

Why modular Windows will suck for Microsoft and suck for you - habs
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/modular-windows-will-suck.ars

======
iigs
The argument is predicated on an assumption, namely that "modularity" in
desktop OSes will mean different commercial SKUs and Microsoft will continue
splintering beyond the 4-5 different Vista models. Therefore, as people pick
the SKU that is right for them the platform will disintegrate into a developer
nightmare. My thoughts:

1) The splintering is already a mess. I don't know anybody who could name all
of the differences between the current Vista versions, even Windows sysadmins
where I work. I hope that MS sees this as the disaster it is and avoids it,
although I have no data that says they do or don't.

2) Modularity in Windows 2008 represents a philosophical shift. In 2003 and
before, Microsoft maintained that the advantage of a monolithic design was
that it was all always there for the taking. If your .asp app needed to render
a 3d model of data from Active Directory, cross referenced with an Excel
spreadsheet, just suck in the COM/ActiveX objects and make it happen.
Unfortunately while that is neat in concept, they took immeasurable shit from
the community when core DLLs that supported stuff like that caused vanilla
single task (like DHCP or print spool) servers to need rebooted monthly.

3) building on #2, even desktop OSes are becoming tremendously unwieldy.
There's a valid case to be made for assuming that MS wants the ability to
knife older components, partition the impact of security exploits in esoteric
modules, and modernize the system. This is a lot harder than it has to be if
you say it all comes in a single checkbox. Consider the Windows "Server"
service exploit two weeks ago: <http://www.us-
cert.gov/cas/alerts/SA08-297A.html> . No single PC household, virtually no
multi-pc household, and perhaps a majority of commercial installations do not
need this service running.

4) Painting modularity lines will allow developers to write more robust code
on the platform. In the Linux world you can get a feel for the complexity or
quality of a project if it's small but pulls in a lot of dependencies. A lot
of cut and paste Windows coders will just google a solution and pull in
whatever the first workable solution depends on. This is really easy but means
that simple VBScripts and other utilities end up requiring tons of subsystems
that they don't really need, taking more resources and offering more failure
modes.

5) building on #4, because developers won't be able to assume people have
everything installed, Microsoft will be encouraged to organize functionality
in more convenient/logical ways. You frequently have to invoke ADO or WMI when
using a VBScript to do simple system management tasks. While duplicating
everything doesn't make any sense, it is logical to provide simple interfaces
to simple tasks. This, well implemented, would mean that developers wouldn't
have to learn SQL (as an unusual LDAP search syntax) in order to iterate
through a user directory list.

summary: I think it's a great idea and might be their way out of the current
mess of platform differentiation. They could still mess it up if they did it
wrong, though.

------
Hexstream
Eh. Why wouldn't they just make a minimal OS with all the necessary hooks and
then sell some first-party software that runs in userspace like everyone else
instead of bundling lots of crap in the OS ;P

~~~
briansmith
Every application that is bundled with Windows runs in user space; they are
not actually part of the operating system.

The reason Microsoft bundles that stuff with Windows is because they are
trying to undercut their competitors. Why should Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sony
pay the PowerDVD guys for DVD playback software when they could just pay
Microsoft for it instead? By bundling it with the operating system, Microsoft
can compete on convenience instead of soley on price/features.

------
ks
It has always annoyed me that not all versions come with hard drive
encryption. A stolen/missing laptop will benefit from encryption no matter who
the user is.

