Re: Microsoft

[news_joe@NOSPAM.com (Burnam)]

In article <199906291356.NAA16434@berlin.neuropa.net>
Anonymous-Remailer@See.Comment.Header (Penman) writes:

> Actually, Microsoft's control of other companies' software goes deeper.
> I've run into software at work that won't run unless their Internet
> Explorer is installed on the machine.  Apparently some of the code is
> "borrowed" from IE.  I prefer Netscape, and scrubbed IE off the drive.
> Then software wouldn't work.  Finally figured it out, reinstalled IE, and
> I can get to my programs again.  I still use Netscape, but I have to have
> both browsers on the HD.  
> 
> MS software IS buggy, bloated, and written poorly.  It and the files it
> saves takes up more space on a drive than they should if written
> correctly, but hey--they're Microsoft.  Why should they care?  :)
> 

I'm not a big MS fan, but I'm not an anti-MS guy either. I like
Explorer more than Netscape...does that make me an evil guy? Probably.
But, anyways, everybody writes bloated software. While at Attachmate I
helped write a nice Mac program that was small (despite MacApp),
basically a single file app and worked well. I like that Mac developer
"seem" to be (in my experience) more insterested in footprint than PC
counterparts. I like that Mac software is more than easier to use, it
seems to be of higher professional caliber. Ever notice that PC
shareware software is generally crap written by a 12-year-old in VB,
whereas on the Mac you have Anarchie, GraphicConverter, etc...stuff
that is really good. Anyways, later I went to the Win32 team where we
shipped a product with over 1000 files (DLL's and such). This isn't
rare.

> apparently some of the code is "borrowed" from IE

Sorta, but not really. But Microsoft would rather you believe it is.
Almost all of why MS can say the OS and IE and intertwined is simply
because of some DLL dependencies. The GUI does now require many subsets
of IE features, but not in Win95. Let's ignore Win98 for a moment and
look at the problem in it's simple since (ignoring the GUI changes).
Suppose you install Win95 (4.00.950) and later upgrade to 4.00.950 A,
then 4.00.950 B, etc. Each flavor will install a bunch of new DLL's.
For example, COMMCTRL.DLL. This is where MFC apps get their base
functionality for common controls (CButton, CProgressCtrl, CSliderCtrl,
CSpinButtonCtrl, CListCtrl, CPropertyPage, etc). Let's stick with the
COMMCTRL example. When you install a service pack to fix Win bugs, you
get a new DLL, often a new COMMCTRL. Let's suppose you don't install a
service pack...maybe there's another way MS can get the fix to you
(maybe without even admitting the bug exists), by also giving you the
newer DLL when you install MS Office (most people do) or when you
install MSIE (very many people do). So, suppose you install Win95
4.00.950, and then install MSIE 3.02...after installing MSIE 3.02 you
will have a new COMMCTRL.DLL. In this case probably only because MSIE
3.02 introduces the CCoolBar control. However, you might now have a new
bug. I remember fixing an annoying bug at Attachmate where
CPropertyPage didn't behave correctly on CPropertySheet only after MSIE
3.02 was installed. So, the fix was to actually check for the dang
version of COMMCTRL and behave differently depending on which DLL was
there. It was annoying, but rather typical. Now, let's suppose you
uninstall MSIE 3.02. It's the app that installed the newer
COMMCTRL...do you remove COMMCTRL or leave it? Or do you restore the
previous version? If you remove it, everything that depends on it
breaks (and the ONLY way that MS can arque in court about MSIE being
tied to Win). If you restore the previous version, you're probably OK,
but you're probably best off leaving the newer version
around...although purists wouldn't consider that a "thorough"
uninstall.

OK, now let's not ignore Win98 anymore. Now MS has one more way that
they can argue in court about MSIE being tied to Win. MSIE, of course,
can render HTML pages. If they make the Win GUI rely on this renderer
then the two are tied so closely that how can they reverse this? OH NO!
Well, simple, render the Win GUI differently...like they used to. Or,
leverage a small portion of MSIE, such as a CRenderHTML class, and
don't use the whole thing. Anyways, I don't like to view my desktop as
if it were some HTML page. I generally don't like web pages, why do I
want my desktop to be like one? But it's a good idea for MS to pursue.

PS: on a positive note...current favorite MS software title.... "MS
Dogs".

-j


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