Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays?
As I was exiting Oxford Railway Station, I glanced at this screen showing the bus departure times. Notice anything odd about it?
sigh Yet again someone has shoehorned Microsoft Windows into a product it is completely unsuitable for.
Why does a screen which displays a fairly basic set of information need to be running on an expensive Windows licence? Moreover, why is such a machine connected to the public Internet?
For bonus points, take a look at the program which has automatically loaded.
Yup, they're running a program to prevent Windows kicking off its screensaver. Why? Why not just disable the screensaver? Or, even better, run the whole thing from a Raspberry Pi loaded up with Linux?
I've been ranting about this for years.
My good friend Kai Henry runs a company called Webconverger - a simple and free Linux based kiosk display system. Why on earth pay Microsoft over the odds for a buggy, crash prone, Operating System which isn't very good at kiosk displays?
The next train to tag value departs from platform tag value. (Also more disk space on drive C plz thx.)
pic.x.com/gytrgfdqjm
Martin says:
Once a manufacturer has a system running, he doesn't want to change anything unless he has to.
When we rolled out our displays (informing visitors about rooms, important anouncements) a few weeks ago, we picked a Raspberry Pi based solution with central (IP based) administration.
weberc2 says:
Come the revolution, when I become supreme dictator for life, I will consider your application to standardise advertising platforms to something better. You had better be nice to me in the meantime though.
Wouter says:
Paricit says:
Kai Hendry says:
@Robbie, what was your search query?
Let's try thinking about this... Why does everybody use Windows for these displays? Hmmm. Is it possible that maybe Windows offers something that other OSes don't? By definition, IT MUST since reality supports this claim since the vast majority employ Windows for this functionality.
You're all sitting here thinking that "Linux could do this", but you can't see beyond that and it's hilarious.
Have fun trying to figure it out.
Robert says:
But this is changing Windows is no longer the default for everything, more and more people are discovering alternatives like a Raspberry PI running Linux. The shift has started and will only pick up speed.
pete says:
Everyone seems to forget, but Windows does have an embedded version. Windows RT (kiddie-Windows) even runs on ARM. It's nowhere near perfect, but, the compatibility is there for a ton of input/output devices as well as the software that runs the kiosks. That's just all there is to it.
I don't mean this in an aggressive manner, so if it's coming off as aggressive I do apologize.
I've been going on about this for years
Tim says:
Depending on what 3rd party hardware they might need to work with, many companies only provide drivers for Windows.
Walter says:
Mike says:
I spent about a week off and on trying to get it working under linux but I had random problems with windows overlapping, screens flashing, and being unable to get the touchscreen driver to take xinput rotation commands and had other things I needed to do.
Hitchins says:
However, due to license costs and the availability of cheap hardware - most notably the raspberry pi - Linux will probably be the cheaper solution. Not even mentioning that I've mostly seen that people run an oversized desktop computer instead of little chip that only uses ~5W.
I've done this a couple of time and use a little c programm with webkit to show a website: http://repat.de/2013/03/raspberry-pi-als-kiosk-mit-resourcenschonendem-browser-und-vesa-mount/
You only know the OS if something goes wrong. Maybe all the displays that are ok use Linux/Unix/something else?
Tim says:
The license cost is often a non-issue as many already have volume licenses. The main cost issue is the expertise to implement a solution along with 3rd party driver support.
André says:
"Why is it connected to the Internet."
Simply, because you want to have the correct and most current departure times with all delays displayed. These data has to come from somewhere.
"Why no Raspberry PI"
Because the Raspberry is nice for rapid development, but does not fulfill any of the requirements in terms of EMI, temperature rating, shock proof, reliability, and so.
Embedded world is different from your home environment, where you have a controlled temperature, almost no EMI problems, and stuff like this.
I am by no means a Windows advocate. I just want to point out, that embedded is a completely different area, which is the reason why there is not only Windows, Linux but also QNX, VxWorks, OS9 and others operating systems existing.
Kiosk systems are most likely Windows based for the reason, that HMI development is dirt easy, why most companies are doing it this way.
They could be running Windows Server Update Services ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb332157.aspx) and pushing the updates to the machine even if it is blocked from connecting to anything outside of the corporate network.
Keyword: Inherently.
The devil is in the details, specifically in the configuration of the devices.
Everything, if done right, could be configured to prevent annoying little Windows dialog pop-ups and errors.
Hell, if you are running a nice little Windows network, the process is actually quite simple.
Its just that too many people configure things incorrectly too many times simply because "out-of-the-box", Windows will do stuff like this.
It does stuff like this for a reason, because it is intended as an operating system and presumes that someone would be, y'know, operating it.
This I believe is more of a failure in Project Management, failure to account for failure.
It should be a very basic core requirement for:
• Output to be visual only, with no other OS output
• Content and Data be managed on a separate device or network, passing the info.
The sad thing is, it would take less than a day of foresight and configuration to prevent these little problems which are humiliating.
fritz says:
If I could I would use Linux for everything, because remote administration of Linux Boxes via ssh is just so much more convenient.
That said, the problem with Linux is the driver situation. For example, on a cheap foxconn box, Window RT runs 1080p vids plus animated transarent scrolltext on top of it without a hitch (without any special programming), on Linux it doesn't, because Qt which in turn uses gstreamer does not support hardware accelerated videos out of the box.
Being a single developer, I need solutions not problems.
That's why I have to choose Windows more often that I'd like to.
Anonymous says:
Digital signage is another area where hidden complexity makes laypeople think that they could implement their own solutions with nary a bead of sweat on the brow. In practice this is far from the case and high quality signage is expensive and complex. All that said, nothing like some lazy implementation engineers to ruin an otherwise good product.