On press-conference held on the Microsoft Slave-Camp in Redmond, our reporter
was able to try out some of the new and yet not announced features in Win2k.
Besides some smaller goodies, there are three new functions not yet seen
anywhere else.
Instead of just one recycle bin, Win2k will have several recycle bins for
specific filetypes. It is not yet decided, which filetypes will have it's own
bin but there will be one for GIF, JPEG, TXT, WAV, EXE, DLL and ZIP. When
asked about this new feature a Microsoft spokesdroid said: "You know, the
recycling of files will be done much faster when there are all the same types
of files to process. We see it as a need, that our customers don't want to
have trash spread all over their harddrives!"
When we tried to drag a WAV-file in the TXT-file recycling bin the beta of
win2k crashed. Asked about this fact, the spokesdroid explained: "Well, it's
not yet fully implemented. The retail version will prompt the user to 'for
his own sake never ever try that again'. And you sure don't want to know, what
will happen, when the user continues to drag his files to the wrong bin. Bad
things will happen, really bad things!"
Also, the shutdown menu has got a face-lift. Besides the known choices of
shutting down, rebooting or logging on as another user there will be far more
possibilities. The user can choose from a wide range of "shutdowns" such as:
power outage, blue screen, hd-crash with minor data loss, short-cut in the
power-supply burning the pc with lot's of firework and smoke and many many
more. "Our customers want choice. So we give them choice. Do you know of any
other OS featuring that many ways to shut down your computer?", another
spokesdroid said. "The plus-pack sold seperately will have even more,
including radio-active contamination and the ability to randomly select
another shutdown everytime! Win2k will for sure blast your minds!"
And as the last novelty, there is Policeman Paul! Paul is a friendly officer
who looks a bit like a paperclip but wears a policemans cap. He sits in one
corner of your desktop, watching the mousepointer as the user mouses it around,
similarly to the program "x-eyes" seen on many Linux/Unix-desktops. But
Policeman Paul does not only sit and watch! When the user moves the pointer
around too fast, Paul stops him, telling him that speed kills. If the user
repeatedly moves the pointer too fast, Paul will give him a speeding-ticket,
leaving the user without mouse for a certain duration of time, or, in hard
cases, disables the use of the mouse permanently.
Asked about that feature, the spokesman replied: "Speed kills! Just think, the
user could crash into a cup of coffee on his desktop, spilling it all over his
hardware! We don't want no rowdies using Win2k. If you want speed, use Linux!
For those users lacking that bit of self-control, Microsoft will release a
sticky mousepad called "WinBrake", to ensure, fast-paced users won't run into
any troubles with Policeman Paul."
When asked about these new features, Linus Torvalds said: "I don't see the
need of sub-directories in /dev/null. The ext2fs files are 100 %
biodegradable so it recycles them automagically. The thing with the improved
shutdown-menu is a nice idea. Maybe there will be some sort of shutdown-daemon
with kernel 2.4 or so." Asked about the speed-limits he only mumbled something
like "...mouse with airbag and anti-blocking-system...".
