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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!
Am I the only one who prefers a clean minamalist desktop. I still haven't seen anything that would make me want to upgrade from 2000. Desktop themes are like kids hanging plastic effects on their cars because they think it makes them look better, it doesn't. It's just heavy crap that slows you down and gets in the way.
The "Sidebar" seems (functionally) very much like The Dock in MacOS X. The rest is just, pardon the pun, "window dressing".
The big questions have yet to be answered:
1) Is it more stable?
2) Is it more secure?
3) Will the licensing restrictions be reasonable?
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
How soon before: 1. This is /.'ed
or
2. MS "requests" that the info be pulled?
Someone better mirror pretty fast...
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Don't talk about windows at all please..when ever I tell anyone who uses linux that I use windows for gaming they have an epileptic nerd fit and start foaming at the mouth. Then say no way windows sucks.
I'm sick of linux people being elitists. Its like they wont admit there is some stuff windows does better than linux.
Fact is for games and multimedia windows is the system. And for Video and Audio Mac is good too.
Don't talk about anymore windows distros on slashdot till all linux users that are hiding their xp boxes in the closet while they trash it to death on slashdot. Come out waving microsoft flags of surrender.
I love linux. But im not a pig headed ass enough to pretend that windows doesn't have its purpose in life too.
A major objection for the average office worker to both Mac OS and Linux is the need to learn new ways of doing things, and the things they do not want to have to learn to do are often amazingly trivial. (Only this morning I had to show a white collar professional how to turn a Mac on, and explain that the reason IE didn't start immediately was because the double click interval on this particular machine was set quite short and a faster double click was needed.)
The constant drive for change on the Windows desktop could, paradoxically, reduce market share if it perceived that each new version of Windows is going to need as big a learning curve as switching. One for Apple and KDE to exploit?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
No, you're not. Since my company went under a few months ago I haven't touched a Windows machine, but at the time I was using Windows 2000 exclusively. I just didn't have a good reason to upgrade. All that stuff that Microsoft touted for XP-- media, burning, wireless-- I get on my Macs, and in a form that's a hell of a lot easier to use.
From my chair, Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of Microsoft's operating system development, and we've been heading downhill ever since. Not because XP sucks, but just because it adds much stuff I don't need and no stuff I do.
I write in my journal
looking at the screen shots i noticed that the location bars simply say:
My Computer\ something\something else\...
does this mean they are getting away from drive letters? what a novel concept.
-- john
I don't think Apple should (or should want to) commit much to the improvement of Classic. The sooner people stop using it the sooner they can lay that rickety old stinker of an OS to rest. Yes, it would be nice if Quark (the last of the holdouts) had an X-native version but there's no excuse but their own halfassedness; X has been out long enough that they should either release the new version or admit that they're a third-tier company without the resources to stay nimble and competitive.
Working to make Classic better would be like asking the Linux developers to spend their time making DOSEMU run better.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
When you you Slashdot people come to realize that using Vi instead of Emacs or Linux instead of Windows IS NOT a religious matter?!
I still use Win2K as well. I think XP is utterly annoying. Win2K is (mostly) stable, and doesn't come with all that bloat that I don't have a need for.
For me, it's Win2K + FreeBSD 4.7 on my main boxes, the rest almost exclusively run FreeBSD.
Check this screen shot.
It shows a My Hardware "window".
Are we gonna see "everything is a file" concept in Longhorn too?
Pretty soon we'll need a quick launch bar for the quick launch bars.
Most of the time, I think Microsoft has made "innovation" a four-letter word. That's just when I'm pissed. When I take a step back (especially when I see stuff like this), I get the impression that Microsoft's idea of innovation is visual masturbation. Sometimes I think they measure success by number of entries in the Interface Hall Of Shame.
Two points:
1. I don't see how eye candy is ever innovative without improvements in the underlying architecture such as security or ease of use. My definition of ease of use is slightly different than most however. I would define ease of use the ability to quickly and easily get what you want done, regardless of skill level. One of the things that really irks me about Windows in general (and to a certain extent OS X) is that it is targeted so much at the ignorant user, that it is nothing but frustrating to me as someone who knows a little more.
2. What's worse is that the free software world seems to emulate this behavior more and more. There is a lot of imitation in OpenSource. This is good. It is extremely important to have free tools which support POSIX standards (like awk and find). What's great is there's a lot of innovation too (emacs, gcc, the Linux kernel module architecture). There just doesn't seem to be much innovation in free software UI design. The default behavior seems to be to "make it like Windows". Microsoft UIs attempt to hide so much from their users they become unusable. KDE attempts to mimic this behavior. RedHat took this direction with 8.0 for its entire UI, and as a result I'm frustrated to the point of looking for a new distro.
moto411.com
I love these threads - nothing like passing off an opinion as fact and backing it up with an anecdote or lies and/or ignorance (not just the parents - I mean in general, though in this case, there are no forced updates in Windows XP - default is on (which is good for the rest of us, considering how an ordinary user never thinks about security patches) but it is easily turned off).
:)
:) - but I am quite certain that a number of people have never had problems with different distros or Windows versions and can't get XP to run for them (or it crashes constantly or whatever).
I hear the same arguments against all the operating systems (Jaguar is too slow, XP is too flaky, Suse won't work with my display driver, etc) and it's just convinced me to quit listening
I personally have had problems with every Linux distro and Windows version I have ever tried except for Windows XP (approx 1 year w/o any crashes - no uptime to speak of because I shut it down at night due to noise
Unless someone actually quantifies this information, it's pointless.
Os benchmarks on comparable hardware, on the other hand, actually mean something but hardly ever get published.
Information on os security is also readily available, although security is subject to the skill of the admin as well, so it's hard to evaluate purely on technical merits as well (ie/ I would trust a Windows box managed by a competent admin much more than a Linux box managed by some dumbass).
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
IT doesn't talk to anyone, it just does what it's programmed to do. Do you blame the TV for the dumbing-down of television. Maybe it's your modems fault that some of the posts on /. are dumb?
:)
"and like the OSDN bar at the top, it says 'Our Network'. I know it's their network, it's not mine. Does anyone else like it when OSDN talks down to them like that?"
Good luck on getting the "funny +1" mod.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Yes, well, the general population in't going to get too excited about an NTFS replacement, an XML-enabled sidebar, or OS-level DRM. In fact, the latter would probably send them running.
But slap a pretty new face on it and suddenly you've given them a tangible reason for upgrading, regardless of whether the new interface is actually an improvement or not. It represents something newer, so it must follow that it is better. At the very least cooler, so that when the Smiths come over and see your new machine they can go "Oohhhh...you must be running the new Windows [insert catchy release name here]!!!"
What's the matter with you people? Every time someone, be it apple, microsoft, or anyone else, comes out with a new GUI feature, there are always claims that "well this windowmanager had this years ago", or "they've copied this from apple" and whatnot. When are people going to realize that saying that someone copied a certain feature from someone else in the operating system world is like saying "hey, BMW copied that thing with having doors from Volvo", or "hey, linux had a 'kernel' before I heard the windows NT talk about kernel/user-land separation". There are just some things that are basic operating system concepts, rather than vendor-specific ideas. I'm not saying that this is always the case, but more often than not. So please, stop the whining, it really just makes you look like you value advocacy over common sense.
Move sig!
...who like to pretend that the last 30 years of UI research never happened, I'd just like to say please take some notes. Not that KDE and Gnome have to look like a cartoon (ala the default Windows settings), but that is something Windows DEFINETELY does better.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
You get many converts with that kind of biggoted attitude?
Most people tend to believe that computers and their associated bits are tools, not support structures for religions.
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
because, all the other information residing on that machine that aren't under one of the My* 'folders' belongs not to you but is just licensed to you.
therefore it actually makes sense.
No, I'm afraid that this is not the case. While it is true about the Location Bar not showing the drive letter, this is not new. Windows 98-XP show a similar behavior if they are using recent versions of Internet Explorer. There is a configuration option that allows you to select whether you want the full path (including drive letter) displayed or not.
If you look at this screen shot, you will see that the location bar displays My Computer\yada\yada. However, if you examine the contents of the directory in the pane below, you will notice the hard drive, which is displayed as "C:" along with its usage statistics.
Microsoft's drive letter analogy/concept has a deep rooted history. Users have grown accustomed to this analogy and it is highly unlikely that Microsoft will cahnge it in the future. Most average users that are used to drive letters find the mount point tree that is used in Unix to be almost incomprehensible.
Now, having said all that, it is really impossible to tell what the future holds. Remember that Longhorn is supposed to use a new file system. This new file system is not yet functional in the alpha release so there's no telling what it will actually look like. None the less, if I had to bet, I'd bet that drive letters will continue to be used in Microsoft OSes for a long long long time, regardless of the underlying file system.
That sidebar looks just like the dock, only uglier and even bigger (I didn't think that was possible). I also notice it only contains MS applications... I sincerely hope that's because of this particular setup.
Did anyone else notice over 20% of the screen space was taken up by "navigational help" (eg these are the folders you might want to go to, then again you might not) in almost all of those screenshots? How does that help anyone by confusing the interface to such extremes?
I like the new preview pane, a little big for my tastes, but it's there (albeit 7 years to get right after the introduction in windows 98). I am hoping it's not hardcoded which directories you can use it in, that would be a serious shame.
I really wonder why they don't just license the look and feel of finder already, I can already tell their explorer is going to be very cluttered (then again that might be partially because of their insistance on a really pecular file heirachy for user directories..).
I live in a giant bucket.
there are no forced updates in Windows XP
Yes there is. The UELA doesn't say "If you consent" it says "Microsoft has the right."
It may not be happening today, but how do you know it won't happen tomorow? Do you trust Microsoft to be a "good citizen"?
I live in a giant bucket.
I disagree with you on the issue of new users. I don't think most people have a problem with trying new interfaces. And I think Microsoft knows this. Why? Because they usually make some cosmetic change between each version of Windows, not counting the huge change between 3.1 to '95.
The problem I see in the Free Software community is that it tries to copy the Windows interface, but only on the surface. People will look at it, and expect it to work like it did in Windows, and then they find out that it doesn't. I rather have an uniq GUI (like Mac is uniq, or OS/2 was uniq) for UNIX/Linux so that people won't be confused.
It's also one of the reason I really like Enlightenment. It's finally a window manager that doesn't try to copy something that went before. It creates an identity uniq to the system.
Je ne parle pas francais.
I run a 19" PF790 monitor at 1024x768 (supposedly its limit is 1600x1200). Higher resolutions get uncomfortable for 47-year-old eyes that no longer focus like they used to. After all, not everything can scale up fonts, menus, etc., and not everyone can use computer glasses. :(
:)
One thing I see a lot of, particularly in free software, are programs that were clearly designed and tested at obscenely high resolutions -- and are all but unusable even at 1024x768, let alone below that. Kids tend to forget that most of the world still runs at 800x600, in particular the over-40 crowd.
Then there are commercial apps like Dreamweaver, where the workspace is inundated by the taskbars etc., yet if you turn all those off so you've got some elbow room, you've got no uick way to access certain functions. What was it designed for, wall-sized monitors??!
I've had the thought that it would be nice if I could set resolution on a per-application basis
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?