I found it a bit jarring the way that the mass of regular BBSes go unmentioned in this piece. Fascinating though, I'm from the time (in the UK) and have no recollection of the Microsoft Network.
What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
81–90 of 128 posts
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#82Having worked at MSN during this time, I can tell you, the jealousy of AOL and the client-based walled garden they built was almost physically palpable. AOL was the onramp to the internet for so many folks, but many felt they didn't need to leave the garden. MSN was kind of a halfway spot: a bit more open, but also more integrated into Windows (standard embrace and extend approach). Yahoo! was the other big worry: also had a dialup option, but basically was the internet for many, in that, as a portal, it safely met many of their needs for info and communication.
You saw some of this stuff live on as ActiveX objects in IE for a few years after the client wound down; MSN Money was the last big holdout with it's portfolio manager and charting engine, which also was released as part of a Quicken competitor for personal finance management called Microsoft Money.
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#83MSN had an amazing Quake 2 and just general multiplayer games service for a while, I want to say it was called Games.com or something like that. The one day, poof it was gone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Games
(also known as Zone.com - formerly known as The Village, Internet Gaming Zone, MSN Gaming Zone, and MSN Games by Zone.com)
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#84MSN had an amazing Quake 2 and just general multiplayer games service for a while, I want to say it was called Games.com or something like that. The one day, poof it was gone.
zone.com? I would play Warcraft 2 multiplayer on there. Warcraft 2 had no natural Internet-based multiplayer, zone.com made it easy.
thats the one!
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#85MSN had an amazing Quake 2 and just general multiplayer games service for a while, I want to say it was called Games.com or something like that. The one day, poof it was gone.
zone.com? I would play Warcraft 2 multiplayer on there. Warcraft 2 had no natural Internet-based multiplayer, zone.com made it easy.
I spent a lot of my youth playing Age of Empires 2 multiplayer on zone.com. It was great for its time.
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#86https://youtu.be/5DqJwmzG6Fk?t=1133 This video was linked in the article. What a trip down memory lane. This is the most 90's thing that ever existed. Also, the explanation of what a "right click" is and how it is for "power users". Wow, how far we have come. (This is at 21:50 in the video).
Yep, now with touch screens it's even more hidden
Long pressing[0] is the touchscreen equivalent of a right click.
[0] Or, on very specific old iPhone models, force pressing
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe it was "shell extensions". There's still a few of these lying around. You can even add your own ones: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/nse-imp... It's not so easy to add to the filesystem , but you can make things show up in Explorer that you can click on.
Modern NTFS (Win2000 and later) has "reparse points", which are basically file entries with some metadata that triggers special handling. It's the mechanism used to implement soft links (that are handled transparently by the file system, as opposed with the shortcuts you use e.g. on the desktop), or to mount an NTFS volume as a directory inside another NTFS volume, or by OneDrive to download files on the fly when you…
That is different level of abstraction and NTFS-only thing.
The mechanism mentioned in the article is Shell Namespace. Explorer.exe and friends do not operate on file system (ie. files and directories) but on tree of COM objects (called folders and items) that can represent pretty much anything, although usually represent file system directories and folders. The "Classes root" in "HKCR" means that this registry hive describes how names of these objects are transformed into the COM instances (either by directly naming the CLSID or by parametrizing the behavior of default class of filesystem objects). It works this way to this day. And for example the "Windows 10 God mode menu" is nothing else than exposing internal shell folder.
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#88"The raw, unfiltered mess of the Internet was quickly becoming the New Cool Thing, and no-one wanted to sign up for yet another Stupid Proprietary Thing" Which is exactly what Microsoft is pushing today with their idiotic "Microsoft account," making it increasingly impossible to use Windows or their other products without signing on to this bullshit. They clearly didn't learn the first time around. Nobody wants anoth…
Ah. Perhaps you had to migrate your Mojang account recently.
My daughter went through that yesterday. Stupid Microsoft continues to be stupid Microsoft.
Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#89Re: What the Hell Was the Microsoft Network? (2018)
#90It was... proprietary . The common "walled garden". Everybody thought they could make a walled garden people would like better than the open internet. IBM had SNA, DEC had DECnet, Compuserve, WELL, ... None lamented.
There seems to be some nostalgia/lamentation of the glory days around WELL at least. It even technically still exists today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL
I've always been curious about what lies behind the WELL's paywall nowadays. I fear the answer is likely not much, but searching through their archives could be fascinating.