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"Longhorn" Alpha Preview
An anonymous reader submitted an actual review of the leaked Longhorn Alpha. Finally someone has provided us with more than a few screenshots. Here's your chance to see what the future of the microsoft desktop is gonna look like!
Nope. As far as stability, availability of drivers, windows compatability, and non-forced updates, win2k is the best windows IMO.
Nope, I'm the same. While I use OS X and love its internals, the theme (no matter how slow or quick it may be) is blah. I'd rather be looking at the old style OS9/Platinum look. It's clean, takes up minimal screen real estate and kept out of the way.
Then again, OSX and Windows are commercial OSs which as part of their marketing focus is the look - it does attract some people one way or the other and if Joe & Jane User choose one over the other cos it's flashier, there's an extra sale.
That doesn't quite explain why perfectly good open source desktops are blindly following this kind of mess, however.
I've used the leaked build for the past few days. There's nothing super impressive about it yet. True, it looks nice from the screenshots, but when you actually start using it, most of those dialogs give you placeholder text whenever you select something. For example if you open the "display" applet from Control Panel and actually choose one of the categories, you get either "currently under construction" or an exception (what fun!). Other than that, it's just plain ole win xp.
mirror
Instead, read about some of the new features and improvements to Windows that Longhorn introducts by reading Paul's Longhorn FAQ. I especially like the SQL Server .NET-based file system - "Originally slated for Blackcomb, I've now verified that Longhorn will ship with a new SQL Server .NET-based file system, originally code-named "Storage+". Based on the "Yukon" release of SQL Server, this file system will let Microsoft's search tools work across a wider range of storage devices, including the file system, Active Directory, SQL Server databases, and Exchange Server data stores." Sweet!
I have stopped counting the times that I've had to reboot my Jaguar workstation in the school's art lab after it failed to handle some bizarre error in Classic environment. It just gets worse with every release
I really, seriously don't mean any offense by this, but... what the fuck is wrong with you, dude?
I've been using Jaguar every day since before it was actually released; I bought a new G4 back in August, and it came with 10.2 on it about ten days before the retail boxes hit the shelves. I have never had to reboot my machine for any reason than an OS update. I shut it down once to move it to another room, and then one reboot for each of the updates since (most recently yesterday's security update). And that's all.
I'm pushing a pretty wide range of apps, too, including Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Quark (although less and less lately because it's my only OS 9 application, and InDesign is better), and sometimes Maya for doing weekly menus and signage for the restaurant. I push my machine pretty hard, and I never have the kinds of problems you're talking about.
I don't know what your deal is, but I think it's important for people to know that your experience is definitely not typical.
I write in my journal
Feature drill-down OK, let's take a closer look at the new features in the Longhorn alpha. Welcome screen The Longhorn alpha's Welcome screen (Figure) is a slightly modified version of the one in Windows XP, and it now features a time and date display, a frequent customer request. I wouldn't make too much of the color scheme or look and feel of the Longhorn Welcome screen, as this is bound to change. The design does resemble prototypes I've seen at the Microsoft campus (Figure), however. Desktop and Start Menu At first blush, the Longhorn desktop and Start Menu (Figure) are no different from their XP equivalents. However, there are a few small changes. First, you can add My Contacts and My Hardware nodes to the Longhorn Start Menu (Figure). My Contacts is non-functional in the build I saw, but I suspect that it's simply the friendly new name for the new Windows Address Book, which will be consolidated into the Windows Future Storage (WinFS) file system. My Hardware, clearly, is a friendly and more accessible Device Manager, though the version in the Longhorn alpha is limited (Figure). My Computer and Explorer views In My Computer, a few new features become visible. Under the scenes, the WinFS file system isn't implemented yet, but the services are running, and they tied the system up in knots, and must be turned off before the performance returns to normal. My Computer now features disk space graphics under each drive and a slightly modified Task pane, with integrated searching (Figure). There are new Explorer views as well, including a new Preview mode used in certain types of folders, which I discuss in the next section. The About Windows dialog (Figure) identifies Longhorn as Windows 6.0. In Folder Options, a few new options are available, though their purpose is unclear (Figure). They are "Use breadcrumb bar" and "Use Domain Folder Sharing Wizard." Special Shell Folders Special shell folders such as My Documents, My Pictures, and My Music have been revamped to support the new Preview view style (Figure). This view style splits the folder view horizontally, providing a graphical, Web-like preview pane that is specific to the currently displayed content. In My Pictures, for example, you see options for viewing a slide show, creating an album, and burning a DVD (Figure). When you display a picture, the image's meta-data information is displayed in the Preview pane (Figure). Music folders are similar: Select a music file and its meta-data is displayed (Figure). A new Pivots choice in the toolbar expands to show grouping choices (Figure); for music, you will see options such as "Albums Grouped by Artist" and "Music Grouped by Album." The Preview area is resizable now (Figure), and as you drag the divider bar down, more information is displayed (Figure). Display Properties While the old Display Properties dialog is temporarily still available, Microsoft provides a preview of the new Display Properties application, which was written with the new .NET-based Avalon APIs (Figure). Most of the Display Properties nodes are broken in this build, providing either a bizarre XML error message (Figure) or a simple "under construction" message (Figure). One node that does work, however, is Display Connection Settings, which provides information about your display adapter and monitor (Figure).
Plex: A new visual style
You can use the old Display Properties dialog to enable the new Plex visual style (Figure), which has been touted on various Windows enthusiast sites lately. I don't consider Plex to be particularly attractive or clean, personally, and it resembles many of the home-made XP themes that you can find online (Figure). I prefer the standard blue XP style to Plex, and expect this visual style to disappear by later builds. In fact, Plex is so bad, that I originally thought that this Longhorn alpha was nothing more than a hacked-together XP build. I still wonder about it.
Sidebar
In the Taskbar settings dialog, you can enable the Sidebar (Figure), arguably Longhorn's most discussed feature. The Sidebar is basically a side-mounted menu of sorts, very much like the MSN 8 Dashboard, that lets you display XML-based components, called Tiles. When you enable the Dashboard, it appears (blank) on the right side of the screen by default (Figure). You can minimize it, add Tiles, toggle which side of the screen it appears on, resize it, and determine whether it's translucent (which Microsoft calls transparent). Available Tiles include a clock, a virtual desktop manager, a Most Frequently Used (MFU) programs list, the Quick Launch toolbar, an Internet search bar, a My Photos slide show, and a "user tile," which lets you quickly switch between users (Figure).
Each Tile can be resized (Figure), moved up or down in the Sidebar, or minimized, and some offer a pop-up menu that lets you access hidden features (Figure). You can also choose to use the Sidebar as your taskbar, in which case the normal taskbar disappears and the Start button moves to the Sidebar (Figure). Now, when you click the Start button, the Start Menu cascades out from the side of the screen instead of the bottom (Figure).
Conclusions
Longhorn isn't far enough along at this point to make any relevant conclusions. As I noted previously, the alpha build I've seen is analogous to early Whistler builds, or perhaps the first December 1996 Memphis release (which became Windows 98), because it's really just a holding place for a few technology tests at this point. Ultimately, the best is yet to come for Longhorn, but some of the bits present here are still interesting. With over two years of development time left, don't be surprised if the final Longhorn version bears little resemblance to what we see here today.
--Paul Thurrott
November 13, 2002
Windows XP volume licensing is identical to Windows 2000 volume licensing, because you're buying the same thing: Windows Pro. My company's Windows Pro license allows us to have either all Win2k, all WinXP, or some mixture of the two.
Oh, and the copy of Windows XP Pro on the Volume License media kit doesn't require activation.
Thank you, come again.
This abundance of screenshots and reviews is due to the actual ISO being available at various "windows beta" sources on the internet. More information on this is available here.
First of all, regarding the hoax comments, I consider Paul Thurott an authority on Microsoft news-- his site comes up first when you google for "Microsoft News", and I read it periodically to see what They are up to.
That much out of the way, there are a few UI tweaks which I think are interesting. The enhanced explorer nodes for "My Pictures" and "My Music" look like something I might use-- not something I would pay $200 for, but if my computer shipped with it or if similiar functionality was in GNOME/KDE.
On an even more trivial note, it looks like their Virtual Desktop manager shows the different wallpapers to the different backgrounds. I think this Makes Sense as a quick and easy way to identify different desktops.
Of course, I must throw in the "har har, been there, done that"s to virtual desktops in general and the dock. I haven't say it yet, so even though it may be obvious, le tme say "WinFS concerns me"
That was probably more lectrons than an alpha with two years to go deserves
Why should I believe this are not faked like they rest?
.nfo.
Because an ISO of the alpha has been leaked as well and a spokeswoman of Microsoft has commented the issue.
Visit #Betas @ irc.betasonline.com for more information. Also see xbetas.com. This is the
Also, here's a guide to fix certain boot problems with Longhorn.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Yeah, but Windows is designed to allow a mnimimalist desktop for those who wish so. I can make XP look like Windows 2000 anytime by selecting the Windows Classic theme (which actually disables part of the theme system of XP so it consume less memory). You can disable menu/window/combobox/listbox/whatever animations, set menu open delays to zero milliseconds and a whole lot more.
And in XP there are even Visual Styles you can download to get an even more minimalistic desktop than the one you find in Windows 2000.
Granted, for each new release of Windows there are usually more settings to turn off, but most of the time, the new features in new releases of Windows can be turned off. I have yet to see a visual features of Windows that can't, actually.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It get's worse because Max OS X 10.2 requires 32mb of video card ram or it wont run
Wrong, this could be the requirement for the (optional) Quartz Extreme technology, but in fact Quartz Extreme requires only 16 MB VRAM.
Don't forget to think different.
Yes, remarkably like that funny concept of `mount points`?
/bin/sh?
Maybe Microsoft is replacing UNIX by BECOMING UNIX?
Virtual desktops, mount points - what next,
Even Windows 2000 support mount points. Not sure if even earlier Windows NT-based OS'es do since I haven't checked. Anyway, you can easily mount your CD-ROM to a cdrom directory if that's what you wish.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
what does "candy-assed" mean?
I mean, apart from the fact that you're a wrestling fan?
That was classic intercourse!
XP has this with a free add-on from Microsoft, I believe.
Also:
JSPager: Free
GoScreen: $30 shareware, but more stable than JSPager
There's others...there's a version in Object Desktop by StarDock, I believe.
I use 6 desktops on my home box running Windows 2000 and 12 on my box at work, running 2000 Server. So you don't Longhorn for this.
Besides, did you know Win2k has symlinks?
Wait, there's more!
i have no sig.
Nope sorry, in OS9 window titles are smaller, menu fonts are smaller, menu titles aren't as wide by far, menus aren't as long for the same number of items, tabs are smaller, sliders are smaller, radio buttons are smaller, fonts in control panels are smaller, lists are smaller... drop down menus are the same size. Which OS are you looking at again?
You can have it now with XP if you install one of the PowerToys. Specifically the one that's called Virtual Desktop Manager. It's limited (or fixed rather) to four desktops, but it can be useful nonetheless. It doesn't do the neat deal where you can see where windows are on those virtual desktops like practically any WM will do with X though.
If not now, when?
Right click->Get info->Open With-> Look familiar?
If that's not to your liking, get FileXaminer and edit the type and creator codes, just like with ResEdit in OS9.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
As far as I can tell it is not possible. Would you be so kind as to point to an information source explaining how to do this?
;-)
:-/
There is no mount command.
Here's how I do it in XP...
1. Right-click My Computer.
2. Select "Manage".
3. In the Computer Manager, select "Local Disk Manager".
4. Right-click a drive.
5. Select "Change drive designations" (something similar, translating from swedish...)
6. Click "Add..."
7. Select "Mount this device in the following empty NTFS folder".
8. Voila
I don't remember how you most easily got to the Computer Manager in 2000 (I doubt you can right-clik and select "Manage"). There's a command line for it though...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Umm... Score 5? I'd call it Offtopic. :-/
What does a discussion of OS X stability have to do with this?
Wow, that was truly the most amusing thread I've ever seen from a group of AC's yet. For the record you fucktards, I am more than aware that burning a DVD is not OS specific. The point I was trying to make was that it was INTERGRATED into the OS and that yes, Apple did it first. And here we have MS following suite and no DOUBT they will taut it as an "innovation" on their part just like that have so many other features they have copied. Has Linux done the same thing? Absolutly! The only difference is that the community doesn't go and take credit for it like they invented it. They look at it and say "yeah, that's cool...let's do it our way now." The only trolls here that need to be moderated down are you MS apologists who hide behind the AC tag.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
Rez's Quick Windows Tutorial :)
:)
:) That way if something does get eaten, or a user deletes a critical file by mistake, it's easy to simply restore it from the archived copy. Most "Windows won't start" disasters are due to a single file that's gone walkabout.
:) But it works wonders for Windows' stability and performance, and as you can see, it's not rocket science.
Start with pure Intel CPU and chipset (sorry AMD/VIA fans, but you're cutting your own throat from the start). Don't skimp on RAM. No shared video RAM either. Don't install non-M$ mouse drivers if you can avoid it; don't install fancy keyboard drivers at all. Overclocking can lead to crashiness, so be cautious about doing it.
Stick to Win95 OEM, Win98 original or OEM (*not* SE), or Win2K if you have a choice, tho XP is acceptable. WinME can be made 100% stable, but its resource management sucks too much for heavy multitasking, so I don't recommend it.
Kill tempfiles and defrag religiously once a week, whether it claims to need it or not. (The "how fragmented I am" thingee is borkend, it only reports how fragmented the FAT is, not the files!) Sort by date if your defragger gives you a choice. I'd recommend VOPT if you don't like the default defragger.
Always use the provided uninstallers. Run a good registry cleaner EVERY time you uninstall anything, and occasionally as routine maintenance. I use EasyCleaner (free from toniarts.com) and have found both its registry and start menu cleaners are 100% reliable. (Tho the dupefile finder is buggy, and remember to exclude "Help" on ME/XP systems.) DLL Hell isn't usually an issue so long as the registry is kept pristine. Remember to archive the registry occasionally -- usually the one from last month is good enough if the current one gets wonked.
Don't install M$Office if you can avoid it -- it is Windows' worst enemy (it even clobbers protected system DLLs in WinXP). IE and Outlook don't love Windows all that much either. Don't upgrade IE past 5.0 if you have a choice. (Being bundled with IE5.5 is apparently why WinME's resource management sucks so bad. IEradicating will NOT fix what IE5.5 breaks.) -- Note: If WordPerfect Office is unstable, it *usually* means your system needs updated system and/or video BIOSs, and maybe an updated video driver.
Put the swapfile on its own dedicated partition; don't let anything else write files there. That way it's never fragmented, which helps a LOT on a marginal-RAM system.
On WinME, apply 98Lite in default shareware "uncouple IE from the desktop" mode, and turn off Restore. If you ever accidentally call up WinME's new "Help" system, restart Windows as soon as is feasible. (That's all I did to "fix" my WinME box, which gets used to test all sorts of crap, and it hasn't crashed in two YEARS.)
On WinXP, use Classic interface. (Restore and Help are not issues on WinXP.)
NEVER EVER install anything like "Crashguard" -- these apps are really good at catching the crashes they *create*!! Turn off various "control centers" that want to run all the time as well (such as the one that the SBLive installs, the ATI-Desk thingee, etc.) Be cautious about antivirus TSRs too -- turn off needless parts (like the extra thing McAfee puts in systray). Kitchen-sink utility suites tend to generate trouble.
Never install a patch or update that doesn't address a problem YOU are experiencing (or that isn't relevant to a particular security issue YOUR system may encounter). What fixes your buddy's machine may break yours.
I also recommend that everyone run Resource Meter (Windows\RSRCMTR.EXE -- but it does not install by default; just drop a shortcut into Startup) as a handy gauge to the current condition of your system resources. Many crashes can be avoided simply by backing out of whatever caused a resource leak. Yeah, it'd be better if nothing leaked, but when you already know the road is icy, you should drive slower.
Once I've got Windows installed and tweaked to my satisfaction, I archive the entire thing to a dedicated location. (I also occasionally archive the registry and start menu to the same location. On clients' systems, I use the same partition as the swapfile, then forbid them to touch it.
The most important points are: solid hardware and drivers; regular defragging, tempfile killing, and registry cleaning; turning off Restore in WinME; avoiding some known killers like Crashguard. The rest can be cheated around as necessary to your situation, without causing significant instability. And if you do the maintenance, even poor quality hardware won't have too much impact (unless it's outright flaky).
More detail than most folk probably wanted to hear
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Writing a bourne shell script that launches IE with a given URL:And to write a double-clickable shell script of any variety, just give it a