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Microsoft Longhorn Delayed
skreuzer writes "Microsoft has once again shifted the schedule for the release of "Longhorn," the company's next major version of Windows. The product was originally expected to ship next year. Then in May of this year, officials pushed back the release date to 2005. But now executives are declining to say when they expect the software to ship."
I recently reinstalled Windows XP. There were 47 "critical" updates. Installed service pack 1. Then there were 29 critical updates left. About time for Service pack 2.
Windows and Windows NT were supposed to converge after 98/NT 4. They didn't. Finally we have Windows XP, how many years later?
Agreed, latterly they have shipped something on time, rather than delay, but the something more often than not has been another interim release, rather than the product actually PowerPointed several years earlier.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
.NET will be all over Longhorn. Longhorn itself will be .NET based. The latest betas have explorer.exe running as .NET managed code.
.NET. The big push will be then, and you can bet the new version of Office will help that push, as well as a new Server product.
.NET managed code, it'll be a lot of work.
They're leaving Win32 behind and going full
There are a lot of very major changes going on with Longhorn. I don't blame them for taking their time with this. From hardware acceleration on the desktop to SQL engine integration to revamping everything to run as
"Sufferin' succotash."
Windows Server 2003 took longer to release because of the re-written IIS and .NET layers. Security was also a main concern, but not because XP or 2000 were insecure.
They had plenty of vulnerabilities and many exploits that could have been prevented by patching and such... however, with SQL Slammer, Code Red, and others that had come out, Gates decided, this is it, we have to change some process somewhere. So he overhauled their development process one more time to focus around security in EVERY decision. So they halted development for 6 months, sent every single developer to a school in developing secure code, purchased 200 million in books on secure programming for their developers, and then went back to work. That right there delayed things 6 months alone.
Then, as part of Gates' orders, their next job was a line by line review of every single coded product Microsoft makes. Everything from Windows Server 2003 to the IntelliPoint software. While analyzing that code for common security mistakes, they also founded a new security organization for companies to join to exchange common coding conventions for secure code and publish common mistakes and to allow joint development knowledge to be shared, and hired on 500 people at the company to develop tools that do nothing but scan code. Those tools go out and look at code to find buffer overrun issues (the most common security flaw in existence), and to look for other common security mishaps in code.
After the review, they implemented the changes found therein. Then ran the new tools that by that time were done being developed, then implemented those changes, then got back on track with development and yes, rewrote the IIS layers to be partially built directly into the kernel for substantial performance increase. So with all that happening, the review, the tool development, the changes, the security education and reorganization, there were delays, yes. They got it out and look what it has... Two known vulnerabilities of which BOTH of them are a non-issue out of the box and are in areas that are rarely used.
The coolest voice ever.