Up to 60% of Vista to be rewritten?

[iago]

Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft new Vista operating system is set to be rewritten as the Company "scrambles" to fix internal problems. Note: this is code in the CONSUMER VERSION, not in the entire OS.  A lot of people on /. are taking that the wrong way.   read more. 

Sounds like a HUGE task.  They're adding people from their Xbox team to Vista.  That sounds like a bad idea to me, it's a general rule in software development (vocalized in the book, The Mythical Man Month) that adding more people to a project nearing completion tends to slow it down.  See my signature. 

I guess we'll see how it goes!

[ZeroX]

Nearing completion? I thought 2007 was almost 9 months away? Iam sure they have time to fix any internal problemes they are having. Plus adding more people to the project will just make it better becuase of all the ideas they are going to have *cough* Halo 2 already installed when you setup Vista  *cough*

[deadly7]

Nearing completion? I thought 2007 was almost 9 months away? Iam sure they have time to fix any internal problemes they are having. Plus adding more people to the project will just make it better becuase of all the ideas they are going to have *cough* Halo 2 already installed when you setup Vista  *cough*

Nine months to fix more than five years worth of coding... right.

[MyndFyre]

I hope they're going to get rid of the retarded way the OS asks for permission to do a privileged task right now.  I have already gotten into the habit of just blowing right through it.

[iago]

I hope they're going to get rid of the retarded way the OS asks for permission to do a privileged task right now.  I have already gotten into the habit of just blowing right through it.

Then you aren't very smart.  When that comes up, you should stop and think, however briefly, to make sure that that's what you want to do.  It's particularily useful when you're using a program that shouldn't be doing privileged tasks in the first place.

Of course, it depends on what extent they do it to.  The only time I need to use root is to install a system-wide program or change a system configuration file.  Allowing any program to do that is just stupid. 

[Warrior]

This can be a good thing or a bad thing, remember the "5 years of coding" was restarted already. It was rewritten in the mid of it's Longhorn to use the Windows2k3 codebase so saying that it took them 5 years really isn't accurate. I think putting people from the XBox team is a great idea, they can focus on the media portions of the OS such as sound and video.

[iago]

I think putting people from the XBox team is a great idea, they can focus on the media portions of the OS such as sound and video.

There have been A LOT of projects that have gone down in flames due to adding people. 

[Warrior]

I think putting people from the XBox team is a great idea, they can focus on the media portions of the OS such as sound and video.

There have been A LOT of projects that have gone down in flames due to adding people. 

Yes however I doubt they will be making XBox devs kernel programmers, it's likely to help with multimedia deployment and improving things like the audio stacks and audio applications and even possibly the video portion.

[Warrior]

Additionally, here they recognize that it was indeed the media portion that needed reworking.

[igimo1]

http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_No_Vista_Code_Changes/1143232877

Slashdot editors overlook credibility of the source, Linux fanboys jump at the chance to bash Microsoft.

[Warrior]

Same thing I said, the 60% of rewrite was 60% of the MEDIA portion of the OS. Nothing to see here, find something else to bash Windows over.

[Krazed]

On a side note, for media portions of the OS, there is noone better to help with coding than the Xbox development team.

[iago]

Same thing I said, the 60% of rewrite was 60% of the MEDIA portion of the OS. Nothing to see here, find something else to bash Windows over.

Incidentally, that's exactly what I said in the first post.  The Slashdot post wasn't wrong, people who responded read it wrong.

Sorry I took so long to reply..

[Warrior]

What do you mean by Consumer version? It's been established it's the media portion that's being rewritten, anything else is wrong.

[MyndFyre]

Same thing I said, the 60% of rewrite was 60% of the MEDIA portion of the OS. Nothing to see here, find something else to bash Windows over.

Incidentally, that's exactly what I said in the first post.  The Slashdot post wasn't wrong, people who responded read it wrong.

Sorry I took so long to reply..

According to the article Topaz provided, the /. post *was* wrong.

What do you mean by Consumer version? It's been established it's the media portion that's being rewritten, anything else is wrong.

The business editions won't have media center functionality.  That will be in Home Premium and Ultimate.