I think it will be more along the lines with how they got rid of DOS. The command prompt still exists, it's just hidden away. You can't exit windows to dos like you used to be able to do.
Same thing will happen with the desktop. Today on the Metro start screen the desktop has a first-row tile but I imagine eventually it will have no tile and you'll have to search for it. Effectively making it not exist for the common user.
But Microsoft is still investing a lot of money in desktop software. Not user-facing software. But much of their code assumes more capabilities than what WinRT allows. All of the developer tools, for example. Think about a memory diagnostic tools, that is of course impossible in WinRT. Powershell is impossible in WinRT.
> I think it will be more along the lines with how they got rid of DOS. The command prompt still exists, it's just hidden away. You can't exit windows to dos like you used to be able to do.
DOS isn't a command prompt its an operating system. DOS wasn't 'hidden away' its gone. Windows 3.1 was really just a GUI running on top of MS-DOS. 95, 98, and ME used MS-DOS as a bootloader to get windows running, basically flipping the CPU into protected mode then handing it over to windows. The WinNT family wasn't built on top of DOS at all but rather has a standalone kernal. DOS programs were only supported by a virtual machine (and aren't supported at all in 64bit windows, DOS is completely gone there).
I don't see much connection at all between DOS and Metro, Metro is just a UI.
Calm down, I understand all of that. My point is that they didn't take away the functionality of DOS, and it mostly exists to this day. Even the default Visual Studio project is a command line program (last time I checked). I see the same future for the desktop.
That's not what I'm comparing. I'm comparing one deprecated functionality to another deprecated functionality. The fact that the former lingered on leads me to believe that the latter will also.
Unless your on an old version of windows or have installed a DOS emulator you are not running DOS programs. Alpha Centauri for example has been updated several times and includes a windows application now. Starting a program from the command line has nothing to do with whether its a windows or dos program.
Windows 7 32-bit (not 64-bit) still includes the DOS API implementation descended from the original in Windows NT.
Open up cmd.exe. Now run "edit". That's a 16-bit DOS program. You won't be able to find it in the Windows task manager - it's 'inside' ntvdm.exe.
More: run COMMAND.COM (not cmd.exe). You're now running the DOS command line, instead of cmd.exe's Win32 command line. It patches over some features, but not others, using the DOS Long File Name API. So "DIR" will list long file names, but you can't "cd \windows\serviceprofiles". You can "cd \windows\servic~1".
You seem to still be confusing the command prompt and console applications with the MS-DOS operating system. The applications that can be executed inside the Windows command-line prompt are Windows applications, not DOS applications.
I'm not confused about that, it just wasn't my point. My point was the tool still existed past the introduction of the Windows GUI interface. I can still run commands that have the same API as the DOS commands, I can still pipe together commands, I can still redirect commands. I foresee that, in the same way, the ability to use the desktop for things that are not allowed in Metro; like examining memory, will keep going on for an indefinite period of time. Whether that future desktop is compatible with the one we have today is, again, not the point I'm making.
> I can still run commands that have the same API as the DOS commands, I can still pipe together commands, I can still redirect commands.
What you seem to continue to not understand is that this functionality is not provided by DOS. Its provided by a command line interpreter. In windows this is cmd.exe which _is not_ DOS. It shares some syntax with the MS-DOS command line interpreter which is command.com but there are also differences in the same way there are differences between zsh and bash. For comparison I wouldn't call 'bash' 'linux' as that makes no sense. Bash after all, can run on a number of operating systems. To make an analogy to what your saying, when I open iTerm+bash on a Mac I guess I should say 'opening linux' which is obviously wrong. Before you say cmd.exe is only a DOS thing, its not it was also used in OS/2 as the default command line interpreter.
As for the functionality (I assume to mean at this point: a command line interface) being deprecated. In fact MS has been pushing PowerShell strongly as its new command line interface. You don't generally create new and improved versions of deprecated functionality.
If you want to make an argument for the reduced usage of the command line, fine. But, there is no mention of DOS needed to make that argument.
I don't know how more clearly I can say this: I know that the command prompt and DOS are not the same. I have always know this. I understand that my original comment was unclear on this, but my first reply should have cleared it up. I know that they are not the same; that they are was not my point.
My point is, was always, that the functionality of the dos command prompt, the very API, was not abandoned, and exists even to this day. Here are a list of Windows commands: http://ss64.com/nt/ Most of these were taken from, and have the exact same API as the old dos commands.
What I was saying -- and I don't understand how this isn't clear -- is that the functionality the desktop provides, like the functionality the dos prompt provided, will not be abandoned going forward (as some others believe it will).
You seem to be the one confused here, as you stated that Metro for Desktop is an exchange of UIs, but that is not the case, the runtime is entirely different. There is a whole set of functionality not possible on WinRT. For example, one cannot write a memory profiler like this in Metro: http://memprofiler.com/. If it were merely a UI swap that would be possible and your comments would be correct.
My point is that things like memory profilers will continue to be useful on Windows and that... just as they did with the transition away from dos, Microsoft will continue to provide a way for those things to happen. It might not be binary compatible with all existing Win32 programs, but it will exist, and it will not be Metro.
> My point is, was always, that the functionality of the dos command prompt, the very API, was not abandoned, and exists even to this day. Here are a list of Windows commands: http://ss64.com/nt/ Most of these were taken from, and have the exact same API as the old dos commands.
The majority of that list are applications provided by the standard installation. Those commands are not features of the command line interpreter. A comparison to other OSs would be BusyBox, GNU coreutils, OSX command line developer tools, etc. As for the API remaining stable, not really, here is a comparison: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/batchcommands.php
> There is a whole set of functionality not possible on WinRT. For example, one cannot write a memory profiler like this in Metro: http://memprofiler.com/.
You can actually, it just wouldn't pass MS's review process and make it into the app store. That isn't a software change its a policy change.
> It might not be binary compatible with all existing Win32 programs, but it will exist, and it will not be Metro.
It would be binary compatible (assuming compilation for the same architecture). The executable format hasn't changed, they are just in-acting policies regarding what API's can be used via their app store review procedure just like apple does in its app store. Note that this is not the case between DOS programs and win32 programs, there is a complete binary compatibility break there.
By that analogy, only Microsoft blessed developers could make desktop apps and all others who wanted to distribute independently will be forced to use the command line.
Same thing will happen with the desktop. Today on the Metro start screen the desktop has a first-row tile but I imagine eventually it will have no tile and you'll have to search for it. Effectively making it not exist for the common user.
But Microsoft is still investing a lot of money in desktop software. Not user-facing software. But much of their code assumes more capabilities than what WinRT allows. All of the developer tools, for example. Think about a memory diagnostic tools, that is of course impossible in WinRT. Powershell is impossible in WinRT.