Question about Windows....is there any legitimate reason an OS should take up so much space?

[Evoman]

I'm not a computer guy...I only know the most basic of programming. But I really want to know...is there any reason that an operating system should take up so much resources (1 GB RAM FOR VISTA). When I switched from Win98SE to WINXP, apart from a little more stability, I didn't notice HUGE differences. Some things are obviously streamlined and changed, but nothing that would seem to require so much more memory.

Am I just not seeing something? Is it that different "under the hood" that it would nessecitate such a big upgrade in hardware? Or is it a cynical attempt to force people to buy new computers?

I'd really like to get your opinion.

[valerief]

1. I think the NSA may be able to answer that question. nt

[Deja Q]

2. Not really...

Just features or poorly written code.

And as for the Windows Genuine Advantage nonsense, ask the Indians who wrote it. Though it'd be more fun letting a fox guard a hen house or letting a mouse protect a cheese factory, the point is the same: Piracy rates in the countries being nourished by jobs also have atrocious piracy rates... then listen to Gates and his friends talk of piracy and wonder "Where's the credibility when they give thieves jobs."?

:shrug:

[blogslut]

3. Personally

I think MS just patches over bad code and never completely re-writes anything.

[MazeRat7]

4. Its the best way to optimize performance....

Without it you would have to rely on "swap space" which is just a big hard disk file to page certain portions of the OS in and out of memory. Considering HD access is many many times slower than ram access, the more OS "objects" you can keep in memory the better - in terms of performance.

Thats the generic answer anyway...

MZr7

[trotsky]

5. There's no doubt that most Microsoft code is horribly bloated.

For one, there's not as much emphasis on lean, mean programming industry-wide. Hardware is now so cheap, most software developers go in with the attitude of, "oh well, they can always upgrade."

But secondly, M$ has the much bigger chore of running on and with a vastly larger array of hardware components. They don't have the luxury of dictating and manufacturing their own hardware.

That said, Vista has to sacrifice a LOT of performance to draw the screen prettier than ever before. Will that make computers more usable, more friendly for the average user? Remains to be seen. In a few years we might just marvel at how small Vista was for what it did.

[Richard Steele]

6. No. It's a Frankenstein patchwork of old code and spyware.

The current Mac OS X 10.4 only requires 256MB of RAM and 3 Gigs of HD space.

[Mabus]

7. My gut answer is "no" and here's why

I've worked with a couple of programmers who tell me that a lot of code in today's computer software is bloated. It is bloated because most people work with the previous versions of software rather than starting over from scratch. Programmers will leave some code in rather than taking it out. They also tend to overwrite old code or ignore it altgether.

I've known more than one programmer who has shown me code that they wrote over ten years ago that doesn't do anything in the program. Also, programmers like to put extra things in once in a while. Sometimes they put stuff in for their own amusement (aka "easter eggs") and sometimes it is a way to demonstrate that their work is contained in the program.

Here's a link that talks about easter eggs in MS software programs.

The most famous one

is one called The Hall of Tortured Souls.

It works in old versions of Excel ('95).

1. Open a new

file.

2. Scroll down until you see row 95.

3. Click on the row 95 button, this highlights the whole row

4. Press tab, to move to the second column.

5. Now, move your mouse and click on help, THEN about Microsoft Excel

6. Press ctrl-alt-shift and click on the tech support button simultaneously.

7. A WINDOW WILL APPEAR,

TITLE: THE HALL OF TORTURED SOULS

You will see something freaky! it has a doom style format and you can walk all around the hall (using your arrow keys)...and on the sides of the walls are the names of the tortured souls....

8. NOW WALK UP THE STAIRS AND THEN COME BACK DOWN, FACE THE BLANK WALL AND THEN TYPE IN EXCELKFA.

This will open the blank wall to reveal another secret passage, walk through the passage and DO NOT fall off (this is the hard part!), when you get to the end, you will see something really, really eerie.... (This is REALLY there! I haven't been able to reach the end of this VERY narrow passage though.... - WILANT)

Since you likely don't have the old excel here are soem

pictures of this weird

backdoor:







from: http://www.able2know.com/forums/about74.html

[PDittie]

9. Good old able2know ...

Stopped going there a few years ago because of the freepers.

[Mabus]

10. It was one of the first hits for "easter egg" and "word"

Otherwise, I don't think I've ever been there before. :shrug:

[PDittie]

11. It's a decent forum

Not just for political conversation, either.

[zulchzulu]

8. How Microsoft makes software...

I know a few people who have worked for Microsoft as software developers and all of them say that there are a number of reasons why most Microsoft software is "bloatware". Here's an explanation without the gory, geekified details...

It gets down to how they develop and then doing do that much optimization. What that means is that each "bucket" or set of components that are developed use a series of "ingredients" (source code, libraries, etc.) and are then dumped into a bigger "bucket" without taking out redundant code. Then the whole source code mix is put into a bigger "bucket" and compiled without checking for repeated "ingredients"; each which may have been tweaked to make work for their subset of components. Hence, without taking out the redundant junk code (which tends to conflict with other duplicitous code), the software is huge, buggy and takes up way too many resources than it should. It takes more time for an older computer to process...hence you get people having to upgrade their computers to make it tolerable. Microsoft loves keeping Intel busy and vice-versa.

So, imagine a restaurant where the final meal is spaghetti with meatballs. The guy chopping up the vegetables adds salt, pepper and butter to the bowl. The gal making the meatballs adds salt, pepper and butter. The guy making the noodles adds salt, pepper and butter in the broth. The gal making the sauce adds salt, pepper and butter in her bowl.

They then throw it all in a big bowl and serve. And yes, it's too salty with too much pepper and butter...

The good restaurant would add the salt, pepper and butter at the end of the process. If you've ever tried Linux on a PC, you'll see that it's a lot faster at processing than most Windows OSs.

[MyNameGoesHere]

12. This is not really hard to answer

I call it the "Push gas car goes, push brake car stops syndrome."


Users demand so many things from a Operating system but are only concerned with what happens when they click a button. Go look at an average users desktop, you will see anywhere from 10 to 1000 shortcuts on it. Each one of those takes up memory. I have users that keep 100's of Outlook windows open. Each one using more memory. Soon i am asked why the system has stopped responding please free up some resources. I go into my spiel about how a system does not have unlimited resources and blah blah and i get that 10000 mile stare, "Me push gas car go?"

Simple answer is 90% of the world should be banned from computers. When it comes down to it the first computer had no screens, no mice, no keyboards. But they worked. Can you imagine a user using Outlook without that damn "Clippy" guy <or some other non-sense widget> spinning around the screen? They would freak.

[slackmaster]

13. A Linux kernel has been loaded on a 16 Kbyte EEPROM

The computer fit in a matchbox IIRC.

[MyNameGoesHere]

15. Sure but give that to a user

and tell them to check their email. Not very practical. Users want visuals, i can quarantine only 1-2% know how to get email using a command or telnet session.

[tridim]

14. Mac and Linux users will always say MS software is bloated

and Windows users will keep on truckin'. Today's cheapest PC's can handle it just fine, it's just progress.

Same old same old going on two decades now.

[TygrBright]

16. uh-huh. It's simple: "Because they can." n/t