"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!

Comments

Quick Launch Bar

[DJCouchyCouch]

So, (as I've said before) besides the systray, task bar buttons, icons on the desktop and the start menu we have *another* way to "quickly" get to applications and documents? Pretty soon we'll need a quick launch bar for the quick launch bars.

Re:Quick Launch Bar

[mbogosian]

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.

Re:Quick Launch Bar

[perlyking]

They don't know when to stop it seems.

"Longhorn... what can we have? Bigger fatter UI!"...
"Lets call more things 'my....'"

Whats with all the redundant "my..." anyway - e.g The "my" in "my hardware" is totally redundant, is a user really going to wonder if they are configuring someone else's hardware?

Re:Quick Launch Bar

[Reziac]

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 :)

Keep all the eye candy, thank you.

[glrotate]

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.

Re:Keep all the eye candy, thank you.

[Jugalator]

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.

Re:Keep all the eye candy, thank you.

[Virus1984]

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.

Not that new...

[Malic]

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?

Is it going to be another case of ..

[EvilCabbage]

.. more stuff I need to disable to stop my users from hurting themselves?

Hope not.

Excessive change rate

[panurge]

I am currently doing some work for a major services company which is still running NT4 on the desktop and still using Office 97. They really do not want to change and they see no reason (other than being forced to) why they should. The fact is that most users want something familiar to do their jobs on.

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?

What Paul Thurott has to say about this leak

[Drestin]

Taken from his > Friday website post:

Notes on the Longhorn Alpha

It's always humorous seeing other news agencies pick up stories days after they've first run in WinInfo or the SuperSite, and my Longhorn alpha build preview is one perfect example, with a variety of legitimate news Web sites suddenly discovering Longhorn build 3683 after I wrote about it ten days ago. Two items arose in the aftermath of this event. First, this build is old, and doesn't even slightly resemble the Longhorn we'll be using years down the road (heck, it barely works), let alone more recent builds. Second, much of the email I've gotten about this and other leaked alpha builds revolves around where I got it and whether I can distribute it. I won't generally answer email of that nature, sorry, but to answer to one bizarre query, no; I wasn't responsible for the leak either. There's something about leaked Windows builds that gets people in a tizzy, but remember: We're on the XP train now and will be for some time. This Longhorn stuff is really just a shell for technology tests at this point. It isn't something anyone would actually use day-to-day.

So, as anyone who actually thought about it (hint: ALPHA release, strictly internal), this isn't what Longhorn is about. This is some internal MS messing about with ideas for a UI - that's all. Might be twenty more variations on taskbars and quickstarts and what-have-yous. And, besides, who cares about changes to the UI. You'll get used to them, as you got used to going from W3.1 to W9x to W2K to XP. They are small changes, progressive improvments/refinements. Why get so hung up on some screenshots.

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!

Re:Wow, those are some pretty pictures

[Twirlip of the Mists]

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.

Re:Yawn

[TheGreek]

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.

Re:"Plex" styling.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

It looks like a dreadful KDE theme.

Talk about being redundant...

Re:Yawn

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

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).

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 :) - 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).

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).

Re:Faked?

[Jugalator]

Why should I believe this are not faked like they rest?

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 .nfo.

Also, here's a guide to fix certain boot problems with Longhorn.

To all of you Linux UI developers out there...

[Raul654]

...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.

Re:no drive letters ;-)

[Jugalator]

Yes, remarkably like that funny concept of `mount points`?

Maybe Microsoft is replacing UNIX by BECOMING UNIX?

Virtual desktops, mount points - what next, /bin/sh?

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.

Re:Why "My"?

[Hooya]

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.

Re:Yawn

[Master Bait]

I for one appreciate Microsoft's up-front attitude by them including a separate folder for My Viruses and another one for My Exploits.

Re:Why "My"?

[grub]

"My ____" is degrading. It's like Microsoft saying "You little child...

Have you seen OpenBSD 3.2?

$ ls -l /
total 9066
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1024 Apr 13 2002 My_Bin
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 19968 Oct 23 10:48 My_Dev
drwxr-xr-x 21 root wheel 2048 Nov 24 09:55 My_Etc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 4543036 May 18 2002 My_Kernel
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 512 Oct 25 03:44 My_Home
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Apr 13 2002 My_Mnt
drwx------ 3 root wheel 512 Oct 24 04:51 My_root
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 2048 Apr 13 2002 My_Sbin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Apr 13 2002 My_Stand
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 11 Oct 22 16:38 My_Sys -> usr/src/sys
drwxrwxrwt 2 root wheel 512 Nov 24 01:34 My_Tmp
drwxr-xr-x 17 root wheel 512 Oct 23 10:58 My_Usr
drwxr-xr-x 24 root wheel 512 Apr 13 2002 My_Var


Dammit, I knew Theo was getting soft in his old age..

Re:Yawn

[MalleusEBHC]

Most people tend to believe that computers and their associated bits are tools, not support structures for religions.

I'm guessing you have never used emacs or vi.