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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."
More screenshots can be found here.
http://almostsmart.com
5.1 just basically had a face lift, and terminal services got revamped into remote desktop connection.
I have no idea what is supposed to merit a major version bump in longhorn, though; I guess the new GUI rendering engine?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
you can use mozilla. It has download manager and pop-up blocker built in and by the time longhorn is out, mozilla will become much much more powerful.
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
Beware. It's looking like crap at this stage. :-)
A dozen of screenshots, or so...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Lie? Microsoft is releasing this PDC build as a first technology preview for developers to get an idea of what Longhorn will have to offer. Microsoft have also stated that they're aiming for a release in 2006.
No, this release won't be out in a year and a half. It won't be out in two years even. But no one said so either. Actually, MS explicitly told that it won't. So far, MS hasn't fooled their customers into believing Longhorn is just around the corner. They have been very careful to tell the opposite, actually.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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
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.
i know you're being funny but i thought i'd chime in:
.ppt presentation -- but i've never dealt with any of them. Infact, the only real impact marketing has on product teams that i can tell is for naming stuff. I.e. longhorn is the code name for the future windows client. At some point, it will get renamed to something. Thats a decision that marketing is in on. Once the new name is decided, an email will go out to everyone that more or less says "marketing has said that the new name is x, please update all string resources to use the new name". For instance, late in the game Windows Server 2003 was changed to not include the ".NET" branding. Going over every place in the product (docs included) where someone had written down "Windows .NET Server" was required.
there is now (and has been for at least 3 years) the policy at MS that if you put an easter egg in MS software you should expect to be fired upon its discovery.
also, no one in marketing at MS is in a position to fire anyone working in a product group. i have never actually even met any marketing people at MS. I think i see them from time to time -- i'll see a bunch of dorks in nice looking clothes having a meeting, often with catered lunch, all staring blankly at a
Also, product developers are not strictly/solely responsible for finding bugs. If a developer works 32 straight hours on a peice of code, its not up to that developer to own the correctness of the code - its up to the tester(s) assigned to that feature area. I've met at least one tester that would ask each of the developers he worked with (conversationally) how late they'd worked, and then would prioritize his testing for the day partially based on who had stayed up the latest or worked the longest hours. Finding a bug less then 12 hours old is incredibly helpful.
Finally, marketing has little to do with the UI in windows. Nobody in marketing (that i am aware of, anyway) has the right know how, much less access and tools, to modify the code that draws UI's in Windows. They may have input into how stuff works, but thats really more of a PM issue (program manager). PM's are typically very technically savvy (although often not with the depth you'd see from test or development), so they're closer to the JRH side then the Marketing side (usually)
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.