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Longhorn M4 Build Review
Gsurface writes "I finally got my hands on the new Longhorn build, 4008, that was announced two days ago. After installing it and looking around through it, I decided to write a review expressing some thoughts on the new build. This new longhorn build, upon the prompt to "press any key to boot from cd..." jumps directly into a GUI that is unique. This build Microsoft decides to abandon the setup interface of XP and dress Longhorn on its own. "
There is some interesting commentary on Longhorn, Build 4008, including cracks that are already being released :). You can read about them at http://www.xbetas.com/.
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Plus, there is a Longhorn 4008 wallpaper for those really interested.
NeoWin also reports that they got their hands on a new leaked version of Windows Longhorn. "The reporter insists that these are original shots. Lots of grandients are going on in the UI and while this is an alpha and the final version might look different (that's what happened with XP's Luna, MS only revealed XP's final design only a few months before the release, while most betas used another theme), these shots showing there are just pretty ugly IMHO. Bad taste on colors, no easy distinction between elements, it all looks like a big bad web page."
Finally, there are some nice screenshots available at http://www.windowsxpstuff.net/comments.php?id=460
Suhit
here
XP is extremely customizable, though not as much as linux...the look and feel can be changed and a lot of system resources can be changed because of turning off the overall look of windows xp. I agree with you...people using xp should try blkviper.com to get a thorough way to tweak their xp or win2k systems.
"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet..and we are the cure"
Most linux distros I've used ask for a root password, and then the name/password for a regular user all in the course of installation. Then you're supposed to log in with the name/password for that regular user.
Yes, it's different. It's an issue. Are you trolling? Many unix types consider running as admin to be a security risk, whether or not you know the admin password. When you run some shareware app you downloaded, it has access to the entire computer. Trojan horses are a serious risk. If you are running as a limited user, the trojan horse cannot infect other binaries, cannot install kernel modifications, etc.
Agreed, however, that the reviewer may have been biased. I'm just picking nits.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
2.25 times.
There was the change to "Platinum" at OS 8.0 that added some little nuggets like the pop open windows and drilling down to where you want to move something, then closes all the windows behind you, and it added the drawers at the bottom of the screen.
When I saw the bit about another Windows UI change, I cursed. Thats just what we need at the support level, having to train staff on yet another Windows UI. Because you know at some point MS will ban the sales of XP and all the new computers with come with Longhorn and then places like schools will have Win2K/XP/LH running at the same time.
Few nice screenshots, longhorn screensaver and wallpaper. http://www.msfn.org/comments.php?catid=1&id=13 75
from this picture it seems they changed the "Yes to All" button when doing a multi-file copy/replace with a checkbox like in Jaguar (OS X) however the wording is terrible "Repeat my answer each time this occurs".
And what's the point of having a slideshow in the taskbar?
Actually, you just have to log on as administrator and shut off the service 'Themes', which will effectively revert you to the Win98 theme globally.
-Sara
try this one
Well (as a CompE), I turned off the theme service all together. Not particularly because I hated the themes (the silver one I could tolerate), but because it made screen refreshes even on my Geforce2 Go in my laptop slow as hell. Massive curtain effects moving windows around. Maybe it was the drivers, maybe it's windows. I dunno. But disabling it makes it soooooo much better.
Besides, the less services the better. My computer started taking over 2 mins to boot and windows was using over 200MB RAM at startup. Just a few services disabled and I'm down to 45sec boots and 160MB RAM used after IE, AIM and Outlook Express are all opened. Stupid bloat...
hers a link where u can download the .doc file of this review :
"http://www.iebeta.net/modules.php?modid=5&action= show&id=32"
it's not a fake, it's a real beta/alpha piece of software - right down to the 180 day license agreement.
I couldn't get it to go on VM-ware (wouldn't see my VM disk file as a valid disk to install on) so I will just have to leave it at that.
The poster of this story apparently Slashdotted himself?
Nice move.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Do you mean this picture?
A more authorative answer from netcraft:
Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) AuthMySQL/2.20 mod_log_bytes/1.0 mod_bwlimited/1.0 PHP/4.3.0 FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 on Linux
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install
> On a side note, are explorer, progman, litestep, etc.,
> really shells?
explorer is a shell. Post Win95, progman and litestep are very limited shells.
The last version of Windows to have a shell in the classic sense of the word was Win3.1: progman (default), winfile, norton desktop, etc.
But explorer.exe is a very *deep* shell, in the sense it provides a (rather rich) set of services (not in the NT services sense) to Win32 apps as well. For example, the FileOpen/FileSaveAs common controls use Explorer to enumerate the system namespace. IIRC, it manages the desktop as well, and show MRU history in dialog boxes.
There's no good way to *really* replace it short of re-implementing each of the shell interfaces, which no one will likely do because (a) it's too much work, (b) too little documentation unless you have access to MS' shell team (c) it probably won't sell very well because most people are so overwhelmingly familiar with explorer now (which is why you'll never see a Norton shell for XP).
Which is why running litestep doesn't take you away from explorer: it runs every time you hit File|Open in notepad.
Bottom line: post-Win95, Windows' shell was just not *designed* to be snap-in replacable (although it is very modular indeed) the way the Win3.1 shell was (or X is).