Microsoft Patents OS Shutdown 404
An anonymous reader writes "You would think that shutting down software could be fairly simple from an end user's view. If I ask you to shut it down, would you mind shutting it actually down, please? Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, because you need to ask the user if they really want to shut down and if unsaved documents should be saved. And that warrants a patent that also covers Mac OS X. Next time you shut down Windows, remember how complicated it is for Windows to shut down. Perhaps that is the reason why this procedure can take minutes in some cases."
I don't understand (Score:1, Interesting)
Further reading (Score:1, Interesting)
The story of windows shutdown development:
http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html [blogspot.com]
All that work surely deserves a patent.
BillG hated the concept! (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked at Microsoft for the Windows 95 launch, where I provided Tier-1 support for BOOP (Bill and the Office of the President, i.e. CEO tradeshow tech support). I do recall that Bill specifically called out the 'shutdown' function on Windows 95 as an error. He didn't like it, he hated the idea of waiting for the OS to shutdown, and wanted simply to be able to push the power button to immediately turn the system off, like a DOS PC.
He may or may not have understood the concept of in-memory caches and unsaved user work, but it didn't much matter to him.
Re:Only 1998? (Score:3, Interesting)
but if I hear thunder close by, I just cut the power unless it's a laptop. Lightning doesn't have to be close enough to hear to induce surges in power lines, so I figure if I can hear it, it's already too close
^^^this. We have four surge protectors in our "fun space"...two for computers, two for our entertainment center (tv, consoles, etc). All four of them are plugged into wall sockets that are quickly and easily accessable for this very purpose (we get some pretty intense lightning here in Maryland during the Spring and Summer months.) We actually organized the layout of our "fun space" with this specifically in mind.
Re:Only 1998? (Score:1, Interesting)
What the hell are you talking about, open apps and files restored after just cutting the power. What happened to the contents of the RAM?
Always be saving. Dont ask. (Score:3, Interesting)
Asking about saving is the wrong question. Saving shouldn't be a question. A document's current state should be persisted at the drop of a hat and that means undo info as well.
A small faction at MS gets this.
Android, as a platform and as recommended dev practice, gets this. Many great IPhone apps get this.
An app should expect to be terminated rudely and abruptly at any time. You'll impress the hell out of your users if you follow this rule.
Re:Only 1998? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only 1998? (Score:3, Interesting)
Subtract from that the work other machines have to do keeping your dead TCP connections up, retransmitting, and eventually timing out and resetting them. Cutting the power to a networked computer is impolite.
Re:Only 1998? (Score:3, Interesting)
We use the surge protectors to help guard against daily fluctuations in the power grid, but that's it. If we're home and we hear thunder or see a single lightning strike, everything gets turned off and the surge protectors get unplugged immediately. The layout of our entertainment room allows this to be done extremely quickly.
Here's a picture of our main entertainment area [livingwithanerd.com]. There is a plug right under the desk (which you can easily see), and the plug for the surge protector that the TV and modern consoles are plugged into sits at about the same height as the TV (it's a really weird placement for an electrical socket, but for our purposes it's perfect.) My wife's work area (which has her computer, as well as a CRT TV and all our older consoles) is set up in a very similar way.
If the weather folks call for thunderstorms to arrive while we're at work, I'll generally unplug it all before I leave in the morning.
Re:Abstract always BS, "claims" matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Which leads me to think that the simplest, most politically acceptable, and most immediately useful type of patent reform would be this: change the law to state that if one claim in a patent is held to be invalid, the entire patent is invalid. This would prevent absurdly broad "claim 1" items like the one you cite, and force patent filers to concentrate on specific aspects of the implementation instead of trying to seize ownership of general ideas. I know the game they're playing -- make absurdly overbroad claims early in the patent, and hope that if they're challenged, the court will accept only slightly less absurd later claims as a "compromise" -- but there's no reason We the People should allow this kind of crap.
Re:As usual, it's a not overly complicated trade-o (Score:1, Interesting)
Ever encountered thrashing (excessive swap file reads/writes)? If you want to be able to turn the system off on moment's notice, you're asking for all data to be written to disk at all times. That is, instead of having RAM between CPU and disk, the CPU should just write straight to disk. That is, it should write to disk all the time.
The Mac doesn't seem to have this problem. Your argument is invalid.