As I originally reported back during the SP3 RC phase, you cannot slipstream SP3 onto VLK media of XP under a Vista host environment. This bug has, unfortunately, slipped through escrow for the final build of SP3, despite being widely reported on Technet and community websites ever since the issue first arose.

As a result of this, I've created this petition for those of you who have experienced this issue and would like Microsoft to actually acknowledge their mistake and release a fix. Usually I'm fairly pro-Microsoft, but this is an almost inexcusable slip in quality control.

Perhaps the Serviceability and Sustained Engineering teams would make better use of their time fixing issues like this rather than posting sarcastic blog entries ;-)

EXCLUSIVE UPDATE: So after being seriously frustrated about this for a good few hours, one of my associates had the bright idea to compare a valid image to a "brokenVista" version. The differences are as follows:

Valid:
i386\ic\pidgen.dll - MD5: 34b2a6b36c60d3d3bb909b999ae66f88
i386\ic\dpcdll.dll - MD5: 3e2f3e2f4a82b7fae23bab864fb0f837

Broken:
i386\ip\pidgen.dll - MD5: bc5726a119118d9ac12e2ada25e01b3c
i386\ip\dpcdll.dll - MD5: 6c26dcf01e2a92f183b97d434017268a

It would seem that replacing those two files on the "broken" ISO is enough to repair the installation media, as that's the only difference between Vista and XP host environment slipstreamed media.

WHY it does this is still beyond us, though.

There's much abuzz in the news at the moment regarding Windows 7, but Microsoft aren't just stopping there; internally, plans for both the next major version of Windows, and a long-term vision for the operating system market, are currently in place. In this article, we'll delve into some of these plans, including some shocking revelations about significant changes to the way we'll be interacting with our computers in the next decade.

For Windows 8, Microsoft will be continuing the progression we've seen over the last from years from XP to 7; specifically, the addition of more task-based methods of interacting with our data. Whilst menu options to "Watch a video" and "Listen to music" may be frustrating for veteran PC users, they appeal to the average and inexperienced user by offering them a description of the task itself rather than the name of the tool used to perform it. In Windows 8 we'll see an extension of this philosophy, extending rather than replacing the existing ways of performing activities, in much the same way we've seen in Windows Vista (the new task-based Control Panel is a good example of this).

In Windows 8, we'll also see better option integration of web-based services, as well as the ability to pull online applications down onto local hardware and run them as applications; this will be an extension of the principles we've seen behind applications such as Windows Live Mail, except the technology will be extended to all web-based Microsoft services, without the need to download and install specialised applications for each service.

More interesting than this short-term look at the future is Microsoft's long term vision. I took the time to sit down and discuss this with a Microsoft source; here's part one of what he had to say on the matter.

"Where do you see Windows going past Windows 7 and 8?"

"I think the more important question is where we see Microsoft going; the name 'Windows' fits very well with the current desktop philosophy... in the future, I think we'll see more of a separation between user experience and the data we're working with. Right now, the user experience seems to be the defining factor for people when they're working with computers. I think the reason for this is that, unlike the telephone or even the television, computers are still a relatively 'new' part of daily life for most people. Even people who are in their 30s didn't actually grow up with a desktop interface; in the next decade or so, the proportions are going to shift and people are going to start viewing computers as an integral part of their lives rather than a useful addition to the basics. When this happens, we'll see a shift in focus from the user experience to the data we're actually working with; efficiency and user performance will becoming the defining factors in the way we choose our solutions, and Microsoft intends to stay on the top of the pile. Whether or not the classic 'Windows' interface fits that need remains to be seen."

"Does this mean Microsoft will lose interest in developing the desktop experience?"

"Not at all; I'd say that was a very general statement which doesn't take into consideration what the public actually wants. The UX team will continue to develop the desktop experience for all Microsoft operating systems in the future; what we may see, however, is a focus on more traditional elements as well as a few radical changes. The most exciting suggestion, in my personal opinion, is the introduction of additional hardware elements as control mechanisms. Traditionally, people have used keyboards and mice to control their computers; whilst this seems like a good idea, we're starting to see now that the use of these small, restrictive devices actually creates a barrier to widespread adoption. Many inexperienced users feel disconnected from the experience as a whole, as rather than physically interacting with their data, they're having to channel their activities through small and sometimes 'fiddly' devices. We're starting to introduce alternatives at the moment, in order to gauge market interest, such as Microsoft Surface and gesture-based interfaces.

"Are Microsoft taking cues from Nintendo on this one?"

"[chuckle] I think Nintendo have brought to the mass-media some of the trends we've seen in our own usability studies over the past few years. Many people - seemingly not restricted to a particular generation - are finding the ability to use their gross motor skills to control an input device very appealing. Not only does it make the computing experience more 'active', it also integrates more of the user's body into the experience, allowing them to feel more physically and psychologically connected with the hardware. With new display technologies allowing for larger, cheaper screens, we're gaining the ability to provide an immersive experience, in much the same way the home theatre industry has been doing over the past decade.

For part two of the interview, as well as the conclusion of this article, check back tomorrow!

In the face of the mass-media criticism of Windows Vista, mainly with regards to the performance issues present when compared to Windows XP on hardware with similar specifications, very little information has been presented with regards to the performance of Windows 7. This article, however, shall change that.

For Windows Vista, Microsoft had to change their design and development strategy in order to comply with the DoJ and EU regulations regarding the anti-trust issues present in previous versions of Windows; specifically, the integration of assistive applications such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player into the core operating system. Competitors complained that offering internet and media solutions with the operating system harmed competition in the marketplace (despite other operating systems such as Mac OS X and Linux apparently being immune from such criticism).

In response to this, Microsoft made fundamental changes to the way Windows Vista was linked together; shifting more towards modular designs rather than the monolithic processes used in previous versions of Windows. This increased amount of componentization, while satisfying the DoJ and EU, also led to performance issues due to the increased number of libraries which comprise the operating system. On traditional hard drives, the more separate files which the operating system has to load, the more seeking across the hard drive is required, and therefore overall performance takes a hit.

Another reason for Windows Vista's performance issues is the way in which Microsoft approached backwards compatibility in Vista. The operating system stores multiple copies of core system libraries, as each revision of a library typically adds/removes functions, and applications compiled with dynamic links to a specific version of a DLL file may call on functions not present in the currently installed library. Vista aims to solve this issue through the WinSxS collection; essentially a massive store of every differing version of libraries present on the system. That way, when an application makes a call for a dynamically linked library, Vista queries the WinSxS cache for the correct version, which is then loaded into memory. On the average system, this directory can be several gigabytes in size, with much of the code duplicated between the separate versions many times.

Windows 7 takes a different approach to the componentization and backwards compatibility issues; in short, it doesn't think about them at all. Windows 7 will be a from-the-ground-up packaging of the Windows codebase; partially source, but not binary compatible with previous versions of Windows. Making the break from backwards compatibility is a dangerous proposal but a dream for software developers. Performance of native applications can be increased, distribution sizes can be cut down, functionality can be added without the worry of breaking old applications, and the overall end-user experience can be significantly improved.

However, Windows' lure has always been that applications from older versions of Windows are almost guaranteed to work post-upgrade; this is in contrast to older UNIX solutions where upgrading the system could render old applications useless without access to the source code. On an operating system which uses a binary distribution model, this is an unreasonable expectation. However, there is one company which made a success out of breaking backwards compatibility, using a method which Microsoft are seeking to emulate with the launch of Windows 7. The company in question is Apple.

During Apple's death throes back at the start of the decade, Steve Jobs made a bold decision; to replace the old, proven Mac OS lineage with a UNIX-based platform running a custom GUI. The purpose of this was to offer potential customers a significant reason to switch to Apple's hardware and software solutions. Mac OS X was such a success - despite breaking backwards compatibility - that many customers were willing to put up with Apple's hardware, which ranked far below Wintel solutions in terms of performance, in order to obtain the hardware-locked user experience of their new flagship operating system.

Apple took an unorthodox approach in order to offer Mac OS 9 users the ability to retain their existing software while still upgrading to the improved Mac OS X experience; the virtual machine. Essentially, Mac OS X contained 3 separate application environments; Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic.

Cocoa was the name for the native, Objective-C environment which allowed code to execute directly on Mac OS X without any interpretation or legacy libraries. Carbon was a mid-point solution which allowed older, Mac OS 9 code to be recompiled and then executed in the Mac OS X environment, without providing access to the newer, native UI elements. Classic, the most interesting of the three environments, is the approach that Microsoft will be taking with Windows 7. Essentially, Classic provided a complete API and binary abstraction layer which allows Mac OS 9 code to run within a "virtual machine" inside Mac OS X. Applications retain the appearance and behaviour that they have on the older Mac OS platform, yet still having access to the Mac OS X system resources.

In Windows 7, Microsoft will break from the Windows' norm by breaking previous API compatibility, offering new API frameworks as a native solution, and providing support for legacy frameworks (COM, ATL, .NET Framework, etc) through monolithic libraries designed to provide the functionality of all previous revisions of the modules in question. This extends/replaces the WinSxS philosophy, providing every single function, past and present, in fully comprehensive libraries. This should allow the majority of legacy applications to run perfectly, while still retaining native performance for applications compiled specifically with the Windows 7 platform in mind. It should also be possible for applications produced with previous versions of Visual Studio to be directly recompiled into native code using the new API frameworks.

This also allows Microsoft to neatly sidestep the DoJ and EU anti-trust rulings, as including the MSHTML library (Internet Explorer's rendering engine) in the monolithic libraries would provide support for the old rendering functions of Explorer to legacy applications while still remaining hidden from the end-user, the primary complaint in the antitrust cases. On the Windows 7 side of things, Internet Explorer can be abstracted from the Windows 7 codebase making removal/inclusion as simple as installing a normal application.

While the anti-Microsoft naysayers out there will claim that this is unethical business practice, however, technical users will appreciate that this is an excellent way of providing new features while maintaining backwards compatibility with legacy applications.