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. "

Comments

Only a FP up, and the server is dead

[Dixie_Flatline]

All that's here is one guy with FP, and I already get a database error. Talk about bad decisions, advertising your story to /. without preparing first.

Anyone manage to sneak in and get a mirror up?

Re:Only a FP up, and the server is dead

[frdmfghtr]

Just goes to show that /.ers are going to read the article before posting :)

great.....

[Lord_Slepnir]

SO microsoft is changing its interface yet again. Of all the CompE majors that I know here at school, every single one had their version of XP revert back to the old windows 95/98 look and feel. One of these days, people at microsoft and apple (and KDE and Gnome) will realize that people don't want a change in the interface every other release, and stick to their own standards.

Re:great.....

[the eric conspiracy]

apple

Let's give Apple some credit here - they have only changed their UI design once in the 20 year history of the Mac. In fact they were routinely getting hammered by the computer press for having an outdated UI.

Re:great.....

[Wyatt Earp]

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.

Re:great.....

[TheRaven64]

So why didn't they just "revert back" to Windows 3.1?

When Win95 came out, a lot of people I knew reverted back to using progman as their shell. In many ways I prefer it to the start menu. In fact I don't use the start menu any more, I have a quicklaunch bar spanning my second monitor (it was a row above the taskbar before I got the the second monitor). Having to click more than once to lauch an app seems unintuitive to me.

Or even DOS 2?

Have you used DOS 2? *shudder*. Having said the cmd prompt is the first icon on my Win2K quicklaunch bar, so I guess that implies I still do go back to the old DOS interface quite regularly.

I'm a girl.

Why do you feel the need to tell us this? Suffering from some insecurities are we? :->

Re:great.....

[jayslambast]

I think the change in interface is more related to the lack of content they provide with the new OS's. If you look at feature difference (ignoring the interface) between XP Pro vs Win2k, you would find that you're paying for Remote Desktop Connection services (which is handy), some minimal movie edit software and new 3d screensavers. oh, and the driver fallback stuff. While Remote desktop stuff is nice, its not worth the $200 to upgrade. So to entice people to pay XP, they had to update the look, or people wouldn't think it was worth their money.

People do this all the time... If the content they are trying to say can't stand on its own, they try to wrap it in a pretty package, and some people are fooled by that....

But that's my 2 cents...

Re:great.....

[Orion_]

So why didn't they just "revert back" to Windows 3.1? Or even DOS 2? For some reason, they got past those releases and moved onto Windows 95, why?

Because the Windows 95 interface was better in many tangible ways than the Windows 3.1 interface. I'm sure there was some resistance to the changes, simply because there is always resistance to change, but I don't think there are many people that would want to go back to 3.1, having experienced the improvements in 95.

The XP interface, however, was not improved significantly. They just took the old interface and gave everything bright colors, that in my opinion and in the opinions of many others, was a significant step backwards. The point is that there was no functionality added in the new interface, so we have lost nothing by switching back. The only effect is that we have created an environment that we consider more asthetically pleasing.

There were a couple of improvements in XP, like the new Start menu, and an improved taskbar, but those things are completely independent of which widget theme you choose.

Re:great.....

[neuroticia]

Actually, WinXP is easier for the end-user. (Yeah, I know. Who woulda thought?)

My lesser-computer-inclined family folk love XP, and have finally started to be able to do things like make their printer work, remember where they saved their files, etc.

I think that the blue rounded-corners give the end-user the illusion they're playing with a toy, and puts them off their automatic defensive "I don't know how to DO ANYTHING! IT'S A COMPUTER FOR GOD'S SAKE! IT'S THE BRAIN-SURGERY OF 2003!" mode.

In addition, unless the user changes it, the default location to save things is *always* the user's home folder, and the user is logged out (Not logged off, if they re-click their icon at the login screen, they'll be returned to their applications just as they were. Although there seems to be an issue with another user being able to log in, re-run the application, and force the termination of that app under the other's user account.) after a short period of inactivity, which enforces users to log in as themselves instead of doing account sharing which was common under Win95-WinME. This forces users to save to their home folder most times, which drastically diminishes the number of "Oh my god, I lost my file that I just spent 10 weeks working on." incidents.

I don't seem to have any problem with overshooting rounded corners. But, I think I overcame that with Apple's Aqua interface, in which I was initially doing stupid things on a regular basis. ;) (Clicking the little oblong button on the upper right thinking it would minimize the window, and instead turning the toolbars on and off repeatedly while laughing at myself comes to mind...)

-Sara

Re:great.....

[rpresser]

and "Nay" when MS changes it's GUI (Luna? *ACK* designed by color blind mentally defective lunatics.)

I take offense at this. I can easily prove that I had nothing to do with Luna.

Re:great.....

[BlueGecko]

Platinum doesn't count. If you're going to count that as an interface change, let's not forget things like MultiFinder, window zoom, labels, etc. The critical thing with Apple is that, for all of the Classic line, there was steady evolution. Each version of the Mac had an improved interface that built upon the last one, not replacing it. Platinum gave the windows mildly revamped dressing, but otherwise did not really change the operation of the system. You could even ignore MultiFinder when it came out if you wanted to, along with the windowshade button of OS 8, the proxy icon of OS 8.5, etc. The biggest consistency problem of the classic Mac OS, in fact, was the massive control panel reorganization that began with System 7.5 and didn't finish until Mac OS 9.0.

Compare that with OS X. You fire it up and you've got a Dock (new), Apple menu is totally different (new), menu bar doesn't operate close to the same way (new), trash can is not on Dock (new), control panels have disappeared (new), Finder by default opens column view (new)...rather than evolution, Mac OS X completely redefined how every single control worked and operated. I read of no one having trouble moving from System 7.5 or Mac OS 7.6 to Mac OS 8 having problems with Platinum, but many Macphiles had serious issues with OS X, and even though I am extremely comfortable with Unix, even I think that Classic was just plain simpler and more intuitive in many, many ways than OS X. Since Mac OS X 10.0, however, Apple has mostly gone back to evolution rather than revolution, which I think is a good thing. No major new UI changes have arisen out of newer releases of OS X except that Apple randomly makes its apps brushed metal now.

Ignoring the depth of change, though, compare the Mac's steady evolution too Microsoft's jumps and spurts. Ignoring Windows the first four incarnations of Windows, Windows 3.0/3.1 to 95 was the first major UI switch that Windows underwent. Internet Explorer 4 was the second major paradigm shift. XP was actually in many ways closer to the adoption of Platinum than the OS 9 to OS X switch, since just changing the window dressings makes XP look like the steady evolution of Win 2K (with the Start menu and the control panel reorganization being the two big changes), but Longhorn looks like it will be yet another major paradigm shift with the addition of Microsoft's very direct ripoff of NEXTSTEP's Dock and reworking of the control panels. That means that Apple has had a major shift once over 19 years; Microsoft will have had four major paradigm shifts over the last eleven years with the release of Longhorn. That's just ridiculous.

Note to Desktop Developers:

[handsomepete]

I do not want pictures of people I don't know built into my OS (for those that can't get to it it's a picture of a woman wearing headphones and smiling as an image appearing underneath the title part of the 'My Music' folder). Thanks.

Great article

[millertime3250]

I don't know how he got his hands on a copy of longhorn, but it's exciting to see that it's not crap yet.

New Security on Longhorn

[superpulpsicle]

From an inside Microsoft source - "Longhorn will be released with a retina and fingerprint scanner since the previous product activation code was not effective enough. We are currently on beta 2 of our scanner. By RC1 we should be able to scan your retina without detaching your cornea."

Re:New Security on Longhorn

[Corbin Dallas]

Boy, I'd hate to have Windows crash on me while scanning... You'd have a high-res image of the Blue Screen of Death burned into your retina.

/.ed

[Distinguished Hero]

I guess he decided to install Longhorn on his server...

Yay for biases? +1 for an article, though.

[Wingchild]

From the article,

The welcome screen is presented, where I am logged in automatically. During the installation I was asked to enter a username, by default this username was given full administration access. Maybe not such a good idea according to some security experts.

That's standard behavior of Win95 and 98 (you're just the admin by nature), Windows NT (you start as the admin account), Windows 2000 (creates an admin account, then prompts you to create a user w/ full administrative rights) and Windows XP (see Win2k).

Does any *nix installation *not* start you off as Root, with the ability to create more accounts?

By the way, Windows installations from Win2k onward will not prompt you to create a local admin account (i.e., Please enter your Username so I can make you an admin, too) provided that you're joining a domain right off the bat -- which, as the installer of this OS, is the only case where your local account's security rights becomes a real concern. If you're doing it at home, for yourself, you're already the installer/admin. You know the admin password. Meaning, the user will know the admin password.

So, non-issue.

I didn't encounter any crashes while playing with Longhorn, even though I would have loved to see what kind of errors I would have gotten. I'm sure a couple of more minutes while browsing would have done provoked Longhorn to squeal.

"I said it died screamin' like a stuck Irish pig!"
(with props to Untouchables)

Likewise, I'm sure that me evalating any Linux kernel of your choosing could smash it into a million pieces through careless use of rm * -o , whack Solaris by repeatedly throwing the power while it's doing disk writes, or break any other *nix operating system you choose to name.

*Any* operating system can be broken through maliciously beating on it. "I bet I can make it squeal" doesn't imply "I am going to conduct a fair and extensive beta test of this newest distribution to see where it's faults still lie". It implies "Let's see what we can destroy". :P

Work on your bias. Good work submitting the article; news is news, regardless of the bearer.

Re:Yay for biases? +1 for an article, though.

[rmarll]

Ain't that the truth.

My inability to mod this up is going to have to be sated by a me too post.

Back on topic, this review is pretty much useless asside from the screenshots showing off the *GIANT BITMAPS FROM HELL*. The details are pretty marginal in and of them selves. The most obvious change(*GIANT BITMAPS FROM HELL*) didn't even get a mention, while other featurs that have been around a while (box displaying file properties) get a mention. An examination as to if there is a checkbox in the Tools>Folder Options panel that read "Turn off *GIANT BITMAPS FROM HELL*?" would have been nice.

This was obviously a "Get the review out and up on Slashdot before anyone else" review(and a successfull one too). Not to say that's the most horrible thing in the world (the pictures were certainly of some use), but I hope a real review will make it onto the front page in a couple weeks.

Re:Yay for biases? +1 for an article, though.

[Elwood P Dowd]

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.

Re:Yay for biases? +1 for an article, though.

[pjrc]

Does any *nix installation *not* start you off as Root, with the ability to create more accounts?

Most have you create non-root accounts at installation. All RedHat installers in the last couple years have done this.

You know the admin password. Meaning, the user will know the admin password.

So, non-issue.

If you misunderstand the issue (that by default the user is logged in with full admin privs) to be the an issue user _could_ login with admin access, then it is a non-issue.

But in fact, the issue is that ordinary, unskilled users will by default be running with full admin privs, rather than a set of privs that are adaquete for the tasks they normally would do and protect them from accidental mistakes and malicious code they may be duped into running. Some people might say "well, they chose to run as admin", but in fact they just clicked-their-way-through without paying much attention. Good design and security practice is the make the default settings as secure as possible. This is a basic, well established principle... on of those things all Microsoft developers were supposedly off to "training" for a month after Bill's famous "trustworthy computing" memo. But it appears that even now, Microsoft is still making the default for ordinary users to run with full admin privs.

For sake of comparison, in Redhat 8, users are likely to run the system as ordinary users. The installer encourages them to create non-root accounts. The first time the GUI is started, it will complain with a warning dialog box if the user is running as root. Thing like this warning go a long way to helping protect users. Some other apps will also complain if the user is running as root. The other notworthy feature in Redhat 8 (and possibly other distros) is that GUI-based configuaration programs prompt for the root password, and a security manager maintains the root access for a while so the user isn't punished by having to retype the root password constantly as they tweak settings. And most linux-based apps are designed to run without root access. All of these factors work together, most of the time, to cause users to run without root privs and all the unnecessary risks associated with it.

Compare to Microsoft land, where by default the unskilled user runs with full admin privs, and nothing warns them and attempts to get them to "do the right thing".... and historically lots of things "just don't work" unless the user logs out and logs back in as the administrator. Those conditions all conspire to drive ordinary users to run with admin privs (when 99% of the time it's not necessary and needlessly opens them to unnecessary risks).

Ordinary users just want things to work, and they usually take the path of least resistance. Modern linux-based systems make that path relatively secure. But Microsoft, despite their "trustworthy computing" marketing still appears to take the easy approach, where they make the easiest path one with unnecessary security risks.

commentary

[suhit]

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/.

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& catid=1.

Suhit

A Mirror

[DigiBoi]

If you cant get to the site, here is a Mirror.

Did they try it?

[NetJunkie]

Did the XP users at least try the new interface for a while or instantly turn it off? If you give it a test you'll find the XP interface is nice. The changes are fairly minor but do allow you to access things more quickly. Some things do cause a performance hit but you can easily turn them off.

In fact, I've found the XP interface to be pretty granular in control so if you don't like something, just turn it off.

A lot of people don't like new things just because they are different. Sit a new user in front of Win2K and XP and I bet they prefer XP, especially after tweaking it to their work habits.

Re:Did they try it?

[dpvtank]

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.

Re:Did they try it?

[rosie_bhjp]

Agreed, I've always thought of the XP interface to be acceptable if the machine I was working on was called "Sony's My First PC".

Re:Did they try it?

[Orion_]

The changes are fairly minor but do allow you to access things more quickly.

Which changes are you referring to here? As far as I could tell, aside from the new Start menu the interface was pretty much exactly the same as the old one, only with ugly garish colors.

I gave it a couple of days, then switched it back. The old look is much cleaner; more "professional" I suppose.

As for the new Start menu, I gave that a few days and then turned that off too. I tend to dislike interfaces that are heavily oriented around my recent activities... I prefer consistency.

Re:Did they try it?

[Dylan Zimmerman]

The standard Windows xp interface was designed to be more suitable for pen-based computing. The window controlls are larger, they finaly fixed that Start menu problem (it was one pixel up and one pixel right of the bottom left corner), they added the mouse position effects so that it's easier to tell just what you're going to hit with the stylus, etc. They just made it more pen friendly. I, personaly, like the new Start menu. It adds a nice list of my most frequently used programs and such so that I don't have to go diving through the whole thing just to run my development environment. Other than that, I despise most of the changes. Only the Recycle Bin on the desktop feels like MacOS (good), but they don't mount drives to the desktop (bad). It makes it much harder to use. The classic "OK" and "Cancel" buttons are still a UI programmer's nightmare and MS still hasn't figured that out. I go to close a window and it says "By closing this window, you will not be able to log out. Logout now? [OK] [Cancel]" Now, what would you expect the Cancel button to do? I, persoaly, expect it to keep the window open, but it turns out that that is the button to close the window and not logout. Weird, huh? The list of useability fauxpaus goes on and on.

Re:Did they try it?

[Selfbain]

When I first installed XP, I was running it with the new GUI and my brother asked me why I was using the sesame street scheme.

Screenshots

[JewFish]

Windows Longhorn XP 4008 Alpha M4 screen shots can be found here.

http://www.206.dk/4008.html

Re:Screenshots

[netsharc]

That's a feature for which I too have been wishing! It wouldn't be so hard to implement, but it sure will annoy and confuse new users..

My idea was, when you do a copy/move function and the computer finds filenames in the target directory which are the same to filenames you're processing, record these names and then display them in a dialog box list, which should look like this:

| Original Name | Conflicts with target | Rename original as | Rename target as |
foo.jpg foo.jpg foo.jpg foo2.jpg
:
:
with buttons to auto-generate names for the original or for the target (but not for both), and the ability to click the rename columns to choose a name you want.

Like I said, I don't think it would be too intuitive, and in the end you won't remember what the files were called.

Re:problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The site is probably running Longhorn build 4008 :-)

It may be a new build...

[I Love this Company!]

But underneath, Longhorn is the same old bull.

Re:Let the speculation begin.

[eryk]

I've a strange feeling that even if no one cares about the revolutionary or improved Longhorn , you have to post a complain about the anti-Microsoft zealots.

Are you paid for that?

Re:jeepers

[aePrime]

You're not missing much. The article is poorly written and offers little insight to those who are (like me) unfamiliar with Windows XP. All of his examples come from how it's changed compared to XP.

Re:jeepers

[avij]

An email has been sent to the administrator notifying them of the problem. Please try again later.

OMG, now we've /.ed someone's email server, as if slashdotting the web server wasn't enough. Shame on us.

Yeowza!

[Snork Asaurus]

after installing Longhorn on my D: partition

He either one brave fellow or all his other data are belong to the recycle bin.

I wouldn't let an early beta o/s on a system that even had another partition or drive in the same room. I'm still pissed from when that dumb-assed release version of Win2k "upgraded" my NTFS 4 on another drive to NTFS 5 (making it incompatible with NT4) WITHOUT WARNING when I simply looked at the other drive. Yes, they warn that it could happen during the install if you have any NTFS 4 partitions, but this was after the install, when I connected another drive to copy some files over! Luckily, I had imaged the drives beforehand just in case.

exactly, turn off what you don't like

[n3k5]

I think with "reverting back to the old look and feel", the parent poster didn't think of switching off usable features like hiding all those seldomly used items from the start menu until you request to see them all. I think he rather referred to switching off the new kindergarten-style window borders, config panel lazout etc., which take up more pixels on the screen (so less useful information is displayed) and look different for no good reason.

Sure, maybe you can tweak the new l&f so you can be just as productive with it. However, the point wasn't that it's inherently bad, it was that _changing_ it around all the time is a very bad idea, and as the old one is just as good for most people, most people are better off continuing to use the old.

"Pointless 'innovation' considered harmful." I read that somewhere today, probably Wired News. Definitely applies here.

The more things change..

[shadowlight1]

..the more they stay the same.

Having survived the Windows 98 to ME, Windows ME to 2000, and Windows 2000 to XP migration curves, I have to say, that until this thing reaches release candidate status, all bets are off.

I remember installing every single Win 98 beta that came out -- what a buggy headache (especially the early Active Desktops) -- when I could have spent my time being productive, and waiting and watching.

This time, I will wait and watch.

So far all I see in Longhorn is Windows XP with a few new panes, some screen reogranization and some pretty icons. Until I see a dynamic, functional difference that is not just screen reogranization or eye candy, I'll be convinced that this is just more of the same, in a new package, with some bugfixes, speed optimization and additional hardware support (like DVD burning, for example).

Oh, and I forgot .net, which I think will be the equivalent of embedding the channel bar into the OS and trying to make it look more "seamless" in the OS. Remember the subscription channel bar in Win 98, that no one ever uses and hates?

I could have guessed those "improvements", without even seeing one screenshot. Come on, MS, where's the real innovation?

Time will tell.

Chris

New "File Replace" dialog

[golo]

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?

Enlighten yourselves.

[badasscat]

There seem to be two camps here (with a third lurking in the background), and they're diametrically opposed: those who think the GUI is too big a change from WinXP and therefore people won't like it, and those who think the GUI is too much like WinXP's and therefore people won't like it.

You can't have it both ways.

There's always a third camp around here (of which I'm a part), which seems to be strangely under-represented in this thread today. This camp believes WinXP is actually a perfectly fine OS, its UI is perfectly functional and easy to use. These people look at Longhorn and think "well, it's no worse than XP, and probably a little better."

Lots of people use Windows XP and lots of people like it. Heck, lots of people even use its new swanky GUI - I do, my wife does, and everyone else I know does too (including most of my co-workers... all of the ones running WinXP, that is). I'm not sure why anybody would expect MS to make any drastic changes to a formula that works, and that a lot of people are used to using. Honestly, the core functions of the GUI haven't changed since Windows 95/NT 4 (which were very similar with the exception of the added administrator functions in the NT 4 GUI). Some of you seem blinded by bright lights - the XP GUI is almost no different than the Win2000 GUI underneath, and what *is* different (the control panel layout, start menu, etc.) can be easily changed back without removing any of the functionality or the prettiness. For my part, I find the new start menu much more useful than the old.

And from what I'm seeing of Longhorn, it's hardly any different from the XP GUI. It's a bit flatter, with fewer 3D effects - an attempt at being a little more tasteful and understated without going back to the ugliness of Win95 (though I'm not a fan of rounded window corners - especially when maximized, they just don't like right). Still has the start button, the systray, the quicklaunch, very few desktop icons, etc. A few new transparency effects on the new sidebar. Honestly, if anything I'm disappointed they haven't made more visual improvements to the UI, though this is still an early build, and most of the visual flash comes last in any software development. I'm sure the final release will look even better than this.

I think you all need to stop expecting Windows to be Linux (or BeOS, or whatever), and accept the fact that not all of us want to worry about customizing every last bit of our GUI or working in terminal consoles to get anything meaningful done. This doesn't mean we don't have "half a brain", it just means we want to spend less time with our OS and more time with our work. But it's nice if the OS looks good out of the box, so we don't *need* to spend time with it to make ourselves comfortable with it.

On the other hand, it seems KDE and Gnome are both trying to move closer to the Windows GUI. They both have "start" buttons of their own, they both have quicklaunch equivalents, etc. They're both even going for eye candy lately. So what are some of you complaining about? This is what most people want, and it's the way most people are used to working. Just deal.

Re:try this link at neowin.net

[Anonymous Coward]

try this one

Re:Let the speculation begin.

[zulux]

crowds of zealots with their anti-Microsoft sentiment in hand, ready to propogare their GNU agenda.

I agree - It's terrible!

I met this GNU/Linux guy, and he wanted to give mt a disk with over 5000 peer-reviewed, stable and interesting peices of software. And get this, the fucker even tried to give me the source code!

God, I hate those GNU bastards.

And heres another one...

[Zone-MR]

I wrote my own review with a bit more detail and thoughts. It is availible on www.betaone.net as well as below. My review assumes you had seen the previous M3 leaked build so doesnt go into details about the sidebar etc:

----
Well, I finally got around to installing Longhorn build 4008 on my laptop, and have decided to write a mini review. Rather than writing a full review of each possible screen, I will concentrate on changes from previous versions of windows.

Installation
Behind the scenes a lot of changes have happened to the setup program.
* Rather than having all files in one folder (i386) there is now a directory dtructure in 'boot' which resembles the structure of the system once installed.
* Rather than having a text-mode preinstall upon booting the cd which then spawns a graphical setup, the entire Longhorn M4 setup is graphical. This seems to be based on Windows XP PE (preinstall edition).

The changes look very promising, although the GUI is clearly unfinished and seemingly rushed;
* In many places the wording is quite unproffesional
* You are informed you will be informed when you can "just walk away" and "setup will complete on its own". While setup requires little user interaction, you are not informed when your input is no longer required.
* There is a nice treeview for selecting the installation partition, but your options are quite limited. In XP you can select Fat32/NTFS, FULL/QUICK format. In LH M4 the only option you have is a checkbox - "Format this partition (NTFS)".
* The layout will need more work. Currently everything is centered, giving a kind of pyramid look. The previous setup style with several 'panels' proving information looked more visually pleasing.

I am sure the little flaws will be ironed out sooner or later, but one thing is for sure, a lot of work has gone into improving the setup wizard which until now had remained largely unchanged ever since windows 2000.

Visual and Features
When longhorn M4 first starts, you are greeted with a much nicer screen than in Longhorn M3. In M3 there were a lot of visual imperfections and the plex theme looked worse than the luna theme on many windows. Now these imperfections have been ironed out and longhorn looks truly beuitiful as far as visuals are concerned.

The sidebar, in additional to being much nicer visually, now has a few essential features that were missing in M3. Namely, there is a tray icon tile, so you do not lose access to trayed programs when using the sidebar in place of the taskbar.

Glitches, Speed, Stability
I tested M4 on modest hardware - a laptop with a 600Mhz P3 and 128MB of RAM. Longhorn ran SIGNIFICANTLY slower than .NET (which I was running previously). Even with the WinFS service disabled, the system runs painfuly slow.

After altering the screen resolution the sidebar seemed currupted. Hiding and then reenabling it made the sidebar completly invisible.

Stability is difficult to comment on because I have only been running LH for a short time so far. Till now I have not had a single crash or even error message.

Rant on WinFS's implementation
A lot of effort seems to be going into WinFS. The idea behind it seems brilliant - store files in an SQL like database so you can search for files, run queries, and receive results in a fraction of a second rather than having to wait for the computer to scan through each folder and take several minutes to search through the entire drive. Unfortunatly if the implementation in M4 is anything to go by, MS are going in completly the wrong direction. The new search panel prompts the user to enter a search string "Example: 'Pictures from John' or 'What is a firewall?'". It can search both the local files. This seems very newbie-oriented. Computers are usless at interpreting natural language queries. They should do what they are good at - fast indexing by filenames and keywords in the files contents. Also, searching a local filesystem for a jpeg and searching the internet are two entirely different activities. Combining them into a single search seems to make no sense and will just confuse advanced users.

The current search system in XP is good enough as far as the interface is concerned (at least after you kill the faqing dog - again classic newbie-oriented bloat). You can search by filename, modified/created date, and a files contents. It is layed out in a perfectly logical way, and you know exactly what you are asking the computer to do. If only this was based on SQL and queries lasted under a second it would be perfect. Why replace this clean, logical interface with a textbox claims to supposedly understand plain english questions and automatically decide for you if you are looking for an email message, file, internet document, or application. Pointless artificial intelligence which will be far from perfect. I think ill stick with 'grep' and 'ls -R' - they do everthing I need them to.

Re:problem

[mentin]

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

Re:Let the speculation begin.

[nathanh]

I've a strange feeling that no matter how revolutionary or improved Longhorn is, there will be crowds of zealots with their anti-Microsoft sentiment in hand, ready to propogare their GNU agenda.

You have gno idea what you are talking about. I gknow for a fact that gnobody is trying to brainwash you into gnusing GNU/Linux.

Looks like eye candy . . . .

[Anonymous Poodle]

for the blind.