There has been an (albeit poor) package manager for some time: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/cc748979(v=ws.10)... I've personally struggled with it to fix corrupt updated installed by windows updates, and while it doesn't meet the bar set by mainstream Linux distro package managers, it is a package manager nonetheless.
As simple as it seems, this single failing has been my primary reason for outright dismissing Windows as a reasonable contender for server usage, no matter what else Microsoft might do to make it attractive for a variety of server tasks. A system that cannot be updated easily without human intervention is not a system that deserves a place in any data center.
I take it you're not familiar with Windows Server...
It's been nearly a decade since I managed any Windows servers. I'm more than willing to believe there are features of modern Windows systems that I don't know about. Perhaps you can fill me in on what I've been missing...I assume you're implying there is some equivalent to yum or apt-get on Windows that allows easily updating system and third-party packages from the command line without human intervention?
And, do most vendors make their software available through this mechanism? That would be a miraculous improvement over the couple dozen different update services that run on a Windows box (Java updater, Adobe updater, Apple updater, Oracle updater for VirtualBox, etc.), all of which have wildly variable reliability and are mostly impossible to script or automate. If those are gone from the Windows management experience, that'd be great.
I'm not a Windows user so maybe I'm way off, but wouldn't adding Cortana go much farther in getting people to upgrade? How's the Kinect support in Windows? Quite honestly, Microsoft is only competing against itself. How many XP uses are still out there? A couple hundred couple hundred million? Give them a reason to get excited.
It seems like you haven't paid much attention to the leaks and rumors out there... Cortana is 100% going to be in Windows 10 from the looks of it. Also, this package manager is designed to get the people MS needs excited the most - hardcore power users like us.
That's what I said. I'm not a Windows users. I follow a little Windows phone and some Surface 3 news.
There has been an (albeit poor) package manager for some time: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/cc748979(v=ws.10)... I've personally struggled with it to fix corrupt updated installed by windows updates, and while it doesn't meet the bar set by mainstream Linux distro package managers, it is a package manager nonetheless.
If Windows 10 was built on top of Linux I'd get a lot more excited. I have to use Windows for the myriad of engineering tools that are not available under any other OS, for example, SolidWorks, Altium Designer, various embedded toolsets, etc. And, while I've been using PC's (and Macs and Linux) since they came on the scene I hate, hate, hate the DOS or technically DOS-like underbelly of the beast. I know it is a ridi…
If Windows 10 was built on top of Linux I'd get a lot more excited.
GPL would make that impossible. There are reasons OS X is based on BSD, and not all of them are about technical superiority.
If Windows 10 was built on top of Linux I'd get a lot more excited. I have to use Windows for the myriad of engineering tools that are not available under any other OS, for example, SolidWorks, Altium Designer, various embedded toolsets, etc. And, while I've been using PC's (and Macs and Linux) since they came on the scene I hate, hate, hate the DOS or technically DOS-like underbelly of the beast. I know it is a ridi…
The APIs may be annoying (HWND, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, DWORD_PTR dwcsprcadrswtfbbq, NULL, ...) but that backwards compatibility you're suggesting they do away with is pretty much the best thing about Windows. I got so fucking sick of the desktop Linux people constantly breaking everything on foppery and whim that I went back to Windows 7+mingw, and while Stallman would be ashamed of me, I have to say that it's incredibly comforting to use a platform that mostly figured itself out over a decade ago, that won't change under my feet every other month, and even when it does (Windows 8) I can keep using the version I liked best for years and years because they actually took binary compatibility seriously throughout the entire system. There are still people on XP for christ's sake. I'll take that over overzealous redhatters who think they know what's best for me any day.