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More Looks At Far-Off 'Longhorn'
b17bmbr writes "According to eWeek, the first builds are out, with an SDK. The Register notes: 'Microsoft builds leak regularly, Microsoft knows this, and Microsoft knows that the wider the distribution of the software, the faster it's going to spread all over the internet...The timing is impressive for an alpha build of a product that is not scheduled to hit the streets for another two years, and which could quite easily stretch to three.' Methinks this is just vaporware." And Cleverone writes "Several days before PDC 03' attendees will obtain their copy, screenshots of the new build have already made their way to the net. For those inquisitive few, the build stamp is 6.0.4051.0."
It's about time alternatives to Linux pop up for people to use.
It's Windows XP, but with an obnoxiously larger clock and sidebar! Great! /me predicts the biggest flop since Win ME.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
I really like the toned-down brushed metal windows in place of the Playskool XP Theme. These are the kinds of innovations that are going to keep Windows ahead of the game in the long-run.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
"Methinks this is just vaporware." /. We can see that this is malware aswell.
Uh, this is
120 chars of filth!
The only people really hyped are Microsoft fanboys and Microsoft haters like the ones on slashdot.
It's typical slashbot mentality that Microsoft is leaking builds to build hype and promote this. I bet you think Bill Gates was on the grassy knoll too.
Windows 2000 - Version 5.0
:)
Windows XP - Version 5.1
Longhorn - Version 6.0
So it looks like Longhorn is actually a full version up. Not that I truly understand what any of that means. Anyone have a changelog?
Strange comment considering that there is a download available. Wouldn't that make it "non-vaporware"? I would say chances are very good that you will see Longhorn released.
Here are some pictures about earlier leak for alpha build of a Microsoft product.
does this use more or less memory than win2k, winxp?
any benchmarks yet? (Yes I know the OS is only a quarter baked)
Uhh... see any paralels?
Just shut up already. You remind of CNN for technology. Unbiased "News". feh.
Of course, the screenshots are /.ed already. A machine brought to its knees by Longhorn without even having it installed!
Methinks this is just vaporware.
Vaporware? You think the next version of Windows is vaporware? Somehow I don't think Microsoft is going to hype a new Windows version and then never come out with one. "Sorry! That project got killed! You'll have to stick with XP!"
-- Dr. Eldarion --
We have seen this all before. Remember the hype machine for Chicago? How about Cairo? The finished product never resembles the hype but it keeps the trade press talking about Microsoft's product that will never be instead of competitors products which are shipping now.
Democrat delenda est
More screenshots can be found here.
http://almostsmart.com
Do you see any anisotrophic highlights in the grey window border elements? No? Then it wouldn't be brushed metal, it would be a grey gradient now wouldn't it? Besides, this is an interim UI for the alpha and quite likely the beta. The final UI, much like with XP won't be introduced until the OS is well on its way and close to release.
Good to see Microsoft is using there old naming scheme...
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows 4051
There are some screen shots missing from that site, namely the error message saying "a non-drm enabled media file has been detected and removed from your computer"
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Meanwhile, you can see a sneak preview of the next release from the competition here.
I that time we would need too...
1. Improve every area of linux possible
2. Keep getting more and more driver support, including providing very easy ways for hardware manufactures to write drivers
3. Get a decent client base to back us up
4. Produce some really inovative products that users will really want.
5. Have kick-ass releases ready on time for OS war!
Why is the "news" 2007 is a longway off.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
The future is now, because NOW, you not only get 50% less screen real estate because of the fancy clock and sidebar, but IN ADDITION, you get a small dancing paperclip singing Michael Bolton every time your computer crashes. w00t! All hail Longhorn!
Noticed in some of the screens that the Longhorn IE has both a pop-up blocker/manager as well as a download manager (ala GetRight).. Kinda interesting developments--although I suppose we'll have to buy Longhorn to get that version of IE. Heh.
-Jayde
What's a sig?
Just what exactly is Longhorn supposed to do that xp
isn't doing already?
...or making cd-rom burning software that actually is easy ans intuitive.
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
It's a smart move, after all. Instead of releasing a late alpha version as a product (like Win95) that'll have to be endlessly patched and fixed and improved (Win95 Plus, Win98, Win98SE), they're quietly leaking alpha versions so people can report bugs and they can fix it over two years until they have a 98SE-like stable build to market.
Well, it's a smart conspiracy theory.
If Microsoft really wanted to prevent leaks like this they could embed invisible watermarks into the screen captures. Is there any way to tell if they are already doing this? If I were under NDA I would want to be certain that the screenshots couldn't be traced back my company.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
Theyr'e talking about a 2006 release for longhorn. Operating system updates have traditionally been nice cash cows for them. The same is true for office. Now, no one feels a pressing need to upgrade their office suites. Office 2003 is not very compelling. Anyone who sends me an encrypted document and expects me to spend nearly a grand so I can read is going to get a rude document back in plaintext.
So, they have their next upgrade is due in 2.5 years, their competitors are upgrading at an ever faster and regular pace (witness apple 4 upgrades in 2 years the latest being 64bit). It becomes a little bit obvious why they are leaking this.
The problem now is they will promise whatever they think the customer wants to hear at this point. When it comes time to ship they will need an OS that delivers features while still maintaining backward compatibility. Microsofts installed base has become the anchor around its neck. If they do big feature changes that obsolete products no one will upgrade, if they don't no one will upgrade.
OSS has the same problem when picking up new features but it doesn't have the same petty extortionists trying to sell the same thing all over again.
Thank you, Prof. Anal Killjoy.
Here is another link where you can see the next version of Windows..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Lot of more screenshots here,from installation to uninstall :) Very complete.
I bet this version will be called Windows FX, it's short and snapy. Alliance with nVIDIA/AMD? Wouldn't be surprised. But i don't understand why the poster says it's vaporware or it's "very well timed". Timed for what, Halloween? Mandrake 9.3?
BTW to all major corporations, your codenames sucks usually. Whistler, Longhorn, Applebred??? Try something better. I think it was Transmeta who used "Titan" or the like? Now that's nice.
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
ed2k://|file|Longhorn.PDC.Build.4051.PROPER.rar|67 2180048|7699BF04DD0D8ED91CDD8FC078410E85|/
1 54 AE0D2F3944A2EF727DAC04FF83F|/
and here is the fix/bootable:
ed2k://|file|Longhorn.4051.BootFix.zip|42069|64
(watch for extra spaces due to slashdot madness)
This gives us linux developers time to add whatever improvements are made via longhorn into Linux so that by the time 2006 comes alone, Linux will already have all of the important features and plus its own improvements.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
My ass. I've seen the screenshots and its an ugly inerface. Any linux desktop is better than that. What were they thinking?
"This is crazy, you realise we could all go to jail for this?" - my manager, somewhere I used to work.
Things may change by 2007, do you think that in 3-4 years Linux wont have competitive marketshare? At the current rate Linux will have competitive marketshare to Windows within a few years, Microsoft will not be able to bully companies like they do now once Linux becomes mainstream and trust me, 3 years from now Linux will be mainstream. It might not start here in the US, it might go mainstream in China and Europe first, but it will have enough of a market share that Windows simply wont be needed.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Looks like they decided to continue with the Fisher-Price Interface (TM).
Another thing missing in the screenshots is the recurrent little pop ups near the clock asking you to update. Also mising are the constant prompts asking you, "are you sure you want to do this?" and making you second-guess yourself at every turn.
Now with a download manager and popup blocker built in several software companies will be wiped out. Typical. ACD systems is pretty much dead thanks to XP and winzip is too. Now it's going to be getright and ad blockers.
A true alternative to the Linux tax!!!
You have a lot of nerve. Why did you link directly to the forum site? They obviously can't handle the server load or the bandwidth, especially for screenshots.
We've got at least 3 years more like 4, not 2. This is 2003, Windows Longhorn wont be here until at least 2006 and mid to late 2006 at that, then its going to take a while before its tested and actually accepted by the public. All Linux has to do is improve the GUI, improve the software installation process, improve Xfree86, and have better driver support. This stuff is happening right now as we speak, and marketshare for Linux is currently rising faster than marketshare for any other OS. Right now Linux is on fire and 3 years from now we might be looking at 20-30 million + linux users. You have all of China, you have most of Europe, and you have more and more Americans who hate DRM, I don't see Longhorn standing a chance in a fair competition, so unless they can extend their contracts with OEMS, Microsoft will lose this one. I think if Linux marketshare continues to rise OEMs might not choose Microsoft.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
This is not due out for another two years.
* The interface is not Aero.
* WinFS is not fully functioning.
* Obviously, things will radically change in two years.
There is no way to predict what the final output will be. This build is just to keep the Longhorn name in people's minds.
But, of course, I fully expect people here to treat this like a final product (two years...) and bash away. Because it's Microsoft!
"Sufferin' succotash."
first post
My monitor is rectangular. Every monitor I have ever seen has a rectangular screen. What shape is the one you use?
Remember the betas for Windows NT 5? I think I still have them, somewhere. Point being, a lot can change in the span of a year, nevermind 2-3.
Also, does anyone know if the desktop is completely comprised of DirectX objects in this build?
Don't be surprised if Longhorn calls home to tell MS that they're installed on your machine.
- Knock, knock...
+ Who is it?
- The FBI...
+ Give me a moment. (just need to format the drive)
then you must add these obligitory steps:
6. ????
7. Profit
Yeah, way to ruin a good M$ bash with facts.
Rip an image. Boot it up in VMWare Have Coffee. Watch the flames.
[sig]It's a secret to everybody[/sig]
Yes, they're always 10.3 steps ahead of the competition.
I don't mind eye-candy if it doesn't bog down the system and waste space. Did you see the explorer screenshots? I mean is there any way they could have wasted some more space?!? When I'm browsing my files I usually want to be able to see more than 5 of them at a time!!! I mean look at it, big useless images, 3 different places to click if you want to search, I'm assuming they'll fill up the rest of that filter frame with something but I can't see it not being a waste. Also what the heck does "Add/Remove Programs" have to to with file browsing?!? I'd go on longer but I don't think I'd ever finish, from a usability standpoint they just seem to be getting worse and worse, They've got to figgure out that when someone wants to look at their files they really do want to look at their files! The files seem as if they're the least important in the window. They're never going to catch Apple in usability with junk like this, and when I'm talking Apple I don't just mean OS X, I'm looking back to OS 7 too (I'd go back furthur but don't have experience with pre OS 7), as far as I'm concerned the buggy hulk of Mac OS 7 is FAR more usable than anything M$ has come out with to date and anything is more usable then the file browser shown in that screenshot.
I stole this Sig
Heh. Screenshots of some new IE features strangely resemble features that Mozilla and others have had for a year or two. Pop-up blocking. Extension manager. Download manager. And dare I hope, full CSS support.
Innovative. I wonder if they'll have some actual improvements in it, instead of just playing catch-up.
Sarcasm aside, I genuinely hope the new IE is great - it will make my job easier. As a web developer, I'm just not looking forward to the prospect that IE6's CSS bugs won't be fixed for 3 years.
At least it will provide an opportunity for competition to take root in the browser market - something that has been difficult until now. Because most likely, within a year or two IE6 will be the new NN4. That's reason enough for me to hope that Longhorn comes quickly.
-j
p.s. If anyone from Microsoft is reading this, adding namespaces and supporting things like MathML and SVG would be a good call too...
First post? bwahahahahahah! YOU FAIL IT, windows Longhorn style!
what ever! like this is really news. what I want to know is will MS really fix the guts of windows, so that it can really take advantage of SMP on systems with 8 or more CPU's. An will they fix the threading model along with thread scheduling. Also, they need to fix the security model, so that only critical stuff runs as root and prevent virii from infecting the OS. Probably not, but here's hoping they actually innovate and fix things for once. More bubble gum wrappers aren't what I call innovation.
So far Linux seems to be ahead of them in development, I mean Storage Slicker and then theres xouvert , cairographics and project Y.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
realize that rectangular monitors will be commonplace the time this massive project ships.
800x600 is a rectangular size
1024x768 is a rectangular size
They alredy are rectangular and have been for quite some time...
80x40 is a rectangular size...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Not to be overly critical, but if you look at the theme of the gui of an OS as an indicator of it's maturity, that's frightening...
I've worked with lots of very advanced OS's with no gui.
Then again, OSX is a good example of a mature OS w/ a slick gui.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Windows Server 2003
Seriously, man, that's nothing to be proud of.
All it means is that you've been eating what they're feeding you longer than most. Congratulations, asshole. You must feel so special.
How did they get the screen shots ? I thought that the big thing about this release was supposed to be DRM & Fritz chip to stop this -- or are all of these GIFs going to stop working next week ?
Oh, wait - I get it, silly me, it's Microsoft, so of course: it just doesn't work. SNAFU.
I hope so, because I'm really tired of using the triangular one that I have now.
One bad trend that Microsoft has been having is inefficient use of space in a window. Look at the following example where half the space is for menus and icons and the rest of the actual folder view.
o rn build4051/explorer.jpg
http://www.neowin.net/staff/creamhackered/longh
The same problem exists to a lesser degree in XP and Windows 2000.
Throw a 1.5GB file at tar
Throw a 1.5GB file at Word
'nuff said
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Of course I'm about the only one around here who thinks OS X is ugly as a GUI can get without making it fast. Windows 2000 and earlier wheren't that great looking, they were rather plain, but plain doesn't equal ugly. Gnome is pretty good looking, KDE is ok, as long as you don't use the ugly Keramic theme.
Like it or hate it, it is really easy to get a large analogue sidebar clock in kde. Here are the instructions for KDE 3.1.x
1) Right click the panel
2) Select Panel Menu | Add | Extension | Child panel
3) Right click the child panel and select Configure panel.
4) Set its panel position to the Right, and size to Custom | 128 Pixels. Then click OK.
5) Right click again, select Add | Applet | Clock
6) Right Click on the clock, select configure, then change type to "Analog".
7) ???
8) K-horn!
It's not even Beta. It's more like "pre-alpha". Developers haven't even started working on the UI. There are a bunch of ideas and stuff flying around. Later they'll do usability testing and throw all the useless stuff away.
I just got a copy in my MSDN Subscription that I get from my companies MCSP status, but I still had to call and preordered it for them to ship it. I haven't gotten around to installing it fully, but the install system is really neat. Some wierd features its wants me to install. New filesystem for it now, called SQLFS instead of NTFS or FAT32. Its basicly SQL Server running inside of the kernal now I'm guessing. Post more updates on my findings on my site if anyone's interested.
No.
So...
:-)
Anyone got a torrent?
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Do you see any anisotrophic highlights in the grey window border elements? No? Then it wouldn't be brushed metal, it would be a grey gradient now wouldn't it? Besides, this is an interim UI for the alpha and quite likely the beta. The final UI, much like with XP won't be introduced until the OS is well on its way and close to release.
Instructor: Welcome to MSAA. Would you like to start?
Stubear: Hello, my name is stubear and I'm a MicroSoft Apologist.
Class: Hello stubear.
Instructor: thank you stubear. Welcome to MicroSoft Apologist Anonymous.
I'm reading /. on an O-Scope CRT! It is Round!
So there!
60 million + downloads of Kazaa vs 1 million downloads of Itunes, yeah I see your point.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
I'm suspicious about the circa 2006 release date. Are the announcements of the schedule slippage just to lull the competitors, so MS can come out with something, perhaps an interim version, and take everyone by surprise?
The Windows Whistler theme (looks kinda like the "Quartz" KDE Window Manager theme) was much better than the default Windows XP theme in my opinion. Window title bars were cleaner looking, with proper corners, the colours were not as in-your-face (aka distracting), and it just looked more professional. I don't know why they didn't give the option of switching between that theme and the "Playschool" XP theme.
Follow me
This "hype" you refer to is called the "Professional Developer's Conference". I have yet to see a Longhorn advertisement on TV or a billboard or anywhere.
I love how the story submission mentions that the code has been leaked (actual builds of the software in question), and then sums it up by calling it "vaporware". Hmmm...
Just like Windows 3.1 wasn't a MacOS ripoff because MacOS windows had 1-pixel drop-shadows and Windows didn't.
Seems funny how Mac OS went plastic, and MS went plastic, then Mac OS started going metal, and now so is MS.
It's rather amusing how the lack of a "brushing" effect is enough to call it completely different. It's almost as if MS is taunting Apple over and over for that "look and feel" suit.
Apple steals from MS, MS steals from Apple, everyone steals from everyone. Time to get over it.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
The codename Longhorn is a codename for "Long in the Tooth".
Seriously, though, after a cursory look at the screenshots, there's not much new, except for the rip-off bushed metal OS X look.
If you notice Microsoft is now calling Plug Ins "Add Ons". Could this be due to the lawsuit the just lost against Eolas?
Actually, Microsoft no longer includes new features in their Service Packs, as a policy. They only include fixes to existing features.
So a competitor's Service Pack that has new features should be compared to something like "Microsoft Plus!" (which costs money)
If Apple gave away their stuff, most of the linux hippies would switch in a heartbeat despite their "Free as in speech" BS.
Wait, this is just XP with some probably broken new control panel applets, some crazy bitmaps wraped around the IE window and a gray/slate version of thier baby's first computer desktop theme. They can't possibly have the new features of longhorn in this build like the fancy new file system or anything like that, no way its not done yet if it was even close the RTM date on longhorn would be Q1 2004 not 3 years from now.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
OSS has the same problem when picking up new features ... .
I don't think you can name one free software "feature" that has ever been dropped. Free software never dies if anyone has any interest in it and I've never seen a piece of free software become unavailable. Even closed source junk ported to free software, such as Word Perfect 8, is still available and can be run. With just a few old libs, I've made that package run on Debian Woody. Try getting office 97 and before to run on XP for a fair compairison. I'm unaware of any free window manager, editor, or utility going away. Free software doees not suffer "upgrades", it just gets better or is replaced by a far superior free alternative.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
nt
There's a note on MSDN Subscriber Downloads that says that Operating System or higher level MSDN subscribers can get a copy of the PDC DVD(s) containing preview editions of Longhorn, its SDK, and the next Visual Studio version by calling MSDN customer service and asking for a copy.
Contact info here if you're a subscriber.
G.
Flamebait? Moderators smoking crack again. Parent post is right on the money. Not all computer dudes are extreme computer geeks like most of the zealot crowd here.
God help me when people call me a computer geek. I'm into HCI FFS. UI design and stuff like that. And I know how to code too, and yes I do use reference manuals because I don't memorize shit like that. In our line we're taking the human side into consideration too, opposed to those non-showering stinky non-deo-using hexanumber-monkeys whatever.
You think HCI sucks? You a geek? Well we'll see who gets the last laugh. Heard about virtual girlfriends? Porn software with haptic feedback? People should treat HCI-dudes like me with respect, because all their paychecks are going to be belong to me.
Windows Security
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Do you see any anisotrophic highlights in the grey window border elements? No? Then it wouldn't be brushed metal, it would be a grey gradient now wouldn't it?
Why do you think Longhorn is not out yet? Because they're still working on the anisotrophic highlights! Duh!!
WinXPse...
It all started with NT, then they piled more kludge on NT and named it Win2k, then M$FT got hungry for more money and piled some more kludge on Win2k plus some fisher price eye candy and named it WinXP, so now here we are again, more Refried Kludge from Redmond, M$FT must have piled some cow manure on it imported from Texas so they named it after Texas' native bovine (Longhorn)...
My monitor is a Moebius strip you insensitive clod!!!
All's true that is mistrusted
Story I heard is that they are going to go to some kind of pixel-scale independent vector graphics scheme (can you imagine reading Small Fonts on a 4096 by 2048 or whatever ultra-resolution LCD monitor?). Also, they (finally? This was promised for .NET/GDI+.) are going to synchronize screen updates with vertical retrace to get rid of all that flicker and tear when you are twiddling your thumbs waiting for an install program to complete and have nothing to do but stare at the %complete number get updated. In the style of OS X, every widget will have its own frame buffer for repaints, and they will blit to the graphics card during vertical blank.
Don't know if they are worrying about Linux, but they seem to be looking over their shoulder at the Web browser as the desktop and are trying to offer some reason to do stuff on the client (better graphics) than over the network.
Almost everything I wanted to run from Windows 95 ran on Windows 2000. The stuff that didn't looked like it explicitly asked the OS what it was, and since the answer was "NT", decided that Direct X wouldn't work.
Also, since the Windows 95 line was officially dead, and MS has been putting out for years that they would merge the codebases / features, paying for an ME upgrade was silly.
Longhorn is a continuation of the NT codebase and the NT product. It should be much more straightforward for Microsoft to push people to Longhorn than encourage folks to buy ME.
Will IE properly support web standards such as CSS1 and CSS2 or even go so far and properly support PNG files.
By the time MS release somthing that is really "right", enough people will have switched to the Mac and Linux to make it less important what they do.
Of course, if they were to say, license a Rolling Stones tune for the launch and lather up the advertising, we might have another Windows95.
Meaning it would be another inferior OS with even more bloat and more buggy components and more security exploits and more of what is driving people away from MS.
Sad really...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Instructor: Welcome to UCA. Would you like to start?
SensitiveMale: Hello, my name is SensitiveMale and I'm a UnNecessary CapitAlizer.
Instructor: Yes, I can see from the parent post that you called Microsoft "MicroSoft". Have you ever called an Apple Macintosh MacIntosh?
SensitiveMale: No, but maybe I should; wasn't it Apple who started the whole CramWordsTogether(tm) thing in the first place?
Instructor: NotSure(tm), but they were big fans of it nonetheless. Don't worry, being an UnNecessary CapitAlizer isn't nearly as bad as being a Microsoft Apologist.
Oldsters will remember the version of NT 5 that never shipped. Byte, now there's a blast from the past, had this:
http://www.byte.com/art/9511/sec6/art14.htm
So you're buying the idea that using MS SQL as a file system is a good idea. Hasn't been done, can it be done, should it be done?
But of course MS will ship with something that works as advertised, is fast, and slices bread and they never, nope, never, would hype vaporware mercilessly for years, then abandon it completely.
Even if it ships, it'll take years to work out the bugs. Then what do you get at the end, an SQL front-end over the equivalent of file descriptors?
Whoop-de-doo, believe it you want, waste effort thinking about if you want, I spent my "vaporware" chits on the "never shipped" Cairo.
I think an early longhorn release is very possible, releasing in 2005 would take the competition by surprise and microsoft would look good for it's early release.
Now I'm off to put my tinfoil hat on.
Well, like the Silver color scheme with new windows where the gradient isn't vertical but instead horizontal. But it's actually very similar to the existing Windows XP Style.
Don't forget, this is Microsoft. They never learn from others until after they've bought them. If Microsoft didn't invent it, then it can't be any good.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
anonymous coward gayly posted Instructor: Welcome to UCA. Would you like to start?
SensitiveMale: Hello, my name is SensitiveMale and I'm a UnNecessary CapitAlizer.
Instructor: Yes, I can see from the parent post that you called Microsoft "MicroSoft". Have you ever called an Apple Macintosh MacIntosh?
SensitiveMale: No, but maybe I should; wasn't it Apple who started the whole CramWordsTogether(tm) thing in the first place?
Instructor: NotSure(tm), but they were big fans of it nonetheless. Don't worry, being an UnNecessary CapitAlizer isn't nearly as bad as being a Microsoft Apologist.
hey you nimrod. I spelled microsoft as MicroSoft to make obvious the abbreviation MSAA.
you of course dicked it up with UCA = UnNecessary CapitAlizer.
what a moron.
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
The IE download manager looks a lot like the Mozilla download manager...
Two or three, at least.
The best one is letting windows work with their title-bar a bit more. Note that, in the screenshots, explorer has the page title in larger text, a go-to location button, and a location bar all in the title bar of the window. Not that it looks excellent in that case, but there are many cases where it is nice to be able to work with the decorations a bit more. Most things that want a custom top right now just hide decorations, but they look to still be using the same theme on that title-bar as on the rest of the desktop.
Also, during the installation they look to have explanatory help, something most Linux distributions might want to do better on.
I'm sure there was a third good idea I noted, but it's really hard to see. Basically, it's still just a dressed-up version of WindowsXP. I suspect they are still working more on the internals, as they don't really want to design all the GUI crap until they know how much they can do with the internals, such as the Kernel and the FileSystem (especially the FileSystem).
And he was told to slashdot those people so their servers catch on fire so they can't display the horrible screenshots anymore. .... ;P
Not to be overly critical...
That's my job.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I've seen circular monitors, but they were on radar systems..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I looked at the screenshots provided and some on other sites. What the hell is that ugly shit? The screenshots that leaked earlier look way better even though the layout is the same.
CHEERS
--RoadkillBunny
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
As you may know, Open Source has always lagged far behind in many 'consumer' type of features. Among the most prominent are 'power saving' modes featured on many of the newer PCs. The subsystems, of hardware, BIOS, and operating systems, reduce the amount of power consumed by the computer when it is not in use, and thus save energy and the environment. However, it is clear that by eschewing these features as being for 'lame desktop Windoze lusers', the open source community firmly establishes itself as standard American energy sucking social reprobates, unconcerned about the fate of the rest of the planet, and not caring one whit if the entire nation collapses just like California did last year. In this article I show just how much energy would be wasted if people did, in fact, switch to linux or BSD.
.083 * 120 = 9 watts. Thats pulling all the time. Day and night. 24/7. Now, lets say I have this thing plugged in all year. Thats 8760 hours. The power company measure this stuff in 'kilowatt-hours', so how many of those am I using? 9 watts * 8760 hours = 78,840 watt-hours, or 78 kilowatt hours. At 14 cents a kilowatt hour in my district, I have payed 11 dollars to the power company this year for my computer system to do absolutely nothing at all. Not even be turned on.
The way to calculate power consumption of a computer is relatively simple, and will cost about 50 bucks. First you need to get a multimeter that can measure AC current up to a few amperes. The next step is to get a 3 prong power cord. After that get some connector thingies and a wire stripper/crimper. Then take the hot wire of the power cable and split it and make it so you can plug the multimeter into it, in series with the circuit to measure. In this case, a computer.
Next, power is measured in watts. A good familiar yardstick is lightbulbs, with 60 watt being pretty normal to see in ceilings in people's houses. Volts * amps = watts, and since the voltage will be roughly 110-120 volts, (measure w a voltage meter if u wanna be exact), you can multiply the number on the ammeter by 120 to find out how many watts the computer system is using up.
Now, surprisingly, in 'off' mode, power supplies and monitors and so forth draw current. 83 milliamps in my case.
Now let's say I turn it on! My system draws roughly 0.66 Amps with windows running. When I start an OpenGL game its 0.68A. If i decide to unplug the fan that saves me 0.02A. basically, though, its roughly 0.66 Amps.
If I left my computer on full blast all the time, hard disk going, monitor on, etc, this is what it costs me to be up 24/7. 0.66Amp * 120v = 79.2 Watts. 8760 hours in a year at 79.2 watts makes roughly 693,000 watt-hours, or 693 kilowatt hours. Again at 14 cents per, thats about $97 USD worth of electricity a year for the computer to be on.
But the nice folks at Microsoft, being tree hugging hippies and all, have implemented easy to use, reliable, and safe 'power saving' mode. This mode will make your hard disk stop spinning, and on suitable monitors will turn them off as well. Now, how much power does this actually save? Well, you can measure it. Just wait a few minutes for the comptuer to go into power saving mode.
In my case, when the monitor goes into sleepy mode, (the orange sleepy light instead of the green power light on the monitor case) consumption plummets from 0.66 Amps to 0.27 Amps. All because of an operating system software feature interacting properly with the a simple monitor hardware feature that has been around at least 5 years. Now when the hard disk shuts off, it goes down even more to about 0.23 Amps. Now, with the hard disk not spinning and heating in my machine, I could theoretically shut the case fan off and save another 0.02 amps... but my box doesn't do that. Anyways, there is even a 'more power saving mode', its called 'suspend' mode I believe, and that drops me down to a low low 0.20Amps. I guess it shuts down some circuits on the motherboard as well as the HD and monitor. I don't know.
Look at this -- it looks like some kind of pop-up blocking feature right there in Internet Explorer. So does this mean that IE will get this new feature after all?
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
I have a leaked beta of the new linux.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
> Maybe the whole thing will be Palladium-protected so that it's virus-proof.
... and blessed with holy water so that it is "Vampire-Proof (TM)"
What in the world makes you think Palladium could make anything virus-proof ?
The best part is how so many people bitched about iTunes for Windows brushed metal look. I guess MS decided they really did like how it looked. :)
-shep
Let's see, Microsoft is in Washington State, not far from Whistler, a popular ski location, and home of the Blackcomb ski lodge. Say, didja notice it's not far from the Yukon, which is one of Canada's northernmost provinces? While in Whistler, why not check out the Longhorn Saloon?
Maybe, if you want some privacy, you'll stay at the Avalon Inn, or tour scenic Whidbey Island.
Codenames are generally not for show, they're just names used around campus to refer to products INTERNALLY. People catch on and use them, but almost no one ever hears about them outside IT folk. Official product names used for marketing are generally reserved for final releases. Linux developers do it too. Perhaps, if you don't understand the naming scheme of "codenames," you should simply ask.
Remember in 1993 all those announcements about Windows 4.0 being way better than OS/2?
Remember that Windows 4.0 morphed into Win95, and looked strangely like OS/2, right down to the color of the default desktop? (OK, probably not, since it seemed the me and 2 other people in the world used OS/2.)
My guess is that Longhorn will come out as WinSix (to be confused with WinSex) and have a hideous brushed-metal look.
I mean, Apple did it what, 3 times before OS X came out. ::ducks::
I hear they finally added animations to the blue screens!!!
so, now you have this question. do i waste energy or do i give up all privacy and allow random people to use my computer to distribute spam, porn.... and other things because microsoft cares only about saving power, and not about fixing the numerous security holes found in all flavors of IT"S power saving os. perhaps you need to start a revolution and take the initiative to develop these power saving features, or at least distribute this "essay" to people who care about the environment more than say, yourself (who doesn't want to help save energy by developing power saving features, or devoting time to making them easy to use). it's your call, you're points are very clear, and the essay is good. and it's up to you now. what are you going to do?
what are you saying that microsoft's ideas aren't original?
I write code.
and Microsoft knows that the wider the distribution of the software, the faster it's going to spread all over the internet...
If they want to post the source as well I'm sure we can patch the security holes and make it reliable for them as well..
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Well, I'm currently using KDE and I'm pretty sure I know where they got their ideas from. Gnome and KDE better pray Longhorn comes out earlier than expected. We certainly can't have three desktop environments stagnant for 2 years.
Actually you're the nimrod. You're "joke" just plain sucked I'm afraid.
I know at least about one program (Word) that came totally misconfigured -- so much that I had to toggle a lot of options.
/.er, I don't like very much your company. But I'd like to say this has nothing to do with you or the quality of the products you make -- some of them are even good.
A Word expert said this was so because of Marketing decisions, which privileged the "home" user and let down the "business" user.
Also, you're a technical person (or so you sound)... how can you tell what kind of guidelines the "UI artwork" team follows? And you know, your work depends on theirs.
A propos, like most every
> > It's Windows XP, but with an obnoxiously larger ...
> > clock and sidebar! Great!
>
> Hmm, it made me think of Hal 9000. I suspect that
> wasn't an accident
Hmmm. Seeing that Longhorn includes Digital Restrictions Management, I suspect you're right. Here's a typical Longhorn session:
-_.-_.-_.-_.-_.
> Dave tries to read his e-mail
Longhorn alerts, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
> Dave shrugs it off then tries to write a letter in Word Longhorn
Clippy pops up and replies, "It's puzzling... I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before....Would you like me to replace your letter with one of Microsoft's standard letters?"
> Before Dave reacts, he gets an e-mail, which is now successful in opening.
Longhorn alerts, "My mind is going... I can feel it."
> The email contained a virus which wiped out half of Dave's system. Dave attempts to write an article on Slashdot, criticizing Microsoft.
Clippy pops up, "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"
> Dave closes clippy and continues typing.
Clippy pops up again, "This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error."
> Dave closes clippy and continues typing.
Clippy pops up again and replies, "This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."
> Dave's internet explorer window on slashdot window closes, causing Dave to lose all his work.
Longhorn alerts Microsoft authorities and announces: "It is dangerous to remain here."
> Dave get's frustrated and begins to reformat his system.
Longhorn gasps out: "I'm afraid....What is going to happen, Dave?"
Dave smiles as he puts in his Debian CD, "Something wonderful."
Parent unfairly modded flamebait where it has some quite informative links.
OK, I'm no mac fan, is it me, or does this look like os x a bit? explorer and ie look a lot like the file browser and safari.
crazy.
Wow, that was a good one. I love how people like you make constructive and rational arguments, rather than resorting to puerile name-calling.
Keep it up, and your viewpoint will surely be endorsed!
Perhaps the infamous Kodak Cap-codes (movies, see here and here) would be a good way to fight these leaks of alpha/beta builds. Maybe not fight them because leaked builds are a good way of getting free testing but you will at least know where your weak links are.
-- dK
Dude, your nickname sucks! Avenger XP ??
Not sure if I would want product labelling advice from someone who calls himself "Avenger XP" !
All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. Therefore, unless the monitor is circular or triangular, it's bloody rectangular.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
You have one of those too? Wow, I didn't know interociters were so common place...
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Actually, Microsoft's own abbreviation for themselves is MS - MicroSoft. Criticize THEIR capitalization, not his.
Besides, MSAA looks better somehow than MAA.
Or you could just download it yourself at irc.winbeta.org you have to use the bots in the #winbeta-ads section and to use them you have to join #winbeta and register a nick.
You'll also have to come up with the right dll file from the older build and use it's key since there won't be serial numbers till monday.
But I thought that, if you subscribed to their (outrageously expensive) licensing scheme, you'd get upgrades in a more frequent basis, all part of the yearly contract you paid for... Granted, Win2k3 just came out, but 2006 is a long way from 2001's WinXP Pro, their lastest update to the workstation line of OS'es... Can somebody enlighten us on how licensing will apply here?
Steve Jobs hid aqua until right before the OS X launch. MS has UI screen shots 2-3 years ahead of time. You tell me what it means.
Uh...where? On Slashdot? C|net? OSNews, WinSupersite, or Neowin? Puh-lease. Those are IT sites only.
Non-IT execs don't know what Longhorn is, and probably shouldn't. The general populus thinks XP is still brand new. This new stuff is for developers, IT managers, sys admins, and third-party application vendors. No one else cares.
I look at those, and although the UI looks pretty (Maybe a bit big, but still pretty) one glaring thing is the system text seems to be anti-aliased.
After using Mac OS X, its hard to look at that without immediately coming to the conclusion its unrefined and hard to use.
Blake
This looks liek the torrent to the new alpha. http://msbetas.net/Longhorn-4051-PDC.xBetas.rar.to rrent
well every time i see screen shots of longhorn it just makes me want to switch to linux or mac...i mean come on, there is no need for a huge side bar with a huge clock
To be fair, MAC IE has had a Download Manager for years (before I remember Mozilla adding one).
The popup-blocker was an inovation that MS borrowed however.
I don't think many people upgraded to Windows 2000 instead of ME. I'm not an expert on this stuff but most people just didn't upgrade to ME. The features in ME vs 98SE was very small.
The people who bought 2000 were mostly offices who were in the process of migrating. All the offices jumped to 2000 (they had to; win NT was very old).
The customer base for 2000 is different from ME/98. One is the office/business customers who upgrade for server-oriented features, while the home users and the rest (eg. small businesses) upgrade for new features.
ME, quite simply, was a complete waste of time for everyone--including the home users who it is targetted at. There was like ZERO reasons (I'm exaggerating) to upgrade to that.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
No, they'll just claim the Microsoft version is much better, for obvious reasons they can't really specify exactly.
Or "cuz Apple is teh g4y!!!1"
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Microsoft's code won't be ridiculously slow on current hardware?
A download manager for IE. About three or so years too late..
Can somebody enlighten us on how licensing will apply here?
/me cues up Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing"
Sure. People who paid for 3 years of Software Assurance a year ago are fucked, since Microsoft won't be shipping Longhorn in that time.
Given how retarded the average OSX user is, I would have thought they would want a day-glo playskool color theme to their desktop.
It might distract them from complaining about there being no software (especially games) available for their platform.
That's software, you idiot.
also looks like the other great innovation they are introducing is a.. new clock
geek gear
Yep! You are absolutely right! The most important thing about any GUI is appearance, not function!
I get the joke; just want to make sure everyone else does!
I have to thank you for that link. That is spectacularly awful.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Good job totally missing the point of the comment, shitdick.
Here you go:g horn- 4051-PDC.xBetas-rar.torrenthttp://suprnova.lagalot .com/torrents/482/Longhorn-4051-PDC.xBetas-rar.tor rent
http://suprnova.lagalot.com/torrents/482/Lon
Look at those mindless replies! Jesus Christ! How old are these people, twelve?
No wait, I could write better than that when I was twelve.
That it was marketed as being a better windows than windows.
/. crowd, who are all techie people who know that IBM really did do a better windows than windows, but that doesn't matter - the people who matter (those that buy the software that goes into the home/office) DID care, and they cared enough to send OS/2 2.1 into the dustbin. It's a real shame, but that's what happened.
So people said: "Hm. I can either buy better windows than windows from IBM, or I can buy the real thing from Microsoft. But I know that every single application written for Microsoft Windows will work with Windows from Microsoft. I don't know that they will work with Better Windows than Windows from IBM."
So they made the logical choice (for users) and said "Ok, I want to make sure that my stuff works, so I'm going to go with the choice that I KNOW will work."
And that means they chose Microsoft Windows.
That may annoy the
The other problem that IBM had was that IBM concentrated on 16 bit computing, and being a better version of 16 bit windows than Microsoft's 16 bit windows at the same time that the rest of the world was shifting to 32 bit. They had a powerful 32 bit API set in OS/2 but they never widely evangelized the development community.
If IBM had actually marketted OS/2 to DEVELOPERS as a 32 bit operating system and had worked as hard as Microsoft did at wooing those developers, they would have had a chance, but they decided that their sales would come from "Better Windows than Windows" and ignored the 32 bit platform thing.
So along comes Microsoft and they pitched the Win32 API to ANYONE who would listen, starting at the first PDC, back in '91 or '92. And they had real CD's at that show with a real operating system that people could install. And they had rooms upon rooms of machines running Windows NT 3.1 to prove that it was the real deal. And they had half the development team for Windows NT IN those rooms talking to anyone who would listen. IBM didn't do anything like that to the development community.
And the hardcore evangelism worked. Developers flocked to the Win32 API in droves, wrote applications for NT and for Win9x and OS/2 disappeared.
Oh, and the fact that the OS/2 only printed on like 3 models of IBM printers didn't help OS/2 either. I can still remember Paul Maritz (maybe it was Bob Muglia) getting a STANDING OVATION at the first PDC when he announced that out-of-the-box Windows NT 3.1 would print on every printer that was supported by Windows 3.1. That was an unbelievably powerful statement to developers that were used to OS/2.
I'm using Windows 5.00.2195
These are from Windows 6.0.4051.0
Hello?
There is a reason builds leak out of Redmond- its because, when they are creating a new build, the development team is using it internally. So when you say they are making a version of Windows which isnt really working, you really dont know what you are talking about.
There was a series of articles linked here about six months ago which detailed the processes they use to create and test Windows. It was very impressive, and very professional. After seeing that, I have no doubts about the future of Windows being bright.
Feel free to mod me down for saying something all the MS-haters dont want to hear.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
here
I really expected IE would have this, and every other feature that any other browser has. That's what MS does... copy what everyone else has... but maybe this time they're not.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Mac OS X wasn't released until March 2001.
That's 14 months.
It's funny 'cause it's true.
I know it's real because I use it at work. The UI changes are more substantial and deeper than the screenshots would indicate. The UI is not just the graphics, after all; it's a lot to do with how you interact with it. Whether it's as different as, say, BeOS or some of the more esoteric builds, well, I'd disagree with that. It still is Windows after all. There's enough things that feel the same. There's a lot that feels different however.
There are plenty of bugs and it's going to take a while to get everything working, but it's a certainly useable build they're releasing.
All the UI stuff aside, the main difference is what's underneath.
09/27/2003 12:21 AM 692,174,774 Longhorn-4051-PDC.xBetas.rar
Agreed. This modified version is even better. I've kept it as my VS since I discovered it. Every time I try to use another, I always end up going back to it.
It could use a few more color schemes, granted, but I'm also a sucker for blue, so I'm fine with the Ergonomic. After all, it's not the theme authoring community's fault that the VS system generally sucks compared to KDE's styling system, and can't create entirely new color schemes on the fly.
Interestingly enough, I don't really like the Quartz window decoration in KDE at all. Instead, I'm hooked on Plastik. Go figure.
Well, they also appear to have scaled down the hideously large titlebar a bit, but otherwise, yeah.
Ironically, they re-lose the space saved and more in all their other "useful UI additions" (read: excessively large taskbar and IE toolbar)
Of course the fact that Microsoft gives away for free in the form of service packs what their competitors charge you for never crossed your mind, did it?
Apple's 'service packs' are free (x.x.1, x.x.2, etc). The for-pay releases (Jaguar 10.2, Panther 10.3) are major revisions that include substantial new functionality. In reality, Panther is Mac OS X 3.0, but it's called 10.3 for marketing reasons -- to keep the 'ten'/X thing.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Sure, it's cool to see some new dialogs organizing my common media tasks, and a huge analog clock also really floats my boat. This makes most people say Longhorn is "XP with a huge clock". Sure. The 2 biggest promises for Longhorn is the new file system abstraction, and the new hardware rendered ui. None of these are afaik included in the current builds, so the current builds are...XP with a huge clock! Compared to this, the 64 bit XP release is a lot more interesting as it has some real useful stuff included. Meanwhile, let's just stop reviewing huge-clock-XP-leaks until some of the goodies show up, shall we?
I have figured out so far is that most posters complain about the design of the GUI even though "Aero", the new 3D-powered GUI which is supposed to be part of Longhorn, is not even included in this Alpha. What you're seeing in the screenshots is just a hacked-together theme for Luna, the XP GUI.
So if you have a look at Longhorn, just remember that this is NOT the GUI you'll see when the final version of the OS is available.
How is it that none of the Longhorn windows have drop shadows like osX or KDE? Maybe someone should send an email to whatsup@microsoft.com and ask what the hell thier GUI dept. is up to? cheers, -p0z3r
I'm with you 99%.
hypenosys.
that's all the felonious softwar gangsters have to offer, eye gas?
For someone who calls himself "Overly Critical Guy", you sure suck up to Microsoft a lot. Maybe you should change your name to "Overly Microsoft Apologetic Guy"?
Just as I predicted, Overly Microsoft Apologist Guy posts another message to defend Microsoft against the evil hordes of opensource terrorists...
How much fake information do you think Microsoft might generate in order to send competitors' developers (including OSS developers) on wild goose chases?
This is not my sandwich.
Finally, marketing has little to do with the UI in windows.
Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on the claim that marketing has little to do with UI claim. I'd like to believe that a bunch of really smart people -- graphic designers, coders, UI experts -- designed the UI specifically to maximize usability. But I don't.
The steering, placement of MS products and general marketing influence is ALL OVER Windows UI. I think marketing has a HUGE say in what goes where in the Windows OS and how it operates. Furthermore, so much of the OS development is *guided* by marketing wishes that it can't help affect not only UI but operation aspects of the Windows internals.
Someone spilled BlueCurve all over my OSX!
sic transit gloria mundi
I'm pretty sure that the MacOS X Public Beta was released on March 24, 2000. This would only leave three months from unveiling aque to releasing the (beta) OS.
Ta very much for the interesting bit of archaeological info there, matey.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
the PDC build have already revealed dozens of surprise changes like an improved Internet Explorer with for example anti-popup support, a new plugin architecture, and a new download manager, etc.
Great, so in two years MS will release a new version of IE that can finally match the feature set of every other browser available today.
I'm impressed, truly, I am.
That is a great handle!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
OS X? Not sure if anyone has said it yet, and I am certainly not going to read the previous 450+ meessages to find out. From all the screen shots I have seen, it looks like M$ is (once again) taking some of it's gui ideas from Apple. The interface reminds me somewhat of Aqua. They have once again decided to keep the Windows taskbar, but have removed "Start" from the Start button. The rest of what I have seen looks very similar to OS X, but changed enough to be called a Microsoft original (yeah, cause they are sooooo original).
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
Whereas there's probably a platoon of GUI programmers who spend their entire day coding all the routines that this marketing dummy introduces with his flashy drawings.
"I want the Start! button to grow when there aren't any applications running."
"You mean like a malignant epithelial growth?"
"Um, yeah, sure, whatever that is. Make it blink, nonono... strobe slowly when it is left alone for too long."
"Like the power button on your powerMac?"
"Yes, oh! Shhhh! Don't get me into trouble, I'm not supposed to have that in your, I mean, our group."
Timothy, please stop using the title as part of the story. The title should not need to be looked at.
Have you read my journal today?
You my friend are a spineless ass whore.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
You can certainly see many of the elements of an interative interface in these "leaked" screenshots. Just look at the installer for example, it's like navigating Moby Dick.
MS is taking a lot of chances here, the installer starts with "What do you want to do?" and not the proverbial Install button. There really is only one option here; "Install"; the other options are obfuscated behind "Perform additional tasks". If this is truly meant to be task-based, the nesting of tasks like this is bound to confuse the user.
The "Windows Security" screen is even more iterative, and menu selections are extremely verbose. I can't wait to see how they handle voice navigation for all of this, it's going to make the Windows interface almost unusable for people with disabilities.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
Mac OS X Public Beta was launched at Apple Expo Paris 2000 on September 13th 2000.
That's 9 months.
Fuck You
Nobody gives a shit what you have to say. Moderators: Commence bombing. Parent post is NOT insightful!
How many times are we going to see this damn Shockwave? The poor beaten horse is now a pile of bones.
The jig is up, people now automatically associate your handle with the word "Troll". You ought to do like Reality Master 101 and just shut the fuck up.
HTH
This got modded as funny? WTF?
I want some of that crack you moderators are smoking--it seems to make stupid and unfunny remarks witty and insightful.
I think as techies we underestimate how much Windows 95 was used in the workplace, though. Outside of computer companies many employees were on Windows 98 since it was the cheaper computer when they bought it, and the employees didn't rate the additional features / stability of NT.
Do you hear that sound?
Reality Master 101 beckons you from the grave.
Is it?
So don't worry, we will continue to follow your actions and point out your sucking up to Microsoft when you start being overly upsucking towards them.