5. Philip Stott

      Death support systems

      Windows for warheads anyone?

      1. trog-oz

        Re: Death support systems

        The Royal Navy already runs "Windows for Warships" in it's submarines. I assume Clippy pops up and says "Would you like help launching that Trident missile?"

        1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

          Re: Death support systems

          Wont Clippy actually say "It looks like you are trying to start a thermo-nuclear war, do you want help with that?"

          1. davemcwish

            Re: Death support systems

            Surely Clippy would say

            "How about a nice game of minesweeper?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Death support systems

        "Windows for warheads anyone?"

        Is that V2 of Windows for Warships? (As used by US and British Navy - including for tactical command and control systems on nuclear weapon equipped ships!)

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Death support systems

        "Windows for warheads anyone?"

        There actually *is* a "Windows for Warships", as implemented by (I believe) UK military contractor 'Billions Above Estimate' (BAE) on that reassuringly expensive whatzitcalled? UK boat.

        According to the TV documentary I watched, Windows For Warships (the entire network) crashed within about a minute of starting its first war training exercise.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows for warheads anyone

        I did once receive a support email showing a screenshot from something developed using a UI/Graphics library I worked on with "Warhead" and "Target" where you'd normally expect the "File" and "Edit" menus.

        Anon since I'm not sure we should even have seen a screen-shot of that particular piece of software.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ""right down to embedded devices such as life-support systems."

      Is that something that El Reg interpolated, or were Microsoft actually insane enough to suggest that and beg for an endless stream of jokes about it?"

      Most medical devices already run Windows or Windows CE, so nothing new here.

    7. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      Microsoft's new Windows operating system 10

      To be marketed as Windows OS X *.

      The portable derivatives will be called Windows Xp.

      * To avoid TM confusion, the tiles will not have rounded corners.

      1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: Microsoft's new Windows operating system 10

        But will be coded by macaques.

    8. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      80 inches in size

      "...a single operating system that will run on everything from the largest screens – 80 inches in size ..."

      What a stupid thing to say. I've seen any-old Windows projected onto huge screens at an IMAX theatre. Way bigger than 80 inches. So where did "80 inches" come from? Will Win 10 not work when 84 inch screens are released next month? Stupid.

      1. DropBear

        Re: 80 inches in size

        Let me translate - I think they were referring to the presumably astronomical resolution of such a larger display (but that's not what they said, agreed). Thing is, try reading anything in the standard 10 point font on a eleventy-billion pixel screen; even full HD monitors become problematic unless one cranks up the windows font size - at which point hilarity ensues with lots of apps that were designed / laid out for one and exactly one font size (the default). What the new Windows intends to do about it I dunno - my hunch is poor apps will still look poor, they'll just pay better attention to system stuff working at least...

        1. JeffyPoooh
          Pint

          Re: 80 inches in size

          dB "Let me translate..."

          But 80-inch screens are typical 1080p. Perhaps 4K sometime soon.

          Are you suggesting that they were claiming that the OS could handle 80-inch retinal displays? ~400 dots per inch, for an 80-inch display? Nice try, but that proposed explanation fails the sanity test.

          Thus leaving my point intact. Thanks for trying.

          1. Matt_payne666

            Re: 80 inches in size

            recently got a 70" 4k display and without font scaling I can still read the text...

            it is silly, mind! and makes me grin when using it!

    9. Tom 13

      Re: "right down to embedded devices such as life-support systems."

      It'll give a whole new meaning to a "Code Blue!"

    10. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes they did say that

      Not only that --- Windows runs on many, many Point of Sale terminals (think Target, Inc.) and ATM machines....and cars too. They run it on hospital machines too......so why do you think they constantly release security patches????? Thank your local terrorist Russian hacker.......

      1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

        Re: Yes they did say that

        "Windows runs on many, many Point of Sale terminals (think Target, Inc.)"

        What a coincidence.

  2. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    Yaaaaawn

    Did I miss something?

    1. dogged

      Re: Yaaaaawn

      You missed the opportunity not to comment on a Microsoft story because they're so dull and irrelevant to you.

      Oh wait...

      Clearly they're not.

    2. Turtle

      @Bob Vistakin

      "Yaaaaawn . Did I miss something?"

      Yes.

      1. king of foo

        Re: @Bob Vistakin

        Nein...

    3. Captain DaFt

      Re: Yaaaaawn

      Apparently, yes.

      And it's not even new News, this was announced back in 2013!

      http://www.infoworld.com/article/2613504/microsoft-windows/microsoft-skips--too-good--windows-9--jumps-to-windows-10.html

      'Tis a sad day when an April Fools joke becomes Microsoft's plan for the future.

    4. Anonymoist Cowyard

      Re: Yaaaaawn

      Nope. Microsoft still delusional that they think people care about their too little, too late, too confused offerings.

      1. Purple-Stater

        Re: Yaaaaawn

        "Nope. Microsoft still delusional that they think people care about their too little, too late, too confused offerings."

        I really disliked W8's metro look, but this (W10) I really like. I like W7's ability to slideshow my favorite photos as my desktop background. I did like the functionality of W8's Live Tiles, but not enough to lose the desktop slideshow. So, W10's presumed ability to give me the same W7 desktop, but then throwing in the ability to just hit my Windows key (finally making that key relevant!) to quickly browse my Live Tiles for relevant updates, is absolutely fantastic. Comfort and convenience, who can ask for more?

        And while I still like Windows XP, I do have several machines at home with more modern CPUs that could really use an upgrade to a 64-bit OS.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yaaaaawn

          "I did like the functionality of W8's Live Tiles, but not enough to lose the desktop slideshow."

          Slide-show is a cosmetic feature. I'm more disappointed that no version of Windows later than XP natively supports desktop stretching across multiple monitors. If you are running Windows later than XP you have to shell out for a Quadro card that supports Mosaic to get that functionality.

          "And while I still like Windows XP, I do have several machines at home with more modern CPUs that could really use an upgrade to a 64-bit OS."

          You know there is such a thing as 64-bit XP, right?

          1. Lionel Baden

            Re: Yaaaaawn

            @AC

            Worse than loosing the native desktop stretching in XP (yes i loved it too) I used to run 3 soundcards !

            I found in weirdly useful and loved it, but moving to windows 7, it would only run 1 card at a time properly :(

            1. David Lawrence

              Re: Yaaaaawn

              Grammar/Spelling Pedant Alert.....

              Loose = slack, spare eg "He's playing fast and loose"

              Lose = opposite of 'gain' - get beaten in a game, mislay something etc etc.

              Looser = something that is relatively slacker (such as your ability to speeka de lingo)

              Loser = someone who didn't pay attention during english/spelling lessons at age 9 and still posts stuff with basic errors in it.

              1. aqk
                Headmaster

                Re: Yaaaaawn

                Oh, stoppit!

                Sadly, you must have been borne too loose.

          2. Purple-Stater

            Re: Yaaaaawn

            "You know there is such a thing as 64-bit XP, right?"

            At it's height, 64-bit XP had crap for driver support, and now it has no support at all. Hardly a viable candidate.

            1. David Lawrence

              Re: Yaaaaawn

              Grammar Pedant Alert

              Why sir I do think you mean "At its height.....". IT'S = contraction of "IT IS". That is all.

        2. Chika
          Megaphone

          Re: Yaaaaawn

          The term "your mileage may vary" came to mind as I heard the mention of "reworking the charms bar". Yes, they have brought a reasonable attempt at a start menu back but they are foolish to believe that this was the only niggle that people had about W8 and the "charms bar" was certainly one of these niggles.

          In fact the biggest niggle of all was really the whole swiping business. Swiping from the various edges was what got them into trouble in the first place, especially as these gestures were far from intuitive. Redesigning is a good start but they need to make sure that they have addressed all the necessary points (context, continuity etc.) or they will just end up with the same mess they had when W8 came out.

          A re-badge of "10" isn't necessarily going to work if the product is inferior (just look what happened to the XBone) and trying to persist with a combination of one system for many platforms needs to be weighed against the end result on each. As was rightly said in the article, W8 was seen to be unfairly angled at a small sector of the market that Microsoft had no real presence in at the expense of a market with many millions of users.

          There's a reason why Windows XP still persists with some people and why Windows 7 was such a big seller and still dominates the market (and why Vista and W8.x was such a flop) and unless Microsoft can produce something that ticks all the same boxes (cringe - I HATE using phrases like that!) and stops trying to be something that it isn't, Windows 10 is doomed to failure.

          But these are early days. Let's wait and see whether they produce the next best thing or crap it all up again.

        3. aqk
          Windows

          Re: Yaaaaawn? There IS a SLIDESHOW on Win 8

          I have both Win 8 and Win 8.1.

          The photos slideshow runs very well on it. In fact I have a two-monitor desktop on my 8.0, and the slideshow rotates differnt pictures for each monitor (but all part of the same slideshow).

  3. Robert E A Harvey

    cynical remark

    10 is twice as far from 8 as 9 would have been.

    1. AJ MacLeod

      Re: cynical remark

      Exactly what I was going to say. I can't see anything even slightly revolutionary about it (other than MS backing down a little bit perhaps) - they're clearly distancing themselves from the Windows 8 disaster as much as possible.

      I had thought they might go for another non-numerical name in an exact reverse of the way they went back to numbers to distance themselves from Vista...

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