Ever since Windows 3.1, I viewed the faux 3D window decorations as an insulting waste of my processing time. The Windows logo was merely an extrapolation of MS's attitude that "Now that we have such powerful computers, we can merrily waste all that power with this increasingly bloated but supposedly impressive OS."
That attitude was not unique to them, at all. Apple has been equally guilty of it for longer than Microsoft. It's that attitude that (in part) led me to move to Linux a decade ago, where I could merrily work without suffering the overhead of a GUI.
This new Windows logo is, in my view, the sexiest thing I've ever seen come out of Microsoft. I stopped caring about Windows long ago, except to note that minwin sounded awesome (but never shipped?), Windows 8 Server could run headless (What an innovation!), and PowerShell actually does seem brilliantly innovative (although it's unfortunately integrated with all that .net crap).
Now if this logo accurately reflects their change in attitude, to a minimal OS that stays out of my way, then I've got to say I'm a fan. They're unlikely to win me over from Arch Linux, but for once Microsoft seems to be on the right track. At least with respect to that logo.
Edit: I'm amazed that this post is bouncing between 0 and 1 points. In a discussion of the new Windows logo, I described why I like it so much. If you disagree, feel free to comment. Down-votes should not be used to express disagreement.
Minwin didn't ship on its own, but was really an artifact of their efforts to make the components in the kernel less dependent on each other, while developing Windows Vista. I'm not sure how successful their efforts were, seeing as even "Server Core", supposedly the most minimal Windows Server edition possible, still mandates a GUI.
I recall reading an article which talked about the kernel team assigning level numbers to every kernel component, giving the GUI a high level processor scheduling and such a low level, and trying to reduce the dependency between the different levels. Minwin was merely a Windows kernel that has none of the higher level components, but the problem with it is that they didn't manage to completely modularize the kernel so that if you would add some new components they would require a slew of other components.
Still, they've managed to make Internet Explorer optional, but I'm not sure what other benefits the modularization of Windows Vista's kernel has brought.
Thanks, icarus_drowning. Having reread my post a day later, I realize that it could have been a lot better written. I suspect you're right, just based on MS history, but that logo certainly looks like a fresh mentality. It's simpler than the Arch logo, fwiw.
That attitude was not unique to them, at all. Apple has been equally guilty of it for longer than Microsoft. It's that attitude that (in part) led me to move to Linux a decade ago, where I could merrily work without suffering the overhead of a GUI.
This new Windows logo is, in my view, the sexiest thing I've ever seen come out of Microsoft. I stopped caring about Windows long ago, except to note that minwin sounded awesome (but never shipped?), Windows 8 Server could run headless (What an innovation!), and PowerShell actually does seem brilliantly innovative (although it's unfortunately integrated with all that .net crap).
Now if this logo accurately reflects their change in attitude, to a minimal OS that stays out of my way, then I've got to say I'm a fan. They're unlikely to win me over from Arch Linux, but for once Microsoft seems to be on the right track. At least with respect to that logo.
Edit: I'm amazed that this post is bouncing between 0 and 1 points. In a discussion of the new Windows logo, I described why I like it so much. If you disagree, feel free to comment. Down-votes should not be used to express disagreement.