News broke this week that a number of senior Yahoo engineers are leaving. Despite the fact that all of them stressed that their walkouts have nothing to do with the now-failed Microsoft merger, there’s a good chance that that’s probably what it is. Let’s take a quick look at why the departures of Jeremy Zawodny, Jeff Weiner, and others are related to the fallout of a failed Microsoft buyout and the problems Google poses to some of Yahoo’s best engineers.

Yahoo is well known as a popular web property. While many people in the United States and Europe have Google set as their homepage, Yahoo is a hot landing spot for many non-western nations such as China. Yahoo also knows how to maintain the communities formed by the Web 2.0 startups they pick up. One good example is Flickr; it’s is still popular with many photographers despite being owned by a monolithic and arguably uncool parent company. Del.icio.us is also roughly as popular as a social bookmarking service as it was when it was purchased by Yahoo. The engineers which Yahoo picked up with these acquisitions have also been put towards a number of other projects, which may have been part of the reason for the acquisitions in the first place besides expanding the Yahoo brand name.

Picking up knowledgeable engineers may have also been part of the reason behind the Microsoft-Yahoo merger. Besides the engineers which would come along with such a buyout, name placement in those eastern markets as well as popular and well-maintained Web 2.0 services serve as a very healthy set of bonus reasons for a rather expensive merger.

A number of analysts and commentators have also speculated that the buyout offer may have been put forward as a means of pushing the company towards disarray and, subsequently, towards a mismanaged doomsday. Microsoft has used buyout proposals for this purpose before, and Yahoo’s board might have kept this (and ego) in mind when trying to negotiate a higher per-share price.

How does this relate to the engineers? Microsoft has a number of interesting research programs. While Yahoo’s engineers might loathe the idea of working for a “mundane” product such as Windows or Office, Microsoft’s research programs offer new opportunities for developers to branch out into brand new fields and markets, something which Yahoo currently doesn’t have in place. On the other hand, Google has let a number of their acquisitions stagnate (blogger, now nothing more than a spampool, is the largest example.) without any significant overhauls, and their research programs remain mostly on the web as opposed to spreading into new fields.

Creativity isn’t often a word associated with Microsoft, but Microsoft is much more well established in a multitude of fields than both Google and Yahoo. This may be the primary reason behind the departures of some of Yahoo’s best minds. Jeremy Zawodny, after all, is one of the most well-respected R&D engineers Yahoo ever had, and and his attraction towards a small up-and-coming firm is representative of the new environments many of Yahoo’s engineers are interested in.

I personally have always maintained that I would jump to Vista in a heartbeat if we got a machine, but that time hasn’t come yet, and frankly, for my pocketbook’s sake, I’m glad. There are some, though, who still want to get Windows XP when they buy a new machine. I’m not about to jump into a big debate on the topic – it’s just the way it is.

Many computer manufacturers took to expected approach in early 2007 of going “Vista-only”. People asked to get XP back, and many companies (Dell especially comes to mind) went and offered it up again. Microsoft then came out at a later time and said that they would continue offering XP to OEMs and at retail until June 30, 2008 – the end of the month. Some were maddened by this, wanting still to stick with XP.

While I was browsing around last week, I came across this interesting gem on a local computer shop’s web site:

Now as the image says, this shop is no small little thing, they are Microsoft Gold Partner and have close ties with Intel as well. However, I found it interesting that one of the biggest computer manufacturers, Dell, would stop selling XP on new systems on June 18, while this small shop could sell it until January 2009. It now appears that Dell figured it out, and mooted the point made in the above image.

According to a story on Neowin, Dell is now going to offer Windows XP Professional on new computers through “at least 2009 and likely longer.” The story mentioned that this means either Dell stocked up on a “year’s worth” of licenses, or is preceding an announcement by Microsoft saying that XP Pro will continue to live on. Note that Dell is not forgetting Vista here – they are including both media so that users can upgrade when they’re ready. Is it a smart move on Dell’s part? It would appear so at first. I mean, it will surely make people happy, at least those not sure if they’re ready to take the plunge yet

But come on, it’s been 16 months since Vista hit the shelves and some people are still not ready to give up XP? If you’re going to miss a car 16 months after you sell it, or call your son or daughter every day, twice a day, for 16 months after they move out of the house, people will: a) think you’re crazy, and b) in the case of the children, probably hurt you, or at least get rather irritated. However, it’s a completely different story here, and I’m not convinced it should be. Service Pack 1 is here, and although it’s not a huge “life saver”, it is a service pack. This is the magic milestone many people wait for (just look back over comments concerning Vista’s launch). And then look back further. I’m sure there was a transfer period with 2000/98/Me to XP, but was it over a year long? It surely wouldn’t seem to make sense.

The “magic” Service Pack 1 for Windows XP was delivered on September 9, 2002, about 11 months after it became generally available. For Vista, SP1 came on February 4, 2008, literally just 5 days after its one-year anniversary of general availability. So while it was a little longer development time, it still launched five months before XP is to “die”. I think that’s plenty of time to get adjusted.

After I created a few Visual styles and struggled with the graphic design side of things, I turned my efforts to researching and documenting my methods for Resource Hacking and Hex-Editing. Resource Hacking is where it all starts. The first time I opened the .msstyle with Restorator, I did not know where to begin. All those image numbers meant nothing to me, but 12 months of research for much of what we need has already been documented.

In October 2007 Stardock released their solution to Customizing Vista; WindowsBlinds 6.0 adds full support for skinning Windows Vista as well as applying a host of new special effects to skins (blurred glass, advanced animations, etc.) Users also can create their very own WindowBlinds skins using SkinStudio 6 Pro.

However Stardocks solution does not suit everyone and In the last 12 months, skinners using the hacking methods have been documenting what they find; the vista customization community has really pulled together to share expertise.

UxTheme Patches: (To Date)

• Raphael’s uxTheme Patches
• Vista Glazz
• PsycoB’s Style Selector

Tools:

• ResHacker (Resource Hacker)
• Restorator 2007 (Resource Hacker)
• Mirkes Tiny Hexer (Hex-Editor)
• XVI32 Hex Editor (Hex-Editor)
• Alpha Image Converter
• Png Alpha Fixer

Documentation: (Threads and Tutorials)

• How to make Aero.msstyles compatible pngs
• How to make a Visual Style for Windows Vista
• The Resource Research Thread
• Aero Resource ID’s (Wiki)
• Decimal to Hex (Calc.exe)
• Hex-Editng (general)
• Hex-Editng (Margins)