10 ms·

Why Microsoft's engineering changes will be the real Windows Threshold story

54 points by radmuzom 12y ago

jackmaney 12y ago
> I've heard Microsoft built a new real-time telemetry system codenamed "Asimov" (yes, another Halo-influenced codename) [long, drawn-out sigh] No amount of head-shaking or facepalming will suffice here.
- cwyers 12y ago
  As the article goes on to note: "One of my contacts said Asimov is a system that the Xbox team originally built and used during its development process." I don't see why you'd need to facepalm the Xbox team using a codename from the Halo series, or why it's so headshaking that the larger Windows team would adopt a tool from the Xbox team they found useful.
  - mpthrapp 12y ago
    I assume OP is referring to the fact that the name Asimov isn't well known for being part of Halo. At least, I hope the writer would be considered more popular.
    - jackmaney 12y ago
      Yes, this. It's about as depressing as people 5000 years from now thinking that most of what 21st century people knew about birds was disseminated using an ancient application called Angry Birds.
  - TrainedMonkey 12y ago
    I think it is more of the fact, that OS will be shipped with remote monitoring built in. <sarcasm> Privacy advocates everywhere rejoice. </sarcasm>
    - Someone1234 12y ago
      Windows has had telemetry since forever (well since at least XP). It has gone by several names including "The Windows Feedback Program" (Windows 7).
      - TrainedMonkey 12y ago
        I really do not see how telemetry is same as feedback. One is proactive constant monitoring with automatic data collection and second is reactive report submission that asks every time before sending report.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    Or even more simply, why it really matters what the codename is at all.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    Well the Xbox team got it from the sci-fi author. The point is it might be inspired by Halo, but the Halo reference is inspired by the author. It's like saying John Locke is a reference to Lost, when Lost co-opted it from the philosopher.
    - ObviousScience 12y ago
      But John Locke in lost is merely a reference to and not the same as, John Locke the philosopher. Not everything with the same name is the same thing, and it's possible to reference the second in a series of shared names that itself is referencing the first. References aren't transitive, in this case.
    - cwyers 12y ago
      Well, Windows Phone has been using the name Cortana for their Siri-equivalent. The codename for the next version of IE is reportedly Spartan[1], which is used in Halo. The codename for the upcoming version of Windows is Threshold[2], which again is a name that shows up in Halo. Naming everything after things in Halo is apparently Microsoft's new thing. 1) http://www.zdnet.com/how-the-next-version-of-ie-codenamed-spartan-might-support-extensions-7000033685/ http://www.zdnet.com/how-the-next-version-of-ie-codenamed-sp... 2) http://www.geek.com/games/microsoft-taps-the-halo-franchise-for-next-windows-codename-1578697/ http://www.geek.com/games/microsoft-taps-the-halo-franchise-...
- msie 12y ago
  /s Yes, Asimov was the real name of Master Chief. His compatriots were Bradbury and Heinlein.
  - angersock 12y ago
    always bet on ellison
- skrebbel 12y ago
  I facepalm your facepalm. Is it possible that the author knows about Isaac Asimov, but that she also knows that Asimov is also the name of a character from Halo? And that it fits in a pattern in the Halo context and not in the Sci-fi-author context, and she therefore reports it as such? What if there were a Halo character called Sinatra, and the Windows feature would be code-named Sinatra, would you call the author out (sigh! facepalm!) for being too stupid to know about the actor? EDIT: personal pronoun gender. thanks cwyers.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    The author is a female. And she adds additional information about the origin of the program inside the Xbox team; it's not that she doesn't know who Asimov is, it's more likely that someone involved in it TOLD HER that they took the name from Halo, which in turn used the name of the writer.
  - withad 12y ago
    But the weird part is that there isn't a Halo character called Asimov. The author's own potholed link to the Halo wikia just shows an "Asimov Center" as a briefly mentioned location in one short story. And even the tiny article for it takes time to explain who it was named after. Linking the name "Asimov" with the Halo games seems to be a bizarre speculation/research failure on her part, as far as I can tell.
- ossreality 12y ago
  Lots of inaccuracies in regards to what Asimov is anyway. Not sure that I should go out of my way to correct it though.
- withad 12y ago
  What a bizarre connection to make. Maybe I'm out-of-date on my Halo lore but I don't think there's even anyone/thing significant in that universe named after him. Indeed, the search on the Halo wiki she links only reveals an "Asimov Centre" briefly mentioned in one short story and a quarter of the tiny article is a sentence explaining who Isaac Asimov was.
- ihiram 12y ago
  Mary Jo Foley is a well-known Microsoft reporter and has been for a lonnnnnng time (I would bet on 15 years without Googling). She's also sharp and plugged into the tech scene, with the usual savviness to develop sources inside corps. I've met her at a couple conferences. She's probably read a few Asimov books. What I think the quote shows is not a lack of awareness about other uses of "Asimov" but that much of her stories are copy-pasted from emails with Microsoft marketers. Someone in Microsoft (Azure?) wants you to know about "Asimov"... perhaps an announcement next week? This way Mary Jo looks like she is relevant and you are primed to want to learn more... Edit: I agree with the facepalm, just for different reasons
- serve_yay 12y ago
  Thanks for dominating discussion of the story with this horseshit.
pjmlp 12y ago
What I would like to see from developer point of view, would be a WinRT version of the OS, using .NET Native while trying to fulfil the Longhorn vision. Lets see what really comes out.
- freehunter 12y ago
  I was excited for Windows RT thinking we would see a truly new Windows system from the ground up. They didn't quite go that far, and unfortunately with the intense hate spewed across the Internet for years afterwards, I'm not sure they'll have the stomach to try again. Imagine if they went back to Windows 98 after Windows XP came out (since XP got just as much hatred from the Internet back before it was so fondly remembered). Time will tell.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Windows CE was done from the ground up. But unfortunately not by OS Engineers. SO it was pretty bush-league with not a lot of innovation. I'd like to see an OS (not just a shell) from the ground up to include actually useful things like support for distributed persistent assets, P2P networking and so on.
  - gtirloni 12y ago
    Just wanted to clarify if by "from the ground up" you mean rewriting everything (memory management, device drivers, scheduler, API, etc) or something else. And what that would look like?
    - iheartmemcache 12y ago
      Major, major chaos- especially for their business clients. Microsoft goes out of their way to make sure there is still support for business LOB apps running Delphi and MFC. Just look at their long term support. Windows XP had like 15 years of support. "From the ground up" might be a good idea, but tons of existing software is actually built around former bugs in the OS-- so writing a new OS "the right way" would actually break the apps of their target demographic (business clients.)
iammyIP 12y ago
... [that lets the OS team see in near real-time what's happening on users' machines.] ... so this "near" is network latency?
- bentcorner 12y ago
  My best guess, from http://www.microsoft.com/products/ceip/en-us/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/products/ceip/en-us/default.mspx: * Applications which use CEIP typically send data to Microsoft servers after the application is closed
arenaninja 12y ago
[Disclaimer: I use Windows 7, but I did use Windows 8 for 2 weeks then decided to go back] I'm anxious to see what Microsoft has in store, but I'm not excited. The recent post here by the developer whose system credentials were changed after he linked his Microsoft account is part of the reason why. Of course I'd want access to the Microsoft Store, but I don't want to log to the system with those credentials, I want to keep the ones that were already set. I doubt this will be the direction that Threshold will take, and if it turns into another Win8 turd I'll probably be done with the Windows OS EDIT: Since I've been downvoted to oblivion I can only assume that the MS employees here like my post about as much as I like their Winows 8 OS
- wvenable 12y ago
  I encountered that same issue; in order to use Metro I have to convert my regular account to an online live account and then use those credentials for local login. I don't want to do that. So I don't use Metro at all. But frankly, I don't see Microsoft changing course on that.
- yuhong 12y ago
  I just installed a free app to test this on Win8.1 and I did it using a local account perfectly fine.
  - arenaninja 12y ago
    Do you have a separate (admin) account that's linked to a Windows account? Because I think that's the way around it, maintaining 2 accounts
    - yuhong 12y ago
      No.
robomartin 12y ago
I have a much bigger problem with MS. It has to do with a fundamental aspect of the Windows architecture: The OS holds your applications hostage. In the DOS era applications had a huge degree of independence from the OS. You could nuke the OS, upgrade it, modify it and move machines and your apps worked just the same. Today things are different. The OS, by means of such "features" as te registry, holds applications hostage. Say I have a five year old machine. I want to purchase (or more than likely, build) a new machine. In the past this was relativley painless. Once the machine is up you move your apps and off you go. Today this requires full re-installation of apps from scratch. It's a nightmare and it is one I contend has significant economic consequences. Whereas someone like me might consider upgrading hardware every year or two, the financial math now includes the non trivial time and expense of reinstalling everything. We've done this a few times. With typical high end engineering workstations full of software it can easily take a month of installing and configuring software to get back to the setup you had before he upgrade. This isn't pallatable at all from more than one perspective. And so machines continue to be used as long as possible before upgrading anything that might trigger a reinstallation event. To me this is a major flaw in the design of Windows. OS, applications and data ought to be fully separable independent entities. I get all the advantages of DLL reuse and centralized settings, etc. I still contend that this could be achieved at the cost of additional storage and some more smarts. A one terabyte hard drive is about $60 today. I could not care less if DLL's need to be duplicated for each software installation in order to break lose from the OS and registry as much as possible. The point is, if they are smart they ought to be able to figure it out. I ought to be able to install all my apps on a portable USB drive, walk up to any machine in the world, plug in and have my tools and files available for use instantly. That's the way it should work.
- cjp 12y ago
  > To me this is a major flaw in the design of Windows. As much as possible, I use PortableApps on Windows. When I migrate to a new machine, all I need to do is copy the PortableApps folder. I don't see this as a flaw in Windows. If every application developer/packager built portable apps, there wouldn't be a problem.
  - 12y ago

54 points by radmuzom 12y ago

> I've heard Microsoft built a new real-time telemetry system codenamed "Asimov" (yes, another Halo-influenced codename) [long, drawn-out sigh] No amount of head-shaking or facepalming will suffice here.

cwyers 12y ago
As the article goes on to note: "One of my contacts said Asimov is a system that the Xbox team originally built and used during its development process." I don't see why you'd need to facepalm the Xbox team using a codename from the Halo series, or why it's so headshaking that the larger Windows team would adopt a tool from the Xbox team they found useful.
- mpthrapp 12y ago
  I assume OP is referring to the fact that the name Asimov isn't well known for being part of Halo. At least, I hope the writer would be considered more popular.
  - jackmaney 12y ago
    Yes, this. It's about as depressing as people 5000 years from now thinking that most of what 21st century people knew about birds was disseminated using an ancient application called Angry Birds.
- TrainedMonkey 12y ago
  I think it is more of the fact, that OS will be shipped with remote monitoring built in. <sarcasm> Privacy advocates everywhere rejoice. </sarcasm>
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Windows has had telemetry since forever (well since at least XP). It has gone by several names including "The Windows Feedback Program" (Windows 7).
    - TrainedMonkey 12y ago
      I really do not see how telemetry is same as feedback. One is proactive constant monitoring with automatic data collection and second is reactive report submission that asks every time before sending report.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Or even more simply, why it really matters what the codename is at all.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Well the Xbox team got it from the sci-fi author. The point is it might be inspired by Halo, but the Halo reference is inspired by the author. It's like saying John Locke is a reference to Lost, when Lost co-opted it from the philosopher.
  - ObviousScience 12y ago
    But John Locke in lost is merely a reference to and not the same as, John Locke the philosopher. Not everything with the same name is the same thing, and it's possible to reference the second in a series of shared names that itself is referencing the first. References aren't transitive, in this case.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    Well, Windows Phone has been using the name Cortana for their Siri-equivalent. The codename for the next version of IE is reportedly Spartan[1], which is used in Halo. The codename for the upcoming version of Windows is Threshold[2], which again is a name that shows up in Halo. Naming everything after things in Halo is apparently Microsoft's new thing. 1) http://www.zdnet.com/how-the-next-version-of-ie-codenamed-spartan-might-support-extensions-7000033685/ http://www.zdnet.com/how-the-next-version-of-ie-codenamed-sp... 2) http://www.geek.com/games/microsoft-taps-the-halo-franchise-for-next-windows-codename-1578697/ http://www.geek.com/games/microsoft-taps-the-halo-franchise-...
msie 12y ago
/s Yes, Asimov was the real name of Master Chief. His compatriots were Bradbury and Heinlein.
- angersock 12y ago
  always bet on ellison
skrebbel 12y ago
I facepalm your facepalm. Is it possible that the author knows about Isaac Asimov, but that she also knows that Asimov is also the name of a character from Halo? And that it fits in a pattern in the Halo context and not in the Sci-fi-author context, and she therefore reports it as such? What if there were a Halo character called Sinatra, and the Windows feature would be code-named Sinatra, would you call the author out (sigh! facepalm!) for being too stupid to know about the actor? EDIT: personal pronoun gender. thanks cwyers.
- cwyers 12y ago
  The author is a female. And she adds additional information about the origin of the program inside the Xbox team; it's not that she doesn't know who Asimov is, it's more likely that someone involved in it TOLD HER that they took the name from Halo, which in turn used the name of the writer.
- withad 12y ago
  But the weird part is that there isn't a Halo character called Asimov. The author's own potholed link to the Halo wikia just shows an "Asimov Center" as a briefly mentioned location in one short story. And even the tiny article for it takes time to explain who it was named after. Linking the name "Asimov" with the Halo games seems to be a bizarre speculation/research failure on her part, as far as I can tell.
ossreality 12y ago
Lots of inaccuracies in regards to what Asimov is anyway. Not sure that I should go out of my way to correct it though.
withad 12y ago
What a bizarre connection to make. Maybe I'm out-of-date on my Halo lore but I don't think there's even anyone/thing significant in that universe named after him. Indeed, the search on the Halo wiki she links only reveals an "Asimov Centre" briefly mentioned in one short story and a quarter of the tiny article is a sentence explaining who Isaac Asimov was.
ihiram 12y ago
Mary Jo Foley is a well-known Microsoft reporter and has been for a lonnnnnng time (I would bet on 15 years without Googling). She's also sharp and plugged into the tech scene, with the usual savviness to develop sources inside corps. I've met her at a couple conferences. She's probably read a few Asimov books. What I think the quote shows is not a lack of awareness about other uses of "Asimov" but that much of her stories are copy-pasted from emails with Microsoft marketers. Someone in Microsoft (Azure?) wants you to know about "Asimov"... perhaps an announcement next week? This way Mary Jo looks like she is relevant and you are primed to want to learn more... Edit: I agree with the facepalm, just for different reasons
serve_yay 12y ago
Thanks for dominating discussion of the story with this horseshit.

pjmlp 12y ago

What I would like to see from developer point of view, would be a WinRT version of the OS, using .NET Native while trying to fulfil the Longhorn vision. Lets see what really comes out.

freehunter 12y ago
I was excited for Windows RT thinking we would see a truly new Windows system from the ground up. They didn't quite go that far, and unfortunately with the intense hate spewed across the Internet for years afterwards, I'm not sure they'll have the stomach to try again. Imagine if they went back to Windows 98 after Windows XP came out (since XP got just as much hatred from the Internet back before it was so fondly remembered). Time will tell.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Windows CE was done from the ground up. But unfortunately not by OS Engineers. SO it was pretty bush-league with not a lot of innovation. I'd like to see an OS (not just a shell) from the ground up to include actually useful things like support for distributed persistent assets, P2P networking and so on.
- gtirloni 12y ago
  Just wanted to clarify if by "from the ground up" you mean rewriting everything (memory management, device drivers, scheduler, API, etc) or something else. And what that would look like?
  - iheartmemcache 12y ago
    Major, major chaos- especially for their business clients. Microsoft goes out of their way to make sure there is still support for business LOB apps running Delphi and MFC. Just look at their long term support. Windows XP had like 15 years of support. "From the ground up" might be a good idea, but tons of existing software is actually built around former bugs in the OS-- so writing a new OS "the right way" would actually break the apps of their target demographic (business clients.)

iammyIP 12y ago

... [that lets the OS team see in near real-time what's happening on users' machines.] ... so this "near" is network latency?

bentcorner 12y ago
My best guess, from http://www.microsoft.com/products/ceip/en-us/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/products/ceip/en-us/default.mspx: * Applications which use CEIP typically send data to Microsoft servers after the application is closed

arenaninja 12y ago

[Disclaimer: I use Windows 7, but I did use Windows 8 for 2 weeks then decided to go back] I'm anxious to see what Microsoft has in store, but I'm not excited. The recent post here by the developer whose system credentials were changed after he linked his Microsoft account is part of the reason why. Of course I'd want access to the Microsoft Store, but I don't want to log to the system with those credentials, I want to keep the ones that were already set. I doubt this will be the direction that Threshold will take, and if it turns into another Win8 turd I'll probably be done with the Windows OS EDIT: Since I've been downvoted to oblivion I can only assume that the MS employees here like my post about as much as I like their Winows 8 OS

wvenable 12y ago
I encountered that same issue; in order to use Metro I have to convert my regular account to an online live account and then use those credentials for local login. I don't want to do that. So I don't use Metro at all. But frankly, I don't see Microsoft changing course on that.
yuhong 12y ago
I just installed a free app to test this on Win8.1 and I did it using a local account perfectly fine.
- arenaninja 12y ago
  Do you have a separate (admin) account that's linked to a Windows account? Because I think that's the way around it, maintaining 2 accounts
  - yuhong 12y ago
    No.

robomartin 12y ago

I have a much bigger problem with MS. It has to do with a fundamental aspect of the Windows architecture: The OS holds your applications hostage. In the DOS era applications had a huge degree of independence from the OS. You could nuke the OS, upgrade it, modify it and move machines and your apps worked just the same. Today things are different. The OS, by means of such "features" as te registry, holds applications hostage. Say I have a five year old machine. I want to purchase (or more than likely, build) a new machine. In the past this was relativley painless. Once the machine is up you move your apps and off you go. Today this requires full re-installation of apps from scratch. It's a nightmare and it is one I contend has significant economic consequences. Whereas someone like me might consider upgrading hardware every year or two, the financial math now includes the non trivial time and expense of reinstalling everything. We've done this a few times. With typical high end engineering workstations full of software it can easily take a month of installing and configuring software to get back to the setup you had before he upgrade. This isn't pallatable at all from more than one perspective. And so machines continue to be used as long as possible before upgrading anything that might trigger a reinstallation event. To me this is a major flaw in the design of Windows. OS, applications and data ought to be fully separable independent entities. I get all the advantages of DLL reuse and centralized settings, etc. I still contend that this could be achieved at the cost of additional storage and some more smarts. A one terabyte hard drive is about $60 today. I could not care less if DLL's need to be duplicated for each software installation in order to break lose from the OS and registry as much as possible. The point is, if they are smart they ought to be able to figure it out. I ought to be able to install all my apps on a portable USB drive, walk up to any machine in the world, plug in and have my tools and files available for use instantly. That's the way it should work.

cjp 12y ago
> To me this is a major flaw in the design of Windows. As much as possible, I use PortableApps on Windows. When I migrate to a new machine, all I need to do is copy the PortableApps folder. I don't see this as a flaw in Windows. If every application developer/packager built portable apps, there wouldn't be a problem.
- 12y ago