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."

Comments

Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time alternatives to Linux pop up for people to use.

Re:Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD^H^H^HWindows is dead.

Re:Sweet

[kredda]

It'll change by then.

Anyways, here's another link for some of the pics (not all of them).

http://technet.friendlycity.net

Yeah

[c0dedude]

It's Windows XP, but with an obnoxiously larger clock and sidebar! Great! /me predicts the biggest flop since Win ME.

Re:Yeah

[davebo]

/me predicts the biggest flop since Win ME

And if it isn't shipped pre-installed on 90%+ of the computers sold after 2007 or so, you'll be right!

But it almost certainly will be. So you're going to be wrong.

Re:Yeah

[shaitand]

Your assuming the recent market trend will stop and MS won't continue to lose desktop market share like they just did for the first time in a decade ;)

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

How about being the first OS to use a RDBFS? That is the only reason I am looking forward to this. It will make my 40,000+ mp3/ogg collection 100x easier to manage.

Re:Yeah

[dougmc]

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 ...

Re:Yeah

[ceejayoz]

How can you call it a market "trend" when it's the first time in a decade that it has happened?

Hint: a trend has more than one data point.

Re:Yeah

[C10H14N2]

They are marketing to the same people who buy $60,000 SUVs based on the $10 dashboard clock. This is asinine from a technical point of view, but sadly good marketing. I'm surprised the taskbar doesn't have "Bulgari" embossed over simulated Connolly leather with burlwood accents and bling-bling galore.

Re:Yeah

[Theatetus]

Not exactly. Last anyone from MS said anything, the RDBMS will sit on top of a traditional NTFS (or something like it) system.

Re:Yeah

[Overly Critical Guy]

They're not marketing to anybody--this isn't the final product.

Just as I predicted, Slashbots are making their judgements based on the leak of something not due out for another two years, simply because it's Microsoft.

Re:Yeah

[C10H14N2]

Right. Microsoft GUI design tests have absolutely nothing to do with marketing. I suppose when you go to an autoshow and look at shiny mock-ups of cars that will never see the asphalt you think there is no connection to marketing. I suppose you also think that when information is "leaked" out of the White House it has nothing to do with public relations. People think that product sneak peaks and information leaks are about marketing and public relations because that is the exact purpose of them. DUH.

Re:Yeah

[insertionPoint]

It's Windows XP, but with an obnoxiously larger clock and sidebar!

MS Developers get ideas from spam....
Add three inches to your CLOCK size!

Re:Yeah

[ealar dlanvuli]

Yes well, microsoft has had a "monopoly" for almost 8 hears now. (they had a lot of market share before that, but it wasn't unthinkable to get alternatives as late as 1994)

There is no way they could ever be couped!

It's impossible, such a long history behind them!

Yeah right... I love short sighted people.

Re:Yeah

[Random832]

Translate teh 22 into the hour number
I'm lost... what exactly do you mean by this? 22 would be 10PM? 2010?

Re:Yeah

[operagost]

It is amazing how they manage to waste more and more screen space. What's the point of having title bars big enough to land a C-130?

Re:Yeah

[Geek of Tech]

If they weren't marketing, I believe Microsoft has the power to keep snapshots from "leaking" out. They wanted people to see the brand new features. "Wow! Now I've got 2 clocks!". They're trying to keep people from migrating to OSes while they're finishing theirs.

Re:Yeah

[Samhain138]

I was also asking myself why it's
"not scheduled to hit the streets for another two years, and which could quite easily stretch to three"
if it's just a blacker windows XP version, with a bit more features (that I assume were written even before winXP was released :))

The only reason I can think about, is that it's because M$ are doing it, and they're taking their time...

Re:Yeah

[hatrisc]

the idea of basing this on sql is cool, but it seems a little bit overkill. i can see if you'd like to go and find a file using the find file command. but for normal usage, it seems as though the traditional approach is more than adequate. but i'm not a file system expert by any means. someone please explain.

Re:Yeah

[leifm]

I think it's pretty cool that Longhorn is going to be widely available throughout the development process, from what I've read you'll be able to pick up a copy of the PDC Pre-Beta 1 for cost of shipping. I see this as Microsoft learning from one of the more successful elements of Linux/OSS development, early community feedback.

Re:Yeah

[ceejayoz]

Uh, I never said it wasn't possible. I just noted that you can't really call it a "trend" with a single data point.

Hell, I'd like to see Apple win the market so I can switch to OSX and still use all my favorite programs.

I just don't think it's gonna happen yet.

Re:Yeah

[Desval]

Ummmm... I believe that Be was doing this a couple of years ago. They decided that it wasn't a very good idea (especially at the time) and removed it. Instead they created a hierarchical fs that could be queried (attributes, contents, etc...). Much more robust and easier to use.

Re:Yeah

[Sj0]

As opposed to making their judgements based on some changelogs for the newest Linux kernel?

You have to face facts -- many slashdotters just can't keep it in their pants long enough for a product to even surface. Look at all the "preview of something not coming out for five years" stories on slashdot. The Athlon 64. Linux palmhelds. Doom 3. by all rights, nobody should give a rats ass about these for a good long while, but luckily for the developers of these things, theres a nice, willing focus group willing to talk at length about something that might never even exist.

Re:Yeah

[Sj0]

Do you enjoy roaming from post to post, pretending it matters?

I'll tell you what. Graduate from high school, maybe form an opinion or two without slashdot holding your hand while doing it, and I'll listen to what you have to say. In the meantime, Stop replying to my comments. Just because you're not intelligent enough to find meaning in my post beyond the most superficial "ooh, I agree", doesn't mean it's not there. Try reading his journal as something other than bragging, and you might, just might, begin understanding the horiffic beauty of what I'm doing.

Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Ideas?

[anaesthetica]

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.

Is that all?

[Necro Spork]

"Methinks this is just vaporware."
Uh, this is /. We can see that this is malware aswell.

Hype??

[Anonymous Coward]

What hype? Hardly anybody outside the tech world and non-geeks have any clue about what Longhorn is or really care.

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.

Re:Hype??

[umofomia]

Having said that, this Longhorn build is a big deal for developers and such, because in two years, Longhorn (probably called Windows .NET) will be a huge step forward.

I doubt they will call it Windows .NET. That's what they originally named Windows 2003 Server, but changed it because the .NET name ended up taking on several meanings and confused people (kind of like what happened to Java -- do you mean Java the platform? Java the language? etc.).

Re:Hype??

[chromatic]

[I]n two years, Longhorn (probably called Windows .NET) will be a huge step forward.

A huge step forward for 2003 or for 2005? I can't think of a positive meaning for that claim.

Re:Hype??

[pVoid]

.NET will replace Win32

I must say that somewhat saddens me. I'm a very big fan of the Win32 subsystem: very consistent and concise <ducks past flying flame ball>. I wish it would always stay around as an alternative API.

Re:Hype??

[insertionPoint]

What hype? Hardly anybody outside the tech world and non-geeks have any clue about what Longhorn is or really care.

Accountants and other non-tech users are being targeted with all sorts of interesting press releases etc... You didn't get any? I think that is because slowly the tech world is turning not against Microsoft but towards the idea that alternatives exist. I am betting that when Foghorn Leghorn (or whatever) is released the non-techies will be tripping over each other to get their companies 'standardized' on it. Then techies will be faced with enormous resistance to any resistance about adapting it.

Re:Hype??

[craw]

Strange. I've been hanging around /. before the days when you could log in and had a user id. This was before Andover and VA Linux. If anything, the /. crew has been relatively consistent when it comes to bashing Microsoft. They have also been relatively consistent when to comes down to bashing other "evil" group and companies.

There is of course one notable exception. That pertains to a particular fruit company. Then again, that fruit company switched their OS to one based on UNIX.

Re:Hype??

[craw]

I have to respectfully disagree with you. A few years ago (since at least 1998) the biggest source of topics, at that time, concerning Microsoft revolved around the anti-trust case. These stories generated a lot (relative number) of comments akin to that now generated by stories about SCO.

However, you are correct in pointing out that Microsoft stories generate a lot of comments relative to Linux stories. Then again, this is to be expected. Many of us here are fairly opinionated, and a us versus them story generates more responses.

Re:Hype??

[kubrick]

I wish it would always stay around as an alternative API.

Wine, wine, wine, that's all you kids ever do... :)

Maybe they'll do a Longhorn port if Microsoft's built-on-VirtualPC Win32 legacy support isn't up to snuff. Or maybe this will all happen in 2010, with standard Microsoft shipping slippage.

Re:Hype??

[gurumeditationerror]

The Microsoft stories consistantly get 2-3x the comments as the Linux stories -- unless it's something negative for Linux like the destroyed CDROMs.

Maybe this is a phenomenon we are observing because the positive things about linux speak for themselves whereas the more negative stories are a bit more alarmist or biased?

Or maybe it's just fun to bash those bastards...

Quick Version Info

[Infernon]

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? :)

Re:Quick Version Info

[drinkypoo]

The key upgrades from NT4 to NT5 seem to include real pnp support, integral support for AGP, NTFS 3.0 (I think that's the version - what is commonly called NTFS5) and the Windows Driver Model subsystem, as well as terminal services, and a number of administration tools.

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?

Re:Quick Version Info

[tuba_dude]

Sure, it's right here:

JRH:
-Moved NSA backdoor from explorer.vb to kernel
-Just recieved payment from FBI, finishing touches on their backdoor.
-Looked at networking code from the 32-hour coding session, no security holes found yet.
TODO: Find more caffiene to hide with next time marketing comes to fire me.

BG:
-New easter egg in ie: "ALL YOUR MARKETSHARE ARE BELONG TO US"
TODO: Get a press relase out about security.

Marketing department:
Cleaned up the puke on the UI, left the corrosion patterns there.
TODO:
-Change codename to something less sucktacular.
-Fire JRH

Re:Quick Version Info

[Jugalator]

There might be a lot of "under the surface" changes in Longhorn, making Microsoft think it's worth increasing the major version number. I think parts of the OS will be rewritten to use .NET API's using managed code (i.e. more secure code with better bounds checking, etc). They'll introduce the new file system WinFS that's implemented as a layer on top of NTFS and will make working with the files on a system more like working with a database. Whatever that will mean in practice might be unknown at this point. :-) They might also introduce DRM as part of the OS, which could have all sorts of implications to the user.

So there's a lot of known and unknown features planned, and since I haven't tried a Longhorn Alpha, I don't even know exactly what's in it so far. There are of course all sorts of visual changes, and 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.

Since Windows has a lot of software integrated, it's hard to keep track of all changes, especially if you're going to do it in detail, this early. Longhorn isn't even in Beta yet.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Jugalator]

I have no idea what is supposed to merit a major version bump in longhorn, though; I guess the new GUI rendering engine?

No :-)

Actually, all Windows releases so far with a bump in the major version number *has* been very major indeed. Compare Windows 3.x to Windows 95 with its total change of desktop metaphors, going from icons representing file "links" only to real files, or Windows NT4 to Windows 2000 with enormous changes in the OS core.

Microsoft may bump a lot of version numbers for their software unnecessary, but I wouldn't say they're doing it with their operating systems. Windows XP only got a 0.1 bump since it is only a revised version of Windows 2000 after all.

Windows Longhorn will feature radical changes in the GUI, maybe making todays' Windows XP look like Windows 3.11 in comparison. It will also offer code restructures to use the .NET API and attempt to be even more secure than Windows 2003 Server by doing this. All .NET API procedures should for example automatically do basic things like bounds checks, which C++ code seldom does.

Windows Longhorn will also feature DRM built-in, which might have large implications for the user as well.

I personally think MS is putting a lot of eggs in one basket with Longhorn. If it's a failure, MS will be hit hard by it, but with the market dominance they have, they're probably sleeping well at night anyway.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Malc]

Terminal Services (RDP) came before Windows 2000. There was a Terminal Services edition of NT 4 Server.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Overly Critical Guy]

XP was based on 2000 and was all about gearing toward home users to get them off the DOS/9x kernel as well as improve multimedia integration with scanners, cameras, and so forth. There were also notable features like System Restore, File Protection, etc.

Longhorn will be a complete revamp. This build leak is pretty pointless, in my opinion. In two years, the 3D Aero interface will be unvieled, as will the WinFS system that will allow easy searchable access to any file on massively-sized hard drives.

Everything will be .NET including explorer.exe itself, as Win32 will be finally abandoned. This is almost like Microsoft starting over on a bunch of things that are holding Windows back. I am honestly looking forward to it (and also looking forward to how the Linux desktop environment react).

Re:Quick Version Info

[the_2nd_coming]

you lie!!!

everyone knows that only APPLE gives point releases and tries to pawn them off as new OSs!!!

MS makes new OSs every time, not "service pack upgrades that should be free!!!"

Re:Quick Version Info

[Tim C]

But that's the whole point - that was three revisions of Windows 95, not three versions of Windows. Think 3.0 versus 2.6, as opposed to 2.6 versus 2.4... (Or in the case of Win95, 3.0 vs 2.6 rather than 2.4.3 vs 2.4.2 vs 2.4.1)

(No, I don't know if the differences will be as great as would be expected in that case - but MS don't really play up the version numbers, so there'd be little or no point in incrementing the major number if it wasn't warranted. No-one in control of budget knows about it anyway...)

Re:Quick Version Info

[the_2nd_coming]

being rewritten in managed C++, having the "innovative" AREO direct X compositing of the UI, and of course winFS which is not really a file system but a layer on top of a file system that is named like it is a file system.

Re:Quick Version Info

[jobsagoodun]

Everything will be .NET including explorer.exe itself, as Win32 will be finally abandoned.

Except, microsoft being microsoft, won't they have abandoned .NET for something even 'better' in 2 years time? I mean, its nearly as old as COM was when they ditched that now isn't it?

Re:Quick Version Info

[the_2nd_coming]

after 7 years of no new OS, there will certainly be an incentive to upgrade mindlessly to the new OS, so I am sure MS is not worried...they are hoping for another Windows 95 type release where people stand in long lines just to get it, sort of how Apple gets its users all excited about new OSs.

Re:Quick Version Info

[pVoid]

Here's an interesting, albeit incomplete change log.

Re:Quick Version Info

[netsharc]

What about their new filesystem, where files can be filed under many categories, meaning it has an SQL server in the background? Dunno what else, probably DRM that will come with the "Media Center" Why am I guessing they'll have PVR features built in? With an icon to subscribe to MSN-TV on the desktop, probably. And the whole thing will honor the HDTV Evil bit. Maybe the whole thing will be Palladium-protected so that it's virus-proof. That will surely take a while to develop.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Jonathan Platt]

Longhorn 2 Version 100.2

I could be very wrong, but I recon it's random. This way people will expect more from Longhorn... and there's your hype.

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

i know you're being funny but i thought i'd chime in:

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 .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.

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)

Re:Quick Version Info

[bogie]

"Windows Longhorn will feature radical changes in the GUI, maybe making todays' Windows XP look like Windows 3.11 in comparison"

Somehow I find that really hard to believe. If these screenshots are even sightly Representative of the way MS is going then its going to look a lot like XP with just different colored/sized widgets and maybe a stupid "infobar" that most people will disable because it takes up 30% of your screen. I know MS is holding some visual aspects back, but there is nothing I've seen that's far off from what has already been made by the modding community.

Will it be different then XP, Yes. Will it be some radical shift that someone working with XP won't even recognize? Doubtful. MS has invested too many years in getting its users used to the way Windows works. My guess for the GUI is XP & 1/2, ie more "things you can do with files" will pop up when browsing folders and of course a different theme and wallpaper. Remember that last radical shift GUI-wise was win 3.x to 95. The only thing massively different between 95 and XP gui-wise is the Start Menu. Underneath there may be a lot going on, but on top MS can't go too crazy because secretaries need to be able to find their programs and my docs folder just as easy as they did with XP and 95.

"I personally think MS is putting a lot of eggs in one basket with Longhorn. If it's a failure, MS will be hit hard by it, but with the market dominance they have, they're probably sleeping well at night anyway."

But like you inferred they can't really fail can they? I mean when 90% plus of all desktops ship with whatever OS you want how can you fail? Once these new desktops ship you'll need to upgrade all your apps etc and the treadmill will continue except for the 10% of users who realize that there are alternatives. MS may fail in a technical sense if they somehow fuck up Longhorn, but given that they have so much time I don't see how they could. Worst case they scale back features because they a)don't work or b) aren't wanted by beta testers, and then they ship win2003 plus minor updates as a desktop.

Isn't it great having a monopoly?

Re:Quick Version Info

[Tagren]

The *new* GUI Aero is not in this build.

Re:Quick Version Info

[1010011010]

Do you work for MSFT?

Re:Quick Version Info

[Michael Hunt]

And verily did it sucketh.

I suspect the OP meant that it came 'built in' to even the low-end 'server' edition.

Re:Quick Version Info

[the_2nd_coming]

your right...I was hauled off to the Apple store nearest me by Goons that worked for Steve and was told in no uncertain terms that if I did not buy the new OS and look happy about it they would break my legs.

makes forceable rape seem like a fun romp in the woods if you ask me.

I knew this would happen when I purchased that Nefarious Steve Jobs' hardware.

Re:Quick Version Info

[DAldredge]

Do they fire the people whos 'skills' allow those critical security 'issues' into Windows and other Microsoft apps?

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

Yes

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

not that i know of, although i think being the code/test owner of a feature that has a BO in it is looked upon pretty poorly (they're going to ask why you didn't find it, i think)

Let me ask this question:

If your employment was contingent on you writing 100% bug free code, would you have a job ?

Re:Quick Version Info

[DAldredge]

No, I would not. But my employer doesn't have 20,000,000,000 to 40,000,000,000 USD in the bank. Nor do they have a > 75% profit margin.

With the resources Microsoft has, such 'issues' are not excusable.

Re:Quick Version Info

[addaon]

If your employment was contingent on you writing 100% bug free code, would you have a job ?

Yes. Want fries with that code?

Re:Quick Version Info

[ealar dlanvuli]

By the time longhorn is released, I doubt they have as strong a chokehold on the market they enjoy now.

But only time will tell.

I just know every company I come in contact with is looking for ways to ditch quite a few windows machines, they cost too damn much.

Re:Quick Version Info

[netsharc]

All I'm saying is, maybe those are the features that Microsoft is building into their next OS, I don't endorse them. In any case, don't they have an idea where the DRM goes right into the BIOS, so that "unofficial" programs can't run at all?

Re:Quick Version Info

[AstroDrabb]

Yes lets look at some of the innovations:

1. WinFS
Hmm, another layer on top of a file system to slow it down. MS's filesystem is already slow as a dog, How useful. We already know that that MS is 2.5 times slower as a file server then Linux with Samba 3ReiserFS 4, which is in final testing NOW beats the pants of any offering from MS in features and speed. ReiserFS 4 is sponsored by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and is architected for military grade security, ReiserFS. There is also a Gnome project that I believe is using GnomeVFS to have a similar function of a database on top of the file system for searching, etc. Ulike the offering from MS, you will be able to REMOVE it if you don't want it and it will probably be ready in a year. I don't remember the name or link for the project off the top of my head.

2. SVG.
Gnome has had SVG themes for a while now with an SVG engine in beta that will literally be out YEARS before anything from MS. The SVG engine draws all the widgets in GTK+ as SVG.
Some SVG themes
Even more SVG candy

3. .Net managed code.
Holy slowness batman! All this to have some bounds checking to prevent buffer overflows? This is already out for Linux Non-executable user stack

4. DRM
Yes, just what all the users want. Someone telling them what they can and cannot do with thier OS and what files they can and cannot run. Thanks MS for putting your customers before the big media compnanies.

Re:Quick Version Info

[AstroDrabb]

Mod parent up.

Anyone foolish enough to think that MS is putting DRM into their OS to "protect" their end users may also be interested in some tropical land I own in the Mohave desert. Does MS *really* want exploits and viruses to go away? Think of the huge market they would kill for all the anti-virus vendors out there. I am sure MS will accept a few checks from the anti-virus vendors to keep the anti-virus industry alive and well for the MS platform for many years to come.

Re:Quick Version Info

[PatJensen]

Your BMW rules. I like your web site.

-Pat

Re:Quick Version Info

[Nimloth]

versionList.add(2, "Windows 2003 Server - Version 5.2");

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

i think you're taking in indefensible position.

because microsoft has a lot of money, they should produce bug free software ?

whats the threshhold of company worth where its ok to have bugs in your code ? if MS had 1b dollars, how many security vulns could they have ?

if microsoft were going to pay you 30b dollars, how would you instruct them to produce code with no security defects at all. Think carefully, i'll give you a day or two to come up with the answer.

your profit margin number is also incorrect. a cursory examination of, well, anything public domain would tell you this... i.e. SEC filings. I beleive quarterly profits are on the order of perhaps 1b, so perhaps theres 4b of income in a year. ~8b is dumped into just R&D every year. then you consider costs associated with production, channel, marketing, etc. IOW, the 75% margin figure is totally bogus.

Re:Quick Version Info

[shaunbaker]

a non-executable stack does not give you the same security as the .NET managed code. If it really did, don't you think possibly they would have just decided to do that instead. Go read a book on .NET (not how to program it) and then come back and tell me that your non-executable stack will provide you all the saftey. Furthermore, a non executable stack does not even provide any real benifit anyways.

And many users welcome DRM, take office documents, many companies want an enforceable way to make sure documents don't leak. Right there is an example of a user who would like DRM. Just because DRM can be used to take away your right to steal mp3s and movies does not make it evil.

And I use gnome, its not the end all be all of GUI's and certainly not up to WinXP interface in my opinon.

Re:Quick Version Info

[magores]

Bmajik... Questions for you.

1) As a MS employee, what are your opinions on the SCO vs IBM/Redhat/Linux issue?
1a) As an IT person, irregardless of your MS affiliation... Same question.

2) What are the rumors going around the MS campus regarding the "angel funding" that SCO seems to keep getting? Bill involved? Bill-Wife?

3) Do you, or anyone in your workgroup, use a non-MS OS on a daily basis at work?

4) What is your opinion on something that you think MS did "right"? (ie. better than its alternatives?)

5) What is your opinion on something that the OSS community did "right"? (ie. better than its alternatives?)

6) Do you personally use a non-MS product to stop things like pop-ups/Gator/Messenger spam? If so, what do you use?

Just curious. Thanks.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Spoing]

The *new* GUI Aero is not in this build.

Aero? Sounds inventive. Reminds me of Aqua. Hmmm. I take it back. It does not sound inventive.

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

1) i'm not touching that at all :)

1a) irregardless isn't a word :)
ok, i'll bite a little. I have a hard time beleiving that everything in linux is a 100% clean room implementation, when the point of linux and the GNU toolchain was to make a freeware clone of UNIX. So, im predisposed to thinking there's some lifted code or designs in linux. On the issue of who that was lifted from (was it sco ?) or if that actually matters (there are only so many ways to write a VFS layer, or grep) i don't really have an opinion, and im not really qualified to have one. in general i think our society is too litigous and there are lots of frivilous lawsuits. On the other hand, the open source phenomenon presents a big challenge for commmercial software vendors in the following sense: according to the Fredrick Brooks classic "the mythical man month", dev time is 1/6th of the wall-clock time in a software engineering effort. The rest comes from design and testing.

Alot of what's happening in the linux space is wholesale cloning of existing software/features, with careful picking and choosing of whats great and what sucks about the peice being cloned. The design is apparent in the functionality of the system to be cloned - so thats time and expense that some proprietary company went through that the linux project is avoiding (potentially). The "testing effort" is simply "does it work as good as the original?" so significant time is saved there as well. In effect, the linux clone/improve effort can clone functionality faster than it can be created originally in many cases, and of course free software has the "side effect" of pulling the market out of commercial software if it truly is an acceptible feature parity clone of the commercial offerings.

So i think part of what SCO is doing is reactionary - they're saying "this can't keep happening - these people are cloning our designs, cloning our interfaces, and we think they're just flat out stealing code in some cases. then they give it away for free and we of course suffer as a result"

i think this is a hard problem that really comes down to wether or not you think intellectual property is a real thing or not. the classic problem with IP is the following:

company X spends 10b over 20 years to develop a drug that effectively treats a human ailment. Once discovered, manufacture of this drug is essentially zero cost per part. The 10b research cost has to be amortized over a certain volume of pills for a reasonable time period to allow return on investment, otherwise the company goes under and brilliant people dont figure out new ways to cure ailments.

at the same time, the drug is just a molecule and may even be easy to produce in your kitchen. why can company X stop you from mixing water, baking soda, and maybe 3 other things in your own home ? what about if you sell your concoction more cheaply than they do ? should they be allowed to stop you ?

Now to throw in a twist - what if company X's molecule is too expensive to buy in 3rd world countries, but those people need this medicine as well?

precisely the same problem exists in software. Someone does all the hard work, then its cloned cheaply by others, and given away for free, typically because people want to
1) do it themselves
or
2) are in developing countries and cant afford US prices for things

(we see lots of linux adoption in developing countries, actually)

anyway, back to the specific SCO issue:
the biggest thing that irritates me is that most slashdot posters beleive 110% that the whole case is completely BS and that SCO is making a frivolous lawsuit. i think there may be something to their case (see above - i have a hard time beleive linux is 100% clean room), but i also don't know what SCO is hoping to get out of all of this.. the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.. linux and other free unixes are "good enough" for many problems.. at least as good as SCO probably ever was.

2) i

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

you're absolutely right, and i misspoke.

The dev owns code, including wether or not it does what its supposed to.

The point i was trying to make was one about shared responsibility for what happens. If a BO is found, is it the devs fault, for having a buggy implementation, the testers fault, for not checking boundary/size cases sufficiently, the PM's fault, for not having a proper threat model of the feature, or some mix of all three ?

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

if you have realistic, actionable suggestions on how MS can write software thats more secure and still meets customer expectations, MS will hire you and pay you a lot of money. Enough so that you wont be so angry all the time, I'd suspect.

try them - http://www.microsoft.com/careers/

Include in your resume "you are fucking morons, i can improve your products. if you hire me you can fire all your stupid developers because i know how to fix all the problems". Just be prepared to know what you're talking about when they ask.

Nobody at MS will argue with you - our stuff needs to be better than it is, we make a lot of stupid mistakes, and fixing them is a big pain for everyone, not least of all us. If you've got realistic ways to help fix that, we'll hire you and you'll be paid very well if you actually know what you're talking about, can change things for the better.

However, im guessing you're just mad about something. The ball is strictly in your court though - either you're not able or not willing to fix microsoft's problems. in which case, you're just wasting bits by posting this.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Reziac]

Interesting about the testers asking who was up late last night. I've also had the experience that "coder up all night == some weird bug will come back to haunt us".

So how does one get paid to test MSFTware? (Speaking as "the beta tester who can break anything" :)

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

thanks :)

it would rule a lot more if it was running right now. Allegedly my crank speed sensor will get mailed to me this week.

it's a lot of fun to drive, but a lot of hassle to keep running. i've learned a lot about maintaining cars from owning it

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

http://www.microsoft.com/careers/careerpath/techni cal/softwaretesting.aspx

you can search for open positions without getting a passport, if thats a blocking issue for you...

http://www.microsoft.com/careers/search/

Re:Quick Version Info

[Reziac]

Thanks. Also passed along to someone who is jobhunting. Doesn't look like they've got anything in a telecommutable position, tho (necessary for anything I do). -- I found a whole pile of functionality bugs in XP within a few hours of use, some so obvious that I wonder how anyone could MISS 'em. Hmm.. maybe they should pay for 'em on a commission basis. :)

I don't like the passport thing much, nope... and my hotmail acct is so old that apparently it's outside the passport system, or at least it's not recognised for login purposes, and I'm not sure I want to change that :)

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

no, for as technically progressive as MS tries to be, they put an awful high premium on having everyone together for face to face meetings, hallway conversations, etc. telecommuting just isn't really done for product group positions.

alternatively, you might try this:
http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/sugges tion.as p

probably wont be any compensation, but if nothing else the things that annoy you might get fixed in the future :)

Re:Quick Version Info

[Reziac]

Ah, the wishlist :) Yeah, that's a thought. Tho so far it looks like they're hellbent on going in directions I don't want to go anywher near. :(

I wonder how much of the face-to-face fetish has to do with control issues rather than productivity issues? -- Do they have any depts. that do telecommute??

Re:Quick Version Info

[shadowxtc]

Believe it or not. From a technical standpoint, the GUI is being 100% completely rewritten. From a user's standpoint, you might not even notice. See - right now - every program has access to draw on the entire screen. The taskbar doesn't "own" its space at the bottom, nor does your browser window "control" its region of the screen. Everything controls everything, and can access any other thing's anything. Sounds safe, huh? Fast too? Neither, not even close. In Longhorn, though it WILL break lots of older stuff, every program will have access to only its area of the screen. But the benefit is the graphics subsystem can be based totally off of DirectX, giving a much more Mac-ish look.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Moridineas]

You might want to read a bit about the new GUI they are designing--it sounds hellishly cool, and if done properly (which remains a HUGE if--especially given MS past record) could be one of the best gui's ever designed.

From what I've read, it will be fully able to take advantage of graphic card processors or gpu's as they are called nowadays. It will be nice and optimized to avoid nasty things like tearing today. And most importantly--vector graphics. Everything will be a vector, so everything will scale wonderfully. Also, there has been talk of different format monitors, differing DPI's, etc. So could be really neat...or do none of these things right and be a failure.

And before someone says it--no not EVERYTHING in OSX is a vector--many of the controls/widgets for example are nice bitmaps.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Dot Com Drew]

I was a PM at Microsoft and was involved in lots of meetings where marketing had direct impact on features. These were meetings held with Dev/Test/PM leads as well, but just like everyone else they had to have a damn good reason to promote or push off a component. I've also seen dev leads stonewall marketing related choices.

Nothing is absolute at Microsoft (in a good way). A good idea is a good idea, it doesn't matter who it comes from within the company.

Re:Quick Version Info

[colinleroy]

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.
You mean it isn't #defined in an include file ??

Re:Quick Version Info

[IamTheRealMike]

the classic problem with IP is the following: company X spends 10b over 20 years to develop a drug that effectively treats a human ailment. Once discovered, manufacture of this drug is essentially zero cost per part. The 10b research cost has to be amortized over a certain volume of pills for a reasonable time period to allow return on investment, otherwise the company goes under and brilliant people dont figure out new ways to cure ailments.

You're assuming the cost has to be amortized over time. In fact, if the company involved gets a healthy return on their investment, whatever the means, we should see continued development of drugs.

There are probably other ways. For instance, if the cost of the research was independently audited and then multiplied by 1.2, you would have the amount of money that needed to be returned to the company by the market in order to make the venture worthwhile. If the legal system enforced a barrier to entry whereby you could only produce these goods once you had equalized your share of the pot (so the first competitor has to pay you half the research cost, the second pays a third and the other two get some back etc), then eventually the cost would have been returned while allowing a free market to drive down prices.

This does not of course deal with those who ignore the system and produce generics - you could see open source software as being the software equivalent of generics.

On the SCO issue - given that SCO bought the rights to UNIX and did not develop it itself, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for their "plight". Development is about standing on the shoulders of giants, and whether you clean-room reimplement or buy a good technology seems irrelevant to me.

Re:Quick Version Info

[hughk]

One main issue that I have with MS is that it doesn't learn well from its technical mistakes.

First, I would like to see developers being cycled through testing and fixit so that they see all sides of the job. Developers do not often make the best testers, but they usually produce better code after they see how testing really works.

I don't know how developers are trained. However, I get the distinct impression that many OS level developers have never really worked with application developers. They don't have much of a clue how a system ends up being (ab)used.

I would like to see firmer control by the PMs, especially over function creep. This does not mean that the PM has to say no, but they must be able to kick back by saying that "if you want x, allow y mandays".

I'm not an advocate of XP (the methodology, not the system) - but too much of MS code seems to be the result of deathmarch programming. PM should never design code around overtime. It happens and is useful in case of emergency, but it should never be planned in from the beginning.

It is my personal feelings that whilst I don't like the way that MS does business, It's basic problems come down to poor engineering management. Perhaps teams are too large, perhaps there are too many changes coming through. I don't know, but the code produced reflects poor internal communications and coordination.

Re:Quick Version Info

[JamesP]

Longhorn is also going to offer a new Driver Model, easier to program.

Creating WDM drivers (that's 98/2000/XP) has been a pain in the ass so far, and Longhorn will "fix" that.

Re:Quick Version Info

[SmallFurryCreature]

Well it is just a rumour I once heard and since missed hearing off again. BUT it is possible that Longhorn will be having a 3D desktop. No no not the useless kind. The kind that is rendered by your video card taking the strain of the cpu. What your cpu is currently strained? You bet it is. Dual CPU's never really took off on the desktop so every milisecond it has to spend rendering a button is not spend on your application. Hence the fact that you still have rendering freezes with part of the desktop being left unfinished.

So if this is true that would be pretty major.

Re:Quick Version Info

[AstroDrabb]

Furthermore, a non executable stack does not even provide any real benifit anyways.

What? You obviously have no clue what your talking about. A non-executable stack will stop just about all buffer overflows dead. The buffer overflow attack may still crash that ONE program, however it will not be able to be used to give elevated priveledges. Yes I know more then I want to know about .Net. The thing is, is that Java has been around longer and has withstood the test of time. Especially when it comes to security. The offering from MS will be typical MS offerings with security problems, just use Java. However, I would not program the majority of my userland tools in .Net or Java, there is still too much of a performance hit as far as memory footprint and startup times. Jit's offer native speed execution so there is not any problem with runtime performance of .Net or Java.

And I use gnome, its not the end all be all of GUI's and certainly not up to WinXP interface in my opinon.

Well, to each is own. I don't think WinXP is nearly as nice as my SVG Gnome desktop, or a tweaked out KDE desktop. And I think all of them need to learn more from Mac! I don't see *any* features in XP that make it better then Gnome or KDE. In fact I cannot stand the XP "Fisher Price(TM)" GUI and think it is very ugly and childish.

Re:Quick Version Info

[jaavaaguru]

I also make a point to install Services For UNIX on at least one of my workstations so i can get real versions of grep, awk, etc.

Try grepping a 2 gig text file on Solaris. Now try it on SFU3. Be prepared to wait a long time and close all other apps to free memory as grep eats it all. Knowing where your reset button is might be a good thing at this point too.

A quick google search shows up a better version of GNU/Grep for Windows.

Re:Quick Version Info

[bwilli123]

oooooo wow gee whizzz

Re:Quick Version Info

[Pathetic Coward]

[i]also, no one in marketing at MS is in a position to fire anyone working in a product group.[/i]

Those trips they are taking to India are just for "personal development".

Re:Quick Version Info

[PenguiN42]

Some comments about point 1a)

-- Your comment about linux's "clone/improve" dev cycle implies that this doesn't happen at all in the commercial arena, which is a very amusing concept.

-- I don't see how linux being developed in a "cleanroom" or not is at all relevant to the SCO case. SCO is claiming that linux stole specific code practically line-by-line, not that some linux developer was tainted by NDA code. However, they haven't been able to show *any* legit examples of this as of yet. But they *are* trying to force people to pay licenses to *them* for linux, with *no proof* so far that they have any right to. This is why many people believe the case to be 110% bullshit.

And the only difference between closed and open source software in this regard is that it's harder to find when closed software steals code. Due to this, I'd think that OS software would be *stronger* on the IP front. It's all out there for everyone to see, it can't hide anything.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Tagren]

Yes it is called Aero. They are moving the GUI rendering part over to DirectX. It is just not how it look/behaves, but the API also that is called Aero.

Re:Quick Version Info

[drsmithy]

Except, microsoft being microsoft, won't they have abandoned .NET for something even 'better' in 2 years time? I mean, its nearly as old as COM was when they ditched that now isn't it?

Win32 has been around for a decade or so and its stability is one of Windows' selling points. You'd expect the replacement to have to live up to the same standard.

Re:Quick Version Info

[shaunbaker]

Non Executable Stack:

Here is a quote from Linus about the benifits of non-executable stacks:

"In short, anybody who thinks that the non-executable stack gives them any real security is very very much living in a dream world. It may catch a few attacks for old binaries that have security problems, but the basic problem is that the binaries allow you to overwrite their stacks. "

If you would like further proof that there are many many ways to get around a non-executable stack please do a google search on "non-executable stack +weakness". I feel you will be suprised.

As for the XP vs. Gnome interface. You are right, we should probably just leave it with "to each their own" I agree with you that the default XP skin is ugly but with a little customization it can look really nice.

Re:Quick Version Info

[overunderunderdone]

I agree with your dissent to the thoughtless bashing of "intellectual property" that occurs on slashdot. However as far as I understand it the SCO lawsuit isn't a case of an inventor defending his invention from a cheap knock-off. IBM is the "inventor" with the R&D costs in this situation. SCO is claiming that IBM's "invention" should belong to SCO because of a contract that supposedly grants SCO total ownership rights to any work that IBM's does to UNIX into perpetuity. SCO's contribution, to the degree that it even exists, is minimal and a long time gone. IBM could just as easily have developed their software for linux first but since they initially developed it for UNIX SCO is arguing that it is a derivative work and according to their contract belongs to SCO by virtue of their contract, not by virtue of any actual intellectual contribution by SCO.

Also, while there is a lot of truth to the idea that linux is a generic knock-off of other people's innovations there are other dynamics that are at work. First off, much of what linux is doing isn't really "knocking off" any unique innovations but simply implementing (well) the basics that are well established and already common to all operating systems - if that is "knocking-off" other peoples innovations Microsoft, Apple, et al. are just as guilty.

Another dynamic that is moving linux beyond being a generic knock-off is the degree to which increasingly companies and individuals are for their own reasons contributing original innovations. IBM's contributions attest to this, whatever SCO wins by virtue of their contract everybody agrees that IBM did the original work in this instance. The open-source/free-software system is a sort of ad-hoc joint venture where anyone that isn't planning on selling the software as such contributes what they need to to the system. Some of those contributions are certainly merely "knocking-off" linux's proprietary competitors but increasingly (as they have done a good job imlementing their "knock-off") people are contributing truly original stuff. There are lots of companies (and a lot more individuals) that stand to benefit from free software and are willing to contribute a sizeable R&D investment into it. Hardware companies, service companies, anyone who uses the software as an integral part of their business and is credibly threatened by Microsofts monopoly position has an interest in throwing real money and time at Linux. It has become a informal consortium of (and a weapon in the hand of) those that compete with, or fear, or could benefit from the fall of, Microsoft. That includes a very long list of very big companies that have a whole lot of R&D resources.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Spoing]

Well, that's to be expected. While I'm no big fan of MacOS, though I also have nothing against it, it does go to show that MS is still following Apple's lead.

As for DirectX used in the UI; I would be surprised if they used anything else.

Prediction: A fancy zoomable application bar along the bottom will be one of the highly visible features. OK, not much of a prediction -- it's a given -- followed by comments about how MS 'invented' the idea.

Re:Quick Version Info

[spitzig]

1a) irregardless isn't a word :)

From www.m-w.com:
Main Entry: irregardless
Pronunciation: "ir-i-'gard-l&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: probably blend of irrespective and regardless
Date: circa 1912
nonstandard : REGARDLESS
usage Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

Thanks to peoples' shitty English, it IS a word.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Sri Lumpa]

Nice answer.

However, concerning the Linux/SCO thing you wrote:

"ok, i'll bite a little. I have a hard time beleiving that everything in linux is a 100% clean room implementation, when the point of linux and the GNU toolchain was to make a freeware clone of UNIX. So, im predisposed to thinking there's some lifted code or designs in linux."

Now let's see how it works with two pieces of proprietary software: Ok, I'll bite a little. I have a hard time believing that everything in Internet Explorer is a 100% clean room implementation, when the point of Internet Explorer was to make a freeware clone of Netscape. So, I'm predisposed to thinking there's some lifted code or designs in Internet Explorer.

Of course there is a lot of designs in Linux that have been lifted from Unix. That would be because most of the design of Unix are either obvious (use of many little tools and combination of them to do bigger tasks) or widely published in books and academia. A lot of Unix code has also be publicly disclosed under the BSD license by SCO themselves.

That doesn't means that there isn't any code, design, or other proprietary aspects in Linux but so far nobody has shown the presence of any, and even SCO, which has the incentive of a potential $3billion to find such things has not been able to do so.

So i think part of what SCO is doing is reactionary - they're saying "this can't keep happening - these people are cloning our designs, cloning our interfaces, and we think they're just flat out stealing code in some cases. then they give it away for free and we of course suffer as a result"

Same thing MS did with IE (except that I do not know of any code stealing). Same thing that any company does in a capitalist world: they compete.

the biggest thing that irritates me is that most slashdot posters beleive 110% that the whole case is completely BS and that SCO is making a frivolous lawsuit.

SCO might have something to their case, yes, but even though it worked with Linux for 8-9 years and even though the Linux development process is publicly viewable they still haven't managed to precisely say what their claims are, prompting IBM to file a motion to compel discovery to force them to be more precise than "Here is the Linux source code; it's in there somewhere".

Even if SCO had been wronged by IBM, their inability to tell IBM what is wrong exactly 6 months after filing the lawsuit makes one believe that they didn't have sufficient ground to file this lawsuit and were hoping to find enough evidence during discovery, which, if it is the case, would make this lawsuit frivolous.

And if they didn't do that then why don't they show to IBM and the court? After all, Darl McBride said: "We feel very good about the evidence that is going to show up in court." so they should feel good about showing it up now that they are in court, so why don't they do?

I personally feel ready to consider part or all of SCO's allegations as possibly true as soon as they manage to frame a coherent legal argument as to why these allegations are true. Given the current lack of coherence from their part I am currently forced to conclude that either their case is BS or that their lawyers are incompetent.

Another thing to note is that their lawfirm (Boies, Schiller and Flexner) initially took the case on a contingency basis (i.e. would only get money if they won against IBM) but recently changed their financial agreement to part contingency (pair in part if they win but with money/shares or other assets paid now). Might they have realised that SCO's claims are baseless or have they realised that even if some of their claim are true the likely amount of damage that they might get is too small to be worth taking only part of the spoils?


Also, sorry if I appear to have rabbies in this post but given SCO's actions (hyperbolic statements in the press and failure to follow up in a court setting) it's hard to stay calm about it if you care :).

Vaporware?

[110010001000]

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.

Re:Vaporware?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Of course Longhorn will be released. I have no idea why the "vaporware" thing continues, as it's silly even for Linux trolls.

Longhorn is the whole reason .NET was first invented. They're replaced the interface with a new 3D one.

Obviously this build shows that work continues, and it's going to make those "vaporware" people look really foolish when Longhorn comes out and blows people away. Was 2.6 "vaporware" when it got delayed?

mem usage

[Anonymous Coward]

does this use more or less memory than win2k, winxp?

any benchmarks yet? (Yes I know the OS is only a quarter baked)

Re:mem usage

[wildchild07770]

Far MORE the new file system (a combination of SQL and NTFS) currently uses around 400 megs of idle memory.

Re:mem usage

[ceejayoz]

Of course, WinXP and Win2000 probably used similarly huge amounts of memory when they were in alpha testing, too.

Re:mem usage

[wildchild07770]

Actually, i'm pretty sure they did. For now though it's rather prohibitive to run the alpha w/o a very decent system. It's not all that impressive either, maybe when the full graphics engine is leaked it could be but for now it's just XP with some new little toys and no support.

Any screenshot mirrors?

[roumada]

Of course, the screenshots are /.ed already. A machine brought to its knees by Longhorn without even having it installed!

Re:Any screenshot mirrors?

[Jugalator]

Beware. It's looking like crap at this stage. :-)

A dozen of screenshots, or so...

Re:Any screenshot mirrors?

[sharkey]

It's looking like crap at this stage. :-)

No shit. Fucking pop-up windows.

Re:Any screenshot mirrors?

[56ksucks]

It actually doesn't matter how it looks because you know the first thing people are going to do is look for the settings to change it back to "Windows Classic" mode.

----

Uh...

[DrEldarion]

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 --

Re:Uh...

[Jack Auf]

I think what the original poster meant is that Microsoft has a long history of leaking/releasing screenshots and tidbit about upcoming products when they know damn well that the product won't be available for many months if not years. So in that respect it is "vaporware" - the product won't see public release for at least a year and a half.

Microsoft has a long history of doing this - Exchange, MSSQL, Windows NT2000 & XP, SMS, etc. Why do they do this? To prevent existing customers from changing products. Example:

Tech: (product n.n) sucks ass and is unreliable. We should dump it for (other product).
PHB: But the MS rep told me that (product n.n+1) is on the way and going to be released "Real Soon Now(tm)".
Tech: They told you that to prevent you from switching to something that actually works.
PHB: The MS rep promised that it would be out by the end of the year.
Tech: Which really means the end of *next* year. Maybe. Maybe the end of the year after that.

You see how that works now? They lie to keep their customers locked in and on the hook. I have seen this first hand many many times.

Re:Uh...

[Jugalator]

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.

Re:Uh...

[op00to]

Damnit, and here I was thinking he was wrong....

[from the jargon file]

vaporware /vay'pr-weir/ Products announced far in advance of
any release (which may or may not actually take place). The
term came from Atari users and was later applied by
Infoworld to Microsoft's continuous lying about Microsoft
Windows.

See also brochureware.

Re:Uh...

[Speed Racer]

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!"

The name Cairo springs to mind.

Re:Uh...

[NickMc2000]

Actually, it would be kinda interresting if the windows version that is being leaked is just vaporware, something to keep everyone heppy while the real version is being developed.

Re:Uh...

[craw]

Windows 2000 Embedded. They alluded to the schedule concerning this product during the release of Windows 2000, then dropped this in favor of the development of the embedded version of "Whistler", aka XP.

I raise this issue because we just got a HP815mfp Plotter/Scanner at work. The weird thing is that the scanner unit is operated by a self-contained computer/touch screen unit (kind of "cute") that has the requisite Microsoft OS label attached to it. It describes the OS as Windows 2000 Embedded, but Microsoft dropped the development of this! Finally, the OS appears to be Windows 2000.

Very weird.

Re:Uh...

[Cloud K]

See also "Duke Nukem Forever" ;)

Re:Uh...

[addaon]

The name cairo lives on... chi rho = xp.

Re:Uh...

[Laconian]

Apple did that with Copland. Gil Amelio must die.

Re:Uh...

[anothy]

so you don't think Cairo ever came out, huh? that's because they don't want you to think it did. but it did. it's installed on tons of computers, and comes pre-installed on most systems you can buy today. let me explain:
when the roman empire converted to christianity way back when, the first symbol of the change was an emblem plopped on top of the roman imperial banners. the contents of this emblem are still used widely by the Catholic church. anyone know what they are?
the roman empire chose as symbol of their collective conversion the first two letters of the greek word "Christ" for this emblem. know what that looks like in greek? the letter "Chi" (pronounced "Ki", with a long "i") and "Rho" (pronounced "ro"). and know what those letters look like?
yup: XP. Cairo == XP. masses of people are running Cairo and not even knowing it.
now, parallels between the conversion to christianity, or between the roman empire and microsoft generally, are left as an exercise to the reader.

Rerun

[jmorris42]

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.

Re:Rerun

[0racle]

with WinFS, this pretty much is cairo

Re:Rerun

[RevAaron]

Yeah, wow. It's like Microsoft invented hype.

Re:Rerun

[jmorris42]

Nah, but they have darned near perfected it.

Re:Rerun

[Johnny Mnemonic]

trade press talking about Microsoft's product that will never be instead of competitors products which are shipping now

I don't think it's any coincidence that Apple began selling 10.3 last Friday. Maybe paranoid, but MSFT has done it before, and not just to Apple. What's more amazing, is why do they care enough to bother? Is it just force of habit, or do they actually feel that Apple may yet pose some threat? I think it's more likely the former, actually.

Screenshots

[ewithrow]

More screenshots can be found here.

Re:Screenshots

[jawschlech]

Well, now we know why people really like Windows:

#5 Posted by eXclusive on 26 Oct 2003 - 02:34 I cant see why on earth people would use the Alpha/beta stage software.

#5.1 Reply by SHoTTa35 on 26 Oct 2003 - 03:19 cuz XP is stable.... stable = boring! I dunno bout you but my PC has gotten extra boring lately... news like this and new software def makes me loving being on my PC again. I feel like i've been everywhere on the net so i can check out a new OS instead of going to the same websites day in day out (except Neowin of-course.. it's constantly changing YOu guys rock!)

For people like me who likes to fix stuff, when your PC runs 50 days without reeboot or crash then that sux!

By his reference to XP being stable it's obvious he's only used Windows products. Which seems to be exactly what people like him want.

Re:Screenshots

[HTH NE1]

At least those load properly. The story's site serves the images as text/plain. Which means the only browser you can use to view them is Internet Explorer with its noncompliant HTTP implementation that ignores the server-provided MIME type and sniffs the content to determine its type.

IOW, Mozilla won't show the screenshots from flexbeta.net because the server is frelled and the site owner only tests with IE which conceals his mistakes from him.

Anyone care to mirror the original story's screenshots on a properly configured server?

Re:Screenshots

[Paul d'Aoust]

I noticed that too... but it looks like they've fixed the mimetype problem, because all of a sudden the JPEGs started working in Mozilla... YMMV, but it worked for me.

Re:Screenshots

[HTH NE1]

No joy. The only ones that work for me are the ones that end in appropriate filename extensions, and thus the server provides the right MIME type. Several still do not: Bliss Wallpaper ends with .Wallpaper, Collecting Info ends with .Setup, Clock ends with .Clock, and Installation with .Installation. (Servers tend to depend on the filename to serve the right MIME type, but they need not so depend.)

All the others have .jpg extensions and are served with the right MIME type, save two: Desktop and Winver which end with .gif and are served as image/gif.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[stubear]

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.

Naming Scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see Microsoft is using there old naming scheme...

Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows 4051

Re:Naming Scheme

[Josh Booth]

Nope, they've been using the same old scheme:

Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
-- Break in continuity --
Windows 95
Windows 98
-- Break in continuity --
Windows ME (1204)
Windows 2000
Windows XP (2315)
Windows 2003

Of course counting A as letter 0.

Re:Naming Scheme

[MarsCtrl]

Wow, when they said it might be arriving late, they weren't kidding!

Re:Naming Scheme

[pommiekiwifruit]

I'm sure there was a Windows 286 and a Windows 386 version in there somewhere, not to mention NT 3.1 and 4.0. And they called Windows 96 and Windows 97 "Win 95 SR1" and "Win 95 SR2" for some reason.

DRM?

[t_allardyce]

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"

Re: DRM?

[Black Parrot]

> 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"

They tried, honest, but the DRM wouldn't let them catch it in a screenshot.

Another chance for linux.

[StoneCrusher]

We've got two years to infiltrate every market possible. Do you think we would be ready for a head-on OS war in two years?

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!

Re:Another chance for linux.

[AntiOrganic]

1. Improve every area of linux possible

Thanks for the insightful plan, buddy!

Re:Another chance for linux.

[Jugalator]

There's also a need to market the distributions and show that the OS can do amazing things for the desktop user that Windows currently can't... On television or something, so the average user notice. NOT in an ad on Slashdot or a computer magazine. Otherwise I doubt Linux will stand a chance in the desktop market.

Why?

[Simple-Simmian]

Why is the "news" 2007 is a longway off.

Now with snappy crash action!

[Qweezle]

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!

IE changes

[Jayde Stargunner]

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

Re:IE changes

[stroustrup]

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.

Re:IE changes

[yournic]

that popup blocking feature will be available in MSN9. I like it at least...

Re:IE changes

[Cloud K]

Yup, Microsoft know what they're doing. Others such as Mozilla, Opera et al were inventing ideas for them... MS weren't blind or ignorant to those ideas, they were just waiting for the right opportunity to implement them.

I'm sure they'll enjoy the adverts... and the install banners ;) "Thanks for installing Windows 2006: No more intrusive popups with our unique Popup Blocker feature!"

Seriously though, if (god forbid) Microsoft have the same market share in 2006, the popup era may finally be over. It'll take some time as people adopt the new Windows, but finally there'll be nobody for popup spammers to target and they'll go away. By then the latest Outlook (with decent spam filtering) will have been fully adopted, so crap from that end will also disappear.

Of course, that's the wishful side. I'm sure spammers will find new and more interesting ways to piss people off.

Re:IE changes

[Nimloth]

Actually it's probably the other way around... You'll HAVE to use IE if you have Longhorn (ala if(!strstr($_SERVER['http_user_agent'], "MSIE")) exit(0);)

Ah well I'll just get a K9 cpu when Longhorn comes out so I can alt+tab my way into Linux if I want to use Mozilla...

Re:IE changes

[KozmoStevnNaut]

"Ah well I'll just get a K9 cpu..."

But as you've already guessed... It's gonna run like a dog ;)

BADAM-BISH!

Re:IE changes

[Art_Vandelai]

Does Mozilla allow you to accept pop up windows from specific websites though? Many sites I use will open a new browser window - important apps like web brokerage and banking functions that I don't want to lose. I do want to lose these popups that ask me to fill out some stupid survey every time I visit Slashdot or a hundred other websites. I installed Mozilla a while back, found the same situation with the cookie manager - it was either an all or none thing, while IE allows me to accept all cookies from trusted sites, and reject from sites are not trusted. If a site comes up that it doesn't recognize, it promts me.

Re:IE changes

[autechre]

Yes, it's right there in the UI: you can specify sites that are allowed to use popups. As for cookies, you can set Mozilla to prompt you each time a site tries to set a cookie, have it remember your decision, and go in and manage the cookies/cookie sites. As of 1.5, you can apply a cookie decision to all sites in a domain (foo.cnn.com, bar.cnn.com, etc.).

Also note that Mozilla disables _unrequested_ popup windows. If you request the new window (e.g. by clicking a link), it will still work fine without any special setup.

Mozilla can also be set to prevent sites from resizing existing windows, harassing you with scrolling status bar marquees, changing the focus of windows, and more.

Re:IE changes

[Art_Vandelai]

Thanks! Just downloaded and installed Mozilla 1.5 - it's working very well indeed, much better than the previous version I installed. Cookies are prompted the first time I visit a site, and now no more popups at all (unless I want them)! Slowly but surely being weaned from the teat of MS.

Free beta (um, alpha) testing!

[Knights who say 'INT]

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.

Re:Free beta (um, alpha) testing!

[crass751]

98 SE was stable!?

I put up with 98SE crashing daily for about 6 months on my desktop before I went out and bought the academic version of 2000 in the spring of 2001. I was absolutely floored by the fact I could leave my computer on for a week at a time it wouldn't crash.

Now that ancient (3 year old) machine runs Red Hat 9 and only gets restarted when I trip over the power cord.

Re:Free beta (um, alpha) testing!

[sparrow_hawk]

Dude, Win98 leaked at least a year before it was released. It's a nice conspiracy theory, but do you really think people who are downloading the supposedly private build of Longhorn, *cracking* it, and installing it, are going to be very liable to report bugs they find to MS?

It's mostly PR, I'd say. Sure, Linux is great and it's here now, but wouldn't you rather have the Next New Thing, which will come with 10% MORE FEATURES than Linux?

Re:Free beta (um, alpha) testing!

[toddestan]

98SE was the most stable of the Windows 9x series. Of course the NT based Windows are far, far, better, but my guess is that you never had to use ME or the first version of Windows 95.

Re:Free beta (um, alpha) testing!

[Reziac]

Not necessarily... I know a guy who did a good business backgrading Win98SE machines to plain Win98, because SE had so many more stability issues (and frequently would not play nice with SCSI at all).

Just to be contrary and perverse [g], I'll also mention my WinME box that hasn't crashed in over 3 years now. And on one of my junkers I've also got Win95-the-first, which tho only (ab)used for testing stuff, hasn't crashed on me once. WinME was just a matter of some tweaks, but I admit to astonishment about Win95-the-first. :)

Does Microsoft want this information leaked?

[Decimal Dave]

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.

Re:Does Microsoft want this information leaked?

[gl4ss]

who cares about mere screenshots.

even 98 can be made to look something that would resemble any screenshots you're likely to find.

an os is much more than the pretty images on screen. what would be more intresting would be detailed reports on the state of the more important additions(fs, the system itself) than some silly screenshots. like, are they really adding anything useful/secure/faster/helping or just bloating it with prettier bars?

Microsoft is in a tough spot with this one

[Crashmarik]

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.

Re:Microsoft is in a tough spot with this one

[Jon Abbott]

So, they [Microsoft] have their next upgrade is due in 2.5 years

...which about matches the release cycle of Debian! :^)

(Note to mods: I've been using Debian for many years... unstable though...)

Re:Microsoft is in a tough spot with this one

[DAldredge]

Isn't that when their 5 years agreement with the goverment expires?

Re:Microsoft is in a tough spot with this one

[PetoskeyGuy]

Gee, Hopefully they can get by with only scores of billions they have in cash. Times are tight for everyone I guess. Hang in there Bill.

Re:Microsoft is in a tough spot with this one

[Jason Earl]

You can pretty much guarantee that Longhorn will be unstable when Microsoft first releases it. Debian stable, on the other hand, has had 2.5 years of real world testing by the time it gets released.

Re:Microsoft is in a tough spot with this one

[bill_mcgonigle]

Theyr'e talking about a 2006 release for longhorn. Operating system updates have traditionally been nice cash cows for them.

That's why they got Corporate America to buy 'Subscriptions'. They pay per-user every year, no matter how many releases they get. (0 or 20) Amazingly enough, once enough were signed on, the number became 0.

Re:Karma to burn...

[Tim C]

You remind of CNN for technology. Unbiased "News". feh.

You must be new around here (checks uid - ah yes, 6 figures).

Slashdot has never been about unbiased news in all the time I've been here; it has always had a heavy OSS bias, and especially for Linux. That's not necessarily a bad thing, although I'd argue that it's not necessarily a good thing, either

If you want completely unbiased tech news, you're in the wrong place. On the other hand, your attempt to draw parallels between MS "leaking" betas and Linux test releases is non-sensical. The former is not meant for general release, while the latter most certainly is, at least for those willing to risk using potentially unproven code on their system.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Prof. Anal Killjoy.

Here is another link..

[adeyadey]

Here is another link where you can see the next version of Windows..

Marketing revisited

[AvengerXP]

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.

Re:Marketing revisited

[buckhead_buddy]

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.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments are very welcome.

Not sure if it was intended but the names listed in your SIG might make more appropriate names for Windows releases

• Offtopic - Win95 (Gui niceties rather than OS stability)
• Inflammatory - Win98 (exacerbation of instability)
• Inappropriate - WinME (enough said)
• Illegal - Windows2000 (post-monopoly ruling)
• Offensive - WinXP (the huge cost of the playskool GUI)

Of course that naturally leads to speculation about what Windows Longhorn would be better codenamed as. Some options from the slash moderation system...

• Troll - Ideal for pissing off Mac and Linux zealots
• Overrated - a minor upgrade with major marketing
• Informative - major drm lockdowns for MS, FBI, and NSA.
• Funny - results of revolutionary research and development

This gives us time.

[Adolph_Hitler]

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.

Re:This gives us time.

[Vint Cerf]

Don't worry, Linux is in safe hands. A thousand themers are ripping off the Longhorn look, pixel by pixel, even as we speak!!

Re:This gives us time.

[Wesley Felter]

Actually, Microsoft has recently complained that since their beta cycle is longer than an entire development cycle for OS X or a Linux distro, their ideas were getting copied before MS could even release them. So now they're going to keep the "Astro" user interface secret until just before Longhorn lauches.

Re:This gives us time.

[Barlo_Mung_42]

I know you were just trying to be funny but I think this attitude is detrimental to Linux in the long term. You need to lead and innovate, not aspire to catch up.

Ugly as...

[iamanatom]

My ass. I've seen the screenshots and its an ugly inerface. Any linux desktop is better than that. What were they thinking?

Re:Ugly as...

[AstroDrabb]

I agree. It is *very* childish looking. Each release of an MS OS seems to shrink the desktop space more and more. Soon, there won't be a desktop and you will interacte with an MS OS with *only* "wizards". Just what the world needs a dumbed down UI with all the power stripped away. It is funny that they made sure to leave their stupid product activation crap in there as seen in the screenshot.

How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[Adolph_Hitler]

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.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[Anonymous Coward]

At the current rate Linux will have competitive marketshare to Windows within a few years.

I was hearing this in 98-99. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now. Microsoft is a moving target for linux and every update and bugfix removes more of the complaints ppl have about windows and removes incentive to change. Linux's success counts on MS failure and MS is getting better.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[Overly Critical Guy]

[A]nd trust me, 3 years from now Linux will be mainstream.

I heard this 3 years ago. And the 3 years before that.

Linux will not be mainstream in 3 years. I imagine things will be just as they are now. MacOS and its iteration, Microsoft putting out its new version of Windows, and Linux struggling to have even just a sane media player, much less a sane desktop environment not reliant on hacking on top of X11.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[ealar dlanvuli]

I'm at a hospital that intends to move 3000 machines to "some alternative" (basically the options at the moment are linux and linux) inside the next 5 years.

We intend to replace a great deal of our server room as well.

The people who communicate with us will need to support our formats, people with larger contracts will be told to ditch Excel.

This particular hospital used to have a MS site license for Windows + Office on every machine here. It's only a matter of time before even more places do this.

Also, I've seen three companies switch to be mostly Mac based in the past year.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[AKnightCowboy]

I'm at a hospital that intends to move 3000 machines to "some alternative" (basically the options at the moment are linux and linux) inside the next 5 years.

That's all well and good, but within the same time frame there will be 300,000 new computer users who will experience Windows as their first OS. I'm sorry, but Linux has never, is not, and will never be a mainstream operating system. I would love to see it as much as the next guy, but it's just a hacked up UNIX-like OS built by a bunch of volunteers. Most people do NOT care about the free-software ideology, they just want to turn on their computer, read their e-mail, browse the web, and look at porn/pictures of their grandkids (not necessarily the same people). Why screw around with Linux when Windows comes for free on their computer?

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[Geek of Tech]

At one time wasn't Apple the dominant form of Computer for end-users? Yet, somehow they seem to have lost a user base, even though that was the first computer introduced to a number of people.

Besides, if you want something that feels like Windows, try Xpde. It works good. Or try lycoris.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[1lus10n]

but Linux has never, is not, and will never be a mainstream operating system.

actually that depends on your definition. when mot manufacturors are using it, and releasing software for it then it very much IS mainstream to most people.

but it's just a hacked up UNIX-like OS

in what way is linux "hacked up". more specifically what do you mean by "hacked up". to the majority of people out there Linux is very user friendly. and a hell of alot easier to use from the get-go than windows.

built by a bunch of volunteers. Most people do NOT care about the free-software ideology

this is a moot point, most people arent even aware where their car was built, let alone where their software was coded or who it was coded by. not to mention that using linux doesnt require you to care about a damn thing other than usability, time and money.

they just want to turn on their computer, read their e-mail, browse the web, and look at porn/pictures of their grandkids (not necessarily the same people). Why screw around with Linux when Windows comes for free on their computer?

this is the real point. Why ? well that all depends on what you think will happen, if microsoft tries to hijack all their data or force updates that break things (or worse delete things) then people will migrate. i already know a large number of "users" that have migrated because of microsofts cruddy stability, security, data formats etc. i will admit that the thing that would help Linux the most is having it installed by default on store bought PC's. but has the parent pointed out it doesnt need to start in the US to affect the US. if china starts making a move, south korea will follow shortly after so will india and japan (arguably two of our biggest bussiness partners) and sooner or later the companies that spawn dominance in those countries/regions will start marketing in the US. at that point the average person wont care what OS they run, so long as they can "turn on their computer, read their e-mail, browse the web, and look at porn/pictures of their grandkids"

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[leifm]

And if by chance there was a very mainstream Linux distro in use 3 years from now half of slashdot would be attacking it for doing whatever it did to be mainstream and telling everyone to move to Gentoo/Debian/something else.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[leifm]

Yeah, but Apple decided to be a niche player by not licensing the OS to 3rd parties.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[AntiOrganic]

I was of the same camp, for some time. Last year, I thought it would be five years before Linux/BSD would be ready for the desktop. Mucking around with KDE 2.2, Gnome 1.4, and all the ever-ugly applications and ill-designed crap soured my taste for Linux for awhile. Mplayer wouldn't compile. Xine was sloppy. VLC just sucked.

But you know what? This past August, I tried Linux again, and it's come far enough in just the year or so since I last used it where I've switched over all three of my desktops to Linux. Gnome 2.4 is beautiful. Evolution 1.4 is a very attractive piece of groupware software (I never faulted the design and intuitiveness of Outlook, which it obviously copied, but having Outlook on an operating system that doesn't cost $200 and isn't riddled with security holes is excellent). Xine is an excellent media player with an assload of different frontends like gxine and Totem to choose from. Pan beats the pants off of any Usenet news reader on Windows. For Web browsing, you can go with Mozilla/Firebird, or any of the native Gecko-based browsers like Epiphany or Galeon. Gaim exceeds AIM and Trillian in nearly every respect. Gnumeric implements every Excel worksheet function, in addition to some of its own. AbiWord's feature set is growing rapidly. And if you don't like the last two options, how about OpenOffice.org?

Switching screen resolutions under Gnome 2.4 is as easy as it is on Windows. There are very good tools for user and group management, even outside the scope of distribution-specific utilities like ConfigDrake.

We're getting there.

So Gimp isn't a suitable replacement for Photoshop yet? Who cares? Photoshop works just fine for me under Wine. So do games like Jedi Knight II, Diablo 2 and Starcraft. In fact, the only game I haven't gotten to run properly under Wine yet is Morrowind, and I suspect it's largely due to its very thorough use of DirectX 8.1 features like pixel shaders. Somehow I get the distinct feeling that this will be implemented correctly in the very near future. So what's left?

Of course, it's probably still easier to just use Windows. But what it boils down to, for me at least, is "is it easier enough to use Windows to justify me paying $200 for a license?" Not for me. Your mileage may vary, and I have no problem with that. I am not a zealot, just an advocate.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[blinkylights]

I'm sorry, but Linux has never, is not, and will never be a mainstream operating system.

Actually, in the server room, it is very much mainstream, and gaining ground. It sounds like what you're thinking of is the consumer/desktop OS market, where MS does so well. You might be right that Linux will never be competitive in that market, but that would be an awful shame... if Linux were to become a major desktop operating system, it would be the best thing that ever happened to MS.

...but it's just a hacked up UNIX-like OS built by a bunch of volunteers...

You mean as opposed to Windows, which is hacked-up DOS? Actually, the open source development model has, I think, proven itself as a perfectly viable way of producing high-quality software. (We wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't).

Most people do NOT care about the free-software ideology, they just want to turn on their computer, read their e-mail, browse the web, and look at porn/pictures of their grandkids (not necessarily the same people). Why screw around with Linux when Windows comes for free on their computer?

For most people, a new computer is a big expense. The same people you're talking about, the ones who just want to browse and get their email, they would - all of them - be using Macs if they were less expensive than PC's. Apple's OS is easier to use than MS', and (these days) more stable and secure. And yet, these people buy PC's with Windows. Why? Because, like you said, they don't know what OS stands for and they don't care... they'll just buy the cheaper one, even if it's put out by a monopolist company, and even if it has the worst kind of DRM, and even if it has security holes you can drive your hummer through. I think people will buy cheaper PC's with Linux (given that you can just turn it on and browse, get your porn, whatever), and never miss Windows, even if they never imagined that there might be some kind of computer-nerd ideology attached to it.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[ealar dlanvuli]

Why pay for windows when linux comes free on a cheeper computer?

It's really a question of who is going to streamline it first, not weither it's going to be streamlined.

The energy to push a transition is building up, I'm feeling it from dozens of people who aren't linux fanboys. To pretend it isn't there because linux hasn't been marketed to the masses yet is slightly shortsighted.

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[Sj0]

Let their kids have their fantasy. Sure, OSes that even in their now ancient, dilapidated state could mop the floor with Linux were trounced by MS, but don't worry, because somehow this little upstart OS with the usability of a used condom will be on top in three years!

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[jpop32]

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.

I, personally, am still waiting for Amiga to become mainstream and put an end to Microsofts bullying. ;-)

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[Adolph_Hitler]

And in the same time hundreds of thousands of new users in China will be using Linux for their first OS, What is your point?

Re:For the uninformed, like myself

[azzy]

Not even Microsoft can persuade people to upgrade from XP to XP. Hence they need a new version of windows. It's all about making money.

and the next step.. er... profit?

Finally!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

A true alternative to the Linux tax!!!

Re:Finally!!!!

[smittyoneeach]

Oh, you mean like this example supplied with my Visual Studio Enterprise Architect?

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\PlatformSDK\samples\winui
\Shell\Fakemen u>nmake

Microsoft (R) Program Maintenance Utility Version 7.10.3077
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

cl -c -DCRTAPI1=_cdecl -DCRTAPI2=_cdecl -nologo -D_X86_=1 -DWIN32 -D_WI
N32 -W3 -D_WINNT -D_WIN32_WINNT=0x0500 -D_WIN32_IE=0x0500 -DWINVER=0x0500 -MLd
-Zi -Od -DDEBUG FakeMenu.c
FakeMenu.c
Rc /r -DWIN32 -D_WIN32 -DWINVER=0x0500 -DDEBUG -D_DEBUG FakeMenu.rc
link /DEBUG:full /DEBUGTYPE:cv /INCREMENTAL:NO /NOLOGO -subsystem:windo
ws,5.0 -out:FakeMenu.exe FakeMenu.obj FakeMenu.res kernel32.lib ws2_32.lib msws
ock.lib advapi32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib comdlg32.lib winspool.lib
LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'link.obj'
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'link' : return code '0x49d'
Stop.

That 1181 error, and its cousin, 1104, are less than well documented, let us say.
I thought it was my project that was having issues, as I randomly tried crap to make it go, both in the dialogue-maze of the IDE and hacking the .rsp file (kudos for the .html build log--I haven't seen a more aesthetically pleasing example of stuff not working in some time) and invoking link.exe at the command line.
I don't know: this is a stock install, and I used the Visual Sudio .Net 2003 command prompt, which invokes vsvars32.bat, so I'm guessing that the likelihood of Operator Error is kinda low in this case.
But enough of this ranting. It is time to reboot and load a reasonable development OS, because I lack time to dick around with stuff that should "Just Work." , to mooch your phrase, sir.

Re:Finally!!!!

[edwdig]

LINK.EXE from Visual Studio 6.0 is really fun on Windows 2000. It very frequently won't terminate. And if I try to use End Task in the Task Manager on it, I get a "Permission Denied" error, even if the Administrator tries.

I can't log out, and I can't shut down. It'll just freeze waiting for LINK.EXE to terminate. Oh, after LINK.EXE locks up like that, I can't exit the IDE either. It wants to wait for LINK.EXE to terminate. End tasking the IDE results in it getting stuck in the same state as LINK.EXE.

Only solution is the power button.

I ended up installing OpenWatcom, as it worked fine for the project I was working on.

Re:Finally!!!!

[smittyoneeach]

The VC7.1 is actually fairly compliant with the C++ standard. I'm genuinely interested in doing platform-agnostic development in C++ using boost. Next time I light off XP, I'll delve into the boost::regex VC7.1 makefile.
Another highly amusing thing to do with Visual Studio is pull down Apache via WinCVS and see if you can open the project file.
I got errors about corrupt project files, or something. Come to think of it, I didn't use a unix2dos, in case Visual Studio needs CRLF (yeah, gratuitous incompatibility: yeah ).
We'll see.

Re:Finally!!!!

[spongman]

your setup is borked. i just tried it on a couple of machnies here and it works fine.

BTW: to get documentation on errors you can place the cursor in the 'LNK1181' text in the output window and hit F1.

What are you doing?

[sabNetwork]

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.

Re:What are you doing?

[bogie]

I honestly have no idea why your surprised. Slashdot has never had a conscience about blowing away sites with the /. effect. It was done today, it will be done tomorrow, and the day after that.

Re:What are you doing?

[insertionPoint]

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.

Neat! A forum that doesn't scale well talking about a product that probably also won't.

Lindows is doing a good job.

[Adolph_Hitler]

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.

Re:Lindows is doing a good job.

[westlake]

...and you have more and more Americans who hate DRM

Which of course explains the one million downloads of iTunes for Windows this past week. In three years DRM will be integrated into your digital TV, cable box and PVR and no one but a geek will give it a second thought.

Re:Lindows is doing a good job.

[Bob Davis, Retired]

The DRM-encumbered tracks (Protected AACs) are easily broken. Apple undoubtedly designed it this way. Their DRM is designed to 'keep honest people honest.' They won't throw up unimaginable barriers if you really NEED to make an MP3 out of that AAC. I won't go into how to break the protection, but Apple provides you with all the tools necessary to do so. Any clever person can figure it out.

Typical reaction

[Overly Critical Guy]

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!

Re:Typical reaction

[timmyf2371]

Another crapy file system like NTFS

Sounds like you've tested this file system already - if it's not too much trouble, could you take the time to post the good features and also the bad features compared to the file systems in open source software? Thought not.

a new interface that is something most people dont need or has been done better by the OSS community

Which interface are you referring to? I'd have liked to have use that during my days as a Linux user.

Strangely enough, I don't remember having the same opportunities for ease-of-use and configuration that are included even in my current version of Windows.

new "features" like .NET lockin and DRM

The only valid point you make, in my opinion. Things like DRM and .net lockin do worry me from what I've read, however, we will need to wait for a final release to see the full impact and implications of these new features.

Re:Typical reaction

[aws4y]

EXT3 under heavy loads can be unrelible, but this is can be managed, EXT2 is a "standard" FS but it doesnt have some of the nicer features like journaling. RiserFS is maturing, but its not necisiarily ready for primetime yet.

As for WinFS it is not a file system more like a Journaling system that sits on top of NTFS which has several more porblems with its structure than Ext3 and Ext2. Also WinFS uses MSSQL which is not necissarily a good idea, if they put in in userspace (sorry, Application Space for Windows) it could mean that WinFS is vulnerable to malformed or ,malicious code, if you put it in the kernel (like say IIS) then you might take a performance hit, it is also a bad design to put servers and databases in the Kernel unless absolutely necisary. The fact is that Windows has never separated the User space and the system space, which makes it inherently less secure in almost all aspects.

You obviously havent tried gnome 2.4 or kde 3.1, I would suggest you download KNOPPIX In many circles it is better as a user interface than Windows XP. I personly thin that a minimalist approch is better for GUIs since XP came with a lot of crap that wasn't useful and a lot of the more usefull features turned off. (yes I leagaly purchased and use on one of my Machines a copy of Windows XP)

This code leak has a weird timing, as Linux 2.6 is in its home strech, panther is Releaced and all MS has had in the last 6 months is patches for security holes.

No software is perfect, but some software is better than others.

Re:Typical reaction

[Geek of Tech]

Why must you continually troll.

Just now you posted "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 earlier in the article, you posted " They're not marketing to anybody--this isn't the final product. "

Is this marketing, or is it not? Or do you just want to troll away at slashdot users? That's the only consistancy in your comments.

In the first one you said " Just as I predicted, Slashbots are making their judgements based on the leak of something not due out for another two years, simply because it's Microsoft."

In the this one you said "But, of course, I fully expect people here to treat this like a final product (two years...) and bash away. Because it's Microsoft!".

Your arguements contridict each other. All you've done is troll.

Re:screen size

[Anonymous Coward]

My monitor is rectangular. Every monitor I have ever seen has a rectangular screen. What shape is the one you use?

Reminds me of NT5

[fildo]

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.

Body vs. Under-the-hood questions

[riclewis]

Is this build meant to give us some idea of what the new UI will be like, or is this merely a tech demo of some of the new features (WinFS, Whidbey, IE).

Also, does anyone know if the desktop is completely comprised of DirectX objects in this build?

Re:Body vs. Under-the-hood questions

[0racle]

Well lets see, the artical said it didnt have aero so...

However the artical also said that they dont belive MS is actuall interested in bug reports from this build, but considering the change that enabling WinFS could bring around, i'd bet they are very interested in bug reports on the new features.

If you want to get modded Funny....

[bryhhh]

then you must add these obligitory steps:

6. ????
7. Profit

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, way to ruin a good M$ bash with facts.

TODO:

[gzur]

Rip an image. Boot it up in VMWare Have Coffee. Watch the flames.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[typhoonius]

Yes, they're always 10.3 steps ahead of the competition.

Uugh

[quantaman]

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.

Re:Uugh

[Jugalator]

Hehe, keep in mind it's only a temporary desktop design not using the new Aero engine or whatever it's called. I doubt the final version will be similar to these alpha screenshots. The interesting parts to me lie in the features, not the GUI.

Re:Uugh

[Winterblink]

Oh come on. First, this isn't a screenshot from a release version. Second, the screenshot's meant to show off some new interface concepts -- and I'm willing to bet, all at the same time. You can make explorer pretty wasteful in space usage with every version of Windows, but you can get rid of it if you want. Chances are very good they turned on everything under the sun for the purposes of that shot.

Re:Uugh

[geekoid]

"Add/Remove Programs" have to to with file browsing?..."

What if you could click on a file and remove the program associated with it?

Please remember that MS is trying to remove the idea of files from their users.

Re:Uugh

[Jon Abbott]

What if you could click on a file and remove the program associated with it?

I can see the tech support calls now...

User: My Word document won't open!
Tech support: How are you opening the file?
User: I'm double-clicking on it and it says there is no program associated with that file.
Tech support: Did you click "Add/remove program by file association" by chance?
User: No. Well, yeah, but I didn't know what I was doing.

I'm glad I don't work tech support... :^)

Re:Uugh

[anagama]

My thoughts exactly. There are some things that should not be near each other. For example, lit matches and gasoline should be kept far apart. And the ability to delete files, should be kept far away from the ability to delete programs. Otherwise, things will go *poof* ... even for experienced users. Everyone's mouse finger slips sometimes.

Re:Uugh

[dreadnougat]

Why do you assume that there won't be a prompt warning the user before they delete the file?

Re: Uugh

[Black Parrot]

> I don't mind eye-candy if it doesn't bog down the system and waste space.

No problem... by the time this comes out you'll have a computer four times as fast as the one you have now.

Re:Uugh

[dreadnougat]

No, I mean that then it's not just a case of an experienced user's finger slipping. It would still prevent that.

New IE

[chundo]

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...

Re:New IE

[EinarH]

Yes, I noticed the pop-up feature on this picture and it's about time...

And yeah, I'm not looking forward to a possible new IE6 CSS either, that would be like MS Java all over again.

One thing I would like to see in IE is a possibility to have several proxies and IE automaticly selecting the proxy with the lowest latency.

Re:New IE

[cubicledrone]

full CSS support.

How many years late?

I wonder if they will finally support PNG alpha channels correctly.

Re:New IE

[evilquaker]

Yes, I noticed the pop-up feature on this picture and it's about time...

What do you mean "it's about time"? It's not even available yet. Longhorn won't be available for another two years (at least), and it's not clear when popup blocking will be available. On the other hand, Mozilla has popup blocking now (and has had it for a while already...).

One thing I would like to see in IE is a possibility to have several proxies and IE automaticly selecting the proxy with the lowest latency.

Nice idea... but why not suggest it to the Mozilla group now instead of waiting and hoping that IE gets it?

Re:New IE

[Rasta Prefect]

And yeah, I'm not looking forward to a possible new IE6 CSS either, that would be like MS Java all over again.

You mean it could be worse than now?

Re:New IE

[darkpurpleblob]

One thing I would like to see in IE is a possibility to have several proxies and IE automaticly selecting the proxy with the lowest latency.

Couldn't you just write your own proxy where you could add and configure other proxies, and then have your proxy automatically select the best and pipe requests/reponses through that one? You could then use this proxy with whatever browser you wanted. You could also select the proxy that should be used based on criteria other than lowest latency as well.

Re:New IE

[jargoone]

Screenshots of some new IE features strangely resemble features that Mozilla and others have had for a year or two.

Yeah. Now if Microsoft could change IE so it would 1) run slow as molasses and b) break the gestures on my laptop touchpad, they'd be right up there with Mozilla.

Re:New IE

[EinarH]

You are right about the timing, the reason I mentioned it was because I'm stuck in IE at work even though I'm using Mozila Firebird at home.

And I will submit a feature request to Firebird as soon as possible.

Re:New IE

[EinarH]

I'm not sure on this. I though about the solution you are proposing and it provides better flexibility.
On the other hand it would be nice for those that don't have their own proxy to have a implementation at browser level. And for using multiple anonymous proxies a browser-side implementation is better, I think.

Anyway, I'll submit a feature request to Firebird as soon as possible.

Looks like Linux is ahead of them already

[Adolph_Hitler]

So far Linux seems to be ahead of them in development, I mean Storage Slicker and then theres xouvert , cairographics and project Y.

Re:screen size

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

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...

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Mysticalfruit]

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.

Version 5.2 =

[Malc]

Windows Server 2003

Re:Karma to burn...

[Overly Critical Guy]

The former is not meant for general release, while the latter most certainly is, at least for those willing to risk using potentially unproven code on their system.

Wrong. If the former was not meant for general release, why is Microsoft going to make it availabe on their website in November?

DRM

[Alain Williams]

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.

Inefficient use of space

[baywulf]

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.

http://www.neowin.net/staff/creamhackered/longho rn build4051/explorer.jpg

The same problem exists to a lesser degree in XP and Windows 2000.

Don't forget

[melted]

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.

Got me a copy...

[zbowling]

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.

Re:Got me a copy...

[zbowling]

From MSDN Downloads website:

Here's a select list of new downloads for MSDN Subscribers

Special Access to Longhorn and Whidbey PDC Release Code

Active MSDN Operating Systems, Professional, Enterprise, and Universal subscribers may request a set of software distributed at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2003 (PDC), including the preview versions of the "Longhorn" operating system and SDK, and Visual Studio "Whidbey".

Eligible MSDN Subscribers can request the previews by calling MSDN Customer Service. Certified Partners and Breadth ISV / Empower partners should contact their respective Service Centers for further assistance. Note that the preview package contains DVD media, and a DVD drive is required. Please allow 3-4 weeks for fulfillment.

Its pretty easy to get a copy of it...

Torrent

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

So...

Anyone got a torrent?

:-)

Re:Torrent

[Sasquatchtree]

Longhorn Torrent

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[SensitiveMale]

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.

1 million vs 60 million?

[Adolph_Hitler]

60 million + downloads of Kazaa vs 1 million downloads of Itunes, yeah I see your point.

Suspicious; Was: Microsoft is in a tough spot...

[darkatom]

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?

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[jaavaaguru]

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.

Right, they should keep developers in the dark

[spideyct]

I can think of no valuable reason why 3rd party developers would want any information on an upcoming operating system. Why not release the OS with no software and THEN let everyone figure out how to take advantage of its new features?

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...

Re:Right, they should keep developers in the dark

[jmorris42]

> I have yet to see a Longhorn advertisement on TV or a billboard
> or anywhere.

Why the hell would they PAY to advertise their vaporware? It's the top story on C|Net right now and even the fscking Drudge Report has a story on it.

Re:wow

[Winterblink]

Apple steals from MS, MS steals from Apple, everyone steals from everyone. Time to get over it.

Well some stuff ya just can't sell...

[darkatom]

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.

Re:Well some stuff ya just can't sell...

[ishmaelflood]

Um, you are obviously an operating system coder of great ability, since you can detect from screenshots of an alpha that little has changed under the bonnet.

However, I just had a tiny little suspicion that maybe they get the invisible things working first and just stick any old gui over the top to get it usable.

But obviously you know far more about these things than me, so I must be wrong.

Plug Ins

[WookieinHeat]

If you notice Microsoft is now calling Plug Ins "Add Ons". Could this be due to the lawsuit the just lost against Eolas?

Not the same

[spideyct]

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?

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)

Okay so lets get all excited

[DarkOx]

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.

They put themselves in that spot.

[twitter]

I have to admire your smoothness. You detail Microsoft's obvious lack of competitiveness and then try to hang the same problems on free software. The transition was well done, though your overall point is FUD. You claim:

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.

Re:They put themselves in that spot.

[Compuser]

I am not the original poster but I think your post
is just wrong. Let me just mention the one feature
in Mozilla which was dropped and left a lot of
people unhappy: MNG support. Now of course you could
go in and code up a custom Moz version for yourself
but I have yet to hear of a Mozilla fork.

Re:They put themselves in that spot.

[damiam]

but I have yet to hear of a Mozilla fork.

The Phoenix/Firebird project started as a Mozilla fork.

Re:They put themselves in that spot.

[Crashmarik]

I really hate to explain myself, but you raise significant points and point out misperceptions. Saying microsoft is not competetive is so completely laughable its funnier than the addams family episode I am watching. Microsoft is the default choice. Its Coke and Pepsi. Everything else barely amounts to RC Cola. They are in a bad place because they have allowed their competitors an opportunity to increase their market share at microsofts expense, and they seem to have mismanaged their product cycle.

OSS does have the same problems anyone else does when they add features to a system. Sorry to burst your bubble on this but new features break old code. When this happens both OSS and Closed source incur the same penalty of upgrading and adjusting system configs. In the case of OSS there is just the cost of labor. In the case of closed source their is a labor cost and there is an ass making you pay full tarrif for what you own 99 percent of.

Its not a question of things going away. It is a question of things not working the same way. If you want features that have been dropped please just check the man pages for the word deprecated.

I have gotten office 97 to work on XP. Its no more unpleasant than finding out that the Telnet daemon is not installed by default in redhat and having to get that running.

Free software is nothing mystical. Open source is meerly an improved process of developing software. The comparison between closed source development and open source development is much like the change in mathematics before and after algebraic notation was developed. The mathematics is the same, the results are the same it just became alot easier to read and make contribution. The same is true of open source. The same principles govern, the same results are obtained, its just much easier to see whats going on and to make a contribution.

Re:They put themselves in that spot.

[Zontar The Mindless]

About 90% of the posts on Mozilla and Bugzilla complaining about MNG being dropped appear to have come from just one person.

Now if you want to carp about SVG instead YARF*, I'm with ya 110%, mate.

-----

*(Yet Another Raster Format).

Re:They put themselves in that spot.

[Compuser]

I think users at this point don't care but having
a standard MNG support would be nice since it
could potentially lead to sites using it. Who is
going to use MNG if a user has to install support
for it separately?
And to answer the poster below, this was my first
post to mention MNG. Even if it really is mostly
one guy making waves about MNG, I am not that guy.

Re:Here's a good comparison

[spoco2]

am I the only one who read this and went... "WAH?"

How the hell does tar compare to word... one is a packaging app, the other is a word processor...

MSDN Subscribers can get the preview software too.

[Gavin Scott]

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.

Save the best for last...

[rampant mac]

Probably the biggest oxymoron in the history of computing:

Windows Security

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Frac]

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!!

Re:Karma to burn...

[pez]

obComment: uid length isn't always a good indicator of the insight of a given poster ;-)

I don't see /. as being a biased news site, as much as I see it's *audience* being biased. There is certainly a heavy Linux influence among /. readers, which is completely natural when you consider that this is news for nerds, and build-your-own OS is certainly more nerdy than buying one off the shelf.

Re:screen size

[Theatetus]

My monitor is a Moebius strip you insensitive clod!!!

Pixel by pixel vs vector graphic

[Latent Heat]

Ripping off Longhorn pixel by pixel? Well, that's your problem right there!

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.

Re: biggest flop since ME

[LaissezFaire]

Windows ME was a strange release for Microsoft. I believe most of the reason it was a big flop was that Win2k already had most of the home use (e.g. Direct X, plug and play, USB) features built in.

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.

Irrelevant

[Progman3K]

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...

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[_xeno_]

I find it worth noting that the theme there actually is Playskool XP recolored to be gray. In fact, it looks suspiciously like the Silver color scheme available currently in Windows XP...

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.

Re:Here's a good comparison

[Have Blue]

That's an unfair comparison. Try throwing the file at emacs, or some other Linux program that attempts to load the entire file into RAM, which tar does not.

An ominous choice of icon names...

[evilquaker]

Anyone else notice that in the desktop shots, "My Computer" has been replaced by just "Computer"? Is M$ trying to say that with their next OS, your computer won't really be yours? (Not that this is a surprise, of course...)

They have some good ideas

[Jameth]

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).

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Overly Critical Guy]

Not to be overly critical...

That's my job.

Re:Here's a good comparison

[AvengerXP]

Do you work at Tom's Hardware for benchmarking? Pffftt hahahahaha

Re:screen size

[jcr]

I've seen circular monitors, but they were on radar systems..

-jcr

Re:Here's a good comparison

[damiam]

Better comparison: Throw a 1.5GB file at Word. Throw a 1.5GB file at Openoffice.

Say no to the Linux Tax!!! (Part 1)

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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. .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.

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.

Re:Say no to the Linux Tax!!! (Part 1)

[Anonymous Coward]

PART 2, continued.

But I should not link Linux to murder, that would be a bit of a wacky stretch. This article is about a serious topic! A pound of coal has 1.6*10^7 joules of energy, and 1 kwh is the same as 3.61*10^6 joule, so a pound of coal has 1.6*10^7j/pound divided by 3.6*10^6kwh/j or roughly 4.4 kilowatt-hours of energy. Pretty crap compared to oil I must admit. But 4.4 kwh is still nothing to sneeze at, as I myself if burned in an oven probably wouldn't produce all that much more, and I weigh 200 times more than a pound of coal.

But how much of that could Linux waste? Let's say As before before, 693 kwh for a computer w/o powersaving (linux), on all year round vs 337 kwh for a computer with powersaving (Windows), 5 hours a day of non-powersaving use. Thus, 693kwh divided by 4.4kwh/pound-coal means about 158 pounds of coal go to run the first computer, while 693kwh divided by 4.4kwh/pound-coal means roughly 77 pounds are needed for the second computer. That's 81 pounds of coal a year some person in a coal mine is hauling up so that Linux can sit there wasting energy.

Now I know what you are saying, 'I don't burn coal to run my computer! My power comes from the power company, and who knows what they do. Maybe hydro or nuclear or maybe they have gerbils running in cages.'

That's OK though, there is a way to get a rough idea of what exactly they might be using. Yes here we are, a chart of how energy is produced in the US. Roughly, Coal: 22%, Nat. Gas: 20%, Oil: 14%, Nuke: 7%, Hydro: 3%, 'biofuel': 3%, other 3%... so linux is probably wasting coal, oil, or natural gas. Maybe plutonium. Probably not solar, wind, geothermal, tides, ocean thermal whatever, biomass, bamboo/wood/sugarcane burning/whatever.

So there you have it. Linux wastes energy .How much energy, though? I mean what's a few pounds of coal between friends. OK a few dozen pounds. Some of us get that much for christmas in our stockings free from Santa Claus. But what if there was more than one person running Linux? What if Wal-Mart gets it's wishes and Lindows becomes used by, say, I don't know, everyone who has a computer in the United States of America?

So how many computers are there in the US anyways? In the US, here says roughly 60 million on the internet[broken link] , Here says 133 million flat out. I like to be conservative and use round numbers so lets say 50 million people switch to Unix, the 'non-powersaving OS', for a year. Then what?

First let me calculate the power consumption of 50 million computers that have usable working powersaving (Windows) and compare it with those that don't (Open Source, like Linux or BSD). Again, in one year: 693 kwh for a computer w/o powersaving, on all year round. 337 kwh for one with powersaving. Multiply each of those by 50 million. That is 3.47*10^10 kwh for the first computers, and 1.69*10^10 kwh for the second. A difference of 1.87*10^10 kwh, or 18.7 -billion- kilowatt hours.

Now, how much is this 18.7 Billion kilowatt hours, all of which would be wasted turning hard disk platters that were not being read/written, and shooting light out of monitors that went unwatched? How much is that in terms of oil, coal, or natural gas? 1 kwh is 3.61*10^6 joules, so in joules the waste is 6.75*10^16 joules. Now there's 1.6e7 joules in a pound of coal, 1.1e6j in a cubic foot of natural gas, 6.1e9 in a barrel of oil, and 3.7e13 joules in a pound of uranium.

Thus, the waste of switching 50 million computers to Linux would be 6.75e16j divided by 1.6e7j per pound-coal, or 4.2 billion pounds of coal. Gas? That'd be 61 billion cubic feet of natural gas (roughly a 3/4 square mile blob of gas). Or 11 million barrels of oil. Or, 1,824 pounds of Uranium

Speaking of Uranium, it's stripped from Uranium ore (rocks), two pounds U per ton of rock, and 1 percent of that the right kind of U for splittin'. So, we would be diggin thru roughly 182 thousand tons (1824pounds*100percentages) of radioactive dirt so that Linux computers can s

Re:Say no to the Linux Tax!!! (Part 1)

[magores]

Jimminy Christmas!

I'm not sure how to respond to this, but I'll try any way...

1) Damn.
2) Damn dude, thats serious shit you're talking about
3) Damn dude, thats serious shit you're smoking
4) 1 joule + 142 amps = how many boobs per link?
5) In Mathematical Russia, kw/h own you.
6) huh?
7) Hot GRITS! Not hot lumps of coal!
8) Do you drive a solar powered car?
9) Is this the environmental version of goatse?

Re:Say no to the Linux Tax!!! (Part 1)

[Ohreally_factor]

Better solution:

Use *nix on energy efficient PPC.

Re:Say no to the Linux Tax!!! (Part 1)

[boy_afraid]

I think you for got your tin foil hat while you were doing your calculations. But really, what's kind of funny is I actually understand your conversions perfectly (being a physics nerd myself). One thing you might want to consider is how many people actually take advantage of Windows' power saving features. What about notebook users? I'm sure notebook users usually leave thier power settings on factory default, whereas I sqeeze ever watt when I'm using the battery, but couldn't give a damn about sleep mode when I'm plugged in.

I leave my PC on 24/7 and take advantage of the power saving mode to increase the life of my hard drive and reduce noise, but while I'm at work I like having access to my home computer so I really don't want in power saving mode when I need to access it remotely.

There are just so many variables, but you've made an EXCELLENT attempt at understanding just how much power a PC can use and which operating system can help keep the earth pollution free, even if it is a "drop in the bucket", but every drop counts and it adds up for every PC.

I will take you analysis into considerations on how to use my PCs.

Re:Say no to the Linux Tax!!! (Part 1)

[mixmasta]

Crikey, I was agreeing with you until the "Windows is modern, secure, etc." part. ROFL.

I'd like to see power features work well on linux too and I think they can do it more easily. Give it some time.

Until then turn off yer damn computer when not using it, kooksicle, and save even more power.

IE has pop-up blocking now?

[RPoet]

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?

Re:IE has pop-up blocking now?

[slappyjack]

I wonder if once IE has pop-up blocking popups will go the hell away?

More importantly, will Popup blocking be turned on by default; and if not what silly name will Microsoft give the function to make it painfully hard for the average schmo to find?

That's nothing!

[Valar]

I have a leaked beta of the new linux.

Re:That's nothing!

[Valar]

Nah, the quote was, in fact, "Thank God for Microsoft." You are right, though, that he was talking about Power Point. For some reason, that sig makes people very angry though :)

Re:That's nothing!

[An Onerous Coward]

Who wants to run the betting pool on whether Longhorn will be out before Linux 3.0?

Hell, Slashdot should add in a geek betting site, where we can gamble our Karma over such ponderables as "Will SCO win its lawsuit (1000/1 odds)" and "Will Darl McBride serve prison time? (1/1000)". We could place bets on Bill Gates' net worth at the end of 2004, or the release date of Red Hat 10.0.

It would be a monumental timesink with no real value. But hey, isn't that what we love about this place? :)

virus-proof ?

[e_AltF4]

> 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 ?

Re:virus-proof ?

[netsharc]

Maybe not Palladium, but what's the name of the feature where they DRM the computer upto the BIOS so that no "unofficial" software can ever be loaded? TCPA, or maybe Palladium?

In any case I'm not saying that's what I think, but it's a feature that Microsoft would surely boast about... "No virus can ever run on our OS!"

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[shepmaster]

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

Codenames Suck?

[sethadam1]

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.

Re:Codenames Suck?

[AvengerXP]

If it's so internal why is it paved like wallpaper nowadays?

Re:Codenames Suck?

[TomV]

VS2002 was 'Rainier' and VS2003 was 'Everett' before release. The VS release after 'Whidbey' is 'Orcas', another island, near Whidbey. Sharepoint Portal Server was 'Tahoe', SQL2000 was 'Shiloh'...

And on the same principle, the new products we're working on in the small UK-based company where I work are currently known as 'Grimsby', 'Carshalton' and 'Cleethorpes'.

Re:Here's a good comparison

[sterwill]

I've edited 40 GB files in XEmacs (raw disk devices) to recover a few password hashes. Works fine.

Re: try for yourself here - download shorthorn

[Black Parrot]

Then read your e-mail to find out how to upgrade it to a longhorn.

Re:Karma to burn...

[pVoid]

Jackass eh?

Zealot

Zealot who will defend his rights because RFID is invading his privacy, but will have absoltutely no qualms about "biased news".

Idiot Zealot who will cry "rape of our rights!" when cease and desist orders are sent, but will very happily welcome propaganda... even defend it. Because make no mistake about it, Idiot Zealot, biased news is nothing but propaganda.

Windows 95 part II

[louabill]

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.

Re:Why not?

[Bastian]

I mean, Apple did it what, 3 times before OS X came out. ::ducks::

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[hatrisc]

what are you saying that microsoft's ideas aren't original?

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[TrajanAugustus]

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.

DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

> > 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."

Mac / osx / aqua / safari?

[ayeco]

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.

Re:Mac / osx / aqua / safari?

[o_kenway]

You are not alone - what's worse as it looks like a really *bad* copy, like something you'd do in Claris^H^H^H^H^H^HAppleWorks' drawing package when you were 5...

Microsoft in copying Apple shocker!

On the other hand, given this is not the final UI, I suspect it'll look a lot different and given MS's current trend of making GUIs for 5 year olds, expect a sort of cross between XP's Luna(cy) and Aqua (it's called Aero apparently), with lots of "helpful" wizards an huge icons and buttons. Gah, Ick. etc.

Flame-o-rama

[kylef]

Stop your damn whinning you troll. If /. bothers you so much then leave. You must be the biggest butt buddy of Billy boy I have ever seen here on /.

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!

CapCodes for Builds

[obfuscated]

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.

Re:screen size

[Chess_the_cat]

All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. Therefore, unless the monitor is circular or triangular, it's bloody rectangular.

Here is proof that Bush is involved.

[ratfynk]

Follow this link and you will find that Texas has alot to say about Longhorn

Re:Here is proof that Bush is involved.

[Reziac]

I followed your link, and all I found was a lot of bullshit! ;)

Little People User Interface

[inkswamp]

Here's a rare Christmas party group shot of the design team for the Longhorn UI.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[FxChiP]

Actually, Microsoft's own abbreviation for themselves is MS - MicroSoft. Criticize THEIR capitalization, not his.

Besides, MSAA looks better somehow than MAA.

Well you could look at the screenshots...

[shaitand]

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.

Paved?

[sethadam1]

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.

Anti-aliases System Text?

[Ibanez]

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

Torrent

[Sasquatchtree]

This looks liek the torrent to the new alpha. http://msbetas.net/Longhorn-4051-PDC.xBetas.rar.to rrent

Anyone want to Switch now??

[octavian755]

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

Re:Then you're mistaken.

[bmajik]

ok. so let me clarify. I'm not saying that developers make all decisions about MS product design - far from it. however, someone who's title is "marketing", or "sales", or is in the sales/marketing organization is not making product decisions (although they do make valuable suggestions/feature requests, as they're the front lines in dealing with real-life customers)

the PM will solict feedback from various sources and that drives what does and doesn't go into the product. It may very well be that the target "market" of a product is a novice, and thus the settings would be all wrong for someone who was a power user. That is not a decision made by a "marketing" person - that is a PM decision, based on feedback/research/whatever that the PM has put together.

i dont work on the office team, so i cant tell you who the word experts are or aren't, so i dont want to argue about stuff you've heard vs stuff i've heard :)

re: ui guidelines:

do you think marketing people have access to dropoff .jpg files into the build servers ? or, in the case of Win32 controls - do you think that the title bars in windows are just GIFs that get scaled ? They're programmatically drawn - marketing people aren't checking in code changes to the windows sources!! The security on the windows source code from even a read-only perspective is so tight (following some publicized breakins a while back) that there is no chance that someone in the sales/marketing org could change some content even if they wanted to or knew how..

mac ie?

[_defiant_]

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.

Re: biggest flop since ME

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

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

Re:Then you're mistaken.

[bmajik]

i disagree.

"what color should our PCWorld ad be ?" is a marketing decision. "whats the best way to position windows server 2003 against linux for situation x?" is a marketing question.

"what is the line of importance below which features get cut for this release" is a product decision, based on business realities of shipping software, and is mostly a PM thing. i view decisions which affect the design of the product as distinct from decisions that affect how the product is sold. To me, one is marketing, one is not.

Oh, and im not an OS/2 expert, but I loved OS/2 2.1 and don't understand why it didn't do better. Windows sucked so badly, comparatively. My guess is that part of OS/2's problem was the dearth of software for it, but really, it was a superior in all ways product, so i dont know why it failed. The _design_ of OS/2 was brilliant and effectively flawless, IMO. (PM jobs). The buzz around OS/2 didn't exist, nor did the advertising, sales, etc (marketing job)

So,I chalk up OS/2 2.1 as a marketing failure.

Finally..

[bmantz65]

A download manager for IE. About three or so years too late..

Re:It's the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple gave away their stuff, most of the linux hippies would switch in a heartbeat despite their "Free as in speech" BS.

Apple makes hardware, you moron. Who the hell gives away hardware for free? This is like comparing apples to...uh.... Apples.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[pi eater]

also looks like the other great innovation they are introducing is a.. new clock

geek gear

Worst. Interface. Ever.

[thatguywhoiam]

I have to thank you for that link. That is spectacularly awful.

Failure of the public school system

[Laconian]

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.

Re:Here's a good comparison

[Reziac]

Just curious, has anyone actually pitched a 1.5gb file at Word or OpenOffice?

(I do know as of Ventura Publisher v5, ca. 1995, its filesize limit was 1.2gb. Which was 2x the size of the average HD of the era.)

OS/2 2.1's problem was...

[LO0G]

That it was marketed as being a better windows than windows.

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 /. 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.

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.

Opinion rooted in ignorance

[t0ny]

Methinks this is just vaporware

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.

Re:Opinion rooted in ignorance

[glwtta]

After seeing that, I have no doubts about the future of Windows being bright.

The largest software company in the world (one of the largest companies in the world, period) has a "professional" build process for their flagship product? Well, whew, I was beginning to worry about their complete market dominance there for a second.

Re:Opinion rooted in ignorance

[t0ny]

Ya, they dont do something so informal and slow like using a newsgroup or mailing list. Its actually impressive; I never got the impression they were all doing volunteer work.

Torrent here....

[LnxAddct]

here

No tab browsing or am I not seeing it?!?!?

[Blimey85]

Hmm... I looked at the screenshots and I don't see any tab browsing... surely the geeks in Redmond are smart enough to add tabbed browsing to IE aren't they? Isn't that one of the top reasons why people switch to Mozilla? I'm not saying that's the only great thing about Mozilla... it just plain rocks, but the first feature I noticed and fell in love with was the tabbed browsing.

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.

Aqua was shown 14 months before the release of OSX

[Xenex]

"Steve Jobs hid aqua until right before the OS X launch."

Steve Jobs demonstrated Aqua at MacWorld in January 2000. John Siracusa of ArsTechnica fame posted an in-depth look at Quartz and Aqua in January 2000 as well.

Mac OS X wasn't released until March 2001.

That's 14 months.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Hooded One]

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.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Hooded One]

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)

Umm... what?

[TheInternet]

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

Re:Suspicious; Was: Microsoft is in a tough spot..

[martin-boundary]

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?

Ha,ha (evil laugh) You've discovered the plan. But you'll never guess the name of the interim version. Longhorn ME. Oops, I gave it away...

Nothing to see here! honestly

[Alkonaut]

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?

The most interesting thing

[Animedude]

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.

No Drop Shadows?

[p0z3r]

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

Re:No Drop Shadows?

[Animedude]

[ ] You know that this is not the GUI used in the final version of Longhorn and instead only a temporary solution.

Just to play the raving paranoid here

[theonetruekeebler]

How much fake information do you think Microsoft might generate in order to send competitors' developers (including OSS developers) on wild goose chases?

I call bullshit on the UI statement

[swb]

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.

Re:I call bullshit on the UI statement

[drsmithy]

The steering, placement of MS products and general marketing influence is ALL OVER Windows UI.

For example ?

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.

Again, for example ?

I think you might be mixing up "OS internals" with "product requirements".

For example, marketing undoubtedly had a lot to do with the reason Win95 sacrificed so much for backwards compatibility and why that product line lasted about five years longer than was originally envisaged.

However, if you think anyone in marketing was writing code or even design documentation, I think you'd be gravely mistaken.

Marketing decides what a product has to do, unquestionably - they are, after all, trying to create a product that the maximum number of people will buy. However, I sincerely doubt marketing gets involved with fundamental internal design, basic UI architecture or writing code.

Re:I call bullshit on the UI statement

[gsfprez]

so how do you explain to total and complete lack of consistency throughout the entire UI?

i swear - every day, i must find at least 3 or 4 new dialog boxes that throw the "ok" or "yes do it" button in a totally random location.. as opposed to the bottom right (the end of the Window for us left-right,top-bottom readers) its maddening.

and sure that top-bottom, right-left (japanese) folks find it just as annoying - because ITS INCONSISTENT.

Re:Well...

[mormop]

None, but enough bug reports and other end user contributions which play a part in the overall development of Open Source.

And no contributions under the name "anonymous coward".

Ok, who did it?

[glwtta]

Someone spilled BlueCurve all over my OSX!

Re:Well...

[mormop]

If your not willing to put your name to what you say, it probably isn't worth saying

Re:Well...

[mormop]

Oh yeah, and while I'm at it, more hours than I can count answering questions on mail lists and bbs's for various open source packages.

That is, after all one of open sources claims i.e. that it is a community that provides mutual support. What have you done that's worhtwhile?

Re:THIS PIECE OF HTMLCODE WILL KILL INTERNET EXPLO

[Zontar The Mindless]

Ta very much for the interesting bit of archaeological info there, matey.

"surprising changes"?

[mblase]

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.

Re:Where Could They Possibly Be Getting Their Idea

[Mysticalfruit]

That is a great handle!

Marketing's sticky little fingers

[Vexar]

If the user interface is not designed by marketing, then they have a 'plant' position in the GUI group who serves only them. This planted individual probably draws everything in Photoshop, considers his work more important than the OS itself, and cannot even code in Macromedia Flash ActionScript which has a click-through GUI for writing functions.

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."

Moo

[Chacham]

Timothy, please stop using the title as part of the story. The title should not need to be looked at.

Re:Then you're mistaken.

[drsmithy]

Someone else effectively answered the rest, but:

The _design_ of OS/2 was brilliant and effectively flawless, IMO.

Not really. Certainly compared to DOS and Windows 3.11. Mostly compared to Win95. Definitely not compared to NT and unix.

"Flawless" it most certainly was not (single user, the single input queue problem, static disk cache (in most versions), to name a few problems).

I liked OS/2 as well, but in hindsight, objectively, its design wasn't all that crash hot (apart from the Presentation Manager, which - insane keyboard shortcuts aside - was pretty cool).

"task base" (iterative) interface

[esarjeant]

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.

Public Beta was released September 13th 2000.

[Xenex]

Mac OS X Public Beta was launched at Apple Expo Paris 2000 on September 13th 2000.

That's 9 months.

Re: biggest flop since ME

[LaissezFaire]

I'll buy that.

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.

Re:Karma to burn...

[FooBarWidget]

"it has always had a heavy OSS bias, and especially for Linux."

Bla bla, people keep saying this but when will you realize this is false? Just scroll up: there are several posts that say Linux will *never* be mainstream and say that it has many problems. And guess what: they're modded *up*, not down, in contrary to popular Slashdot belief.

Slashdot is no longer a pro-OSS/Linux site. It's a pro-Mac site. Criticising Linux won't get you modded down (in fact, you'll get modded up!) and defending Microsoft can get you modded up too. Criticising MacOS X on the other hand *does* get you modded down, as demonstrated in a recent Mac story.

Re:Why do you bother?

[Overly Critical Guy]

I bother because I have karma "Excellent." People associate my handle with whatever I post.

Clearly, you were misinformed. But I fully expect you to continue following my posts and taking the bait.

Next.

Re:Then you're mistaken.

[bmajik]

i think people's computing needs changed at about the time OS/2 2.1 should have really picked up steam.

I can say personally that i realized that linux was the way for me to go when i never felt like doing anything with a computer unless my 9600 SLIP connection was active. Suddenly, i had usenet, irc, ftp servers, etc. The local BBS scene was already dying out and with linux i didn't have to use dos-mode terminal software (which KILLED OS/2 performance during irq 14 downloading) to get out into the world.. i got a native IP stack and 6 text mode consoles...

if the internet hadn't taken off, i think OS/2 might have done better, perhaps. i was in a situation where there were no apps for OS/2 or linux (compared to what i was used to with DOS5 and Win3.1), so i might as well choose the one that sucks less when doing heavy serial port work (linux)

Re:Jesus Christmas

[adeyadey]

" How many times are we going to see this damn Shockwave?"

Until your brain explodes, or MS release a decent version of Windows and make the joke redundant. (yeh, right)

Re:Overly Critical?

[Sj0]

Who exactly do you think he's being critical of?

Re:Overly Critical?

[klafhat]

For someone who calls himself "Overly Critical Guy", you sure suck up to Microsoft a lot.

His real name was already taken.

Re:Two Little Ol' Words 4 U

[klafhat]

Parent post is NOT insightful!

I have always wondered how that guy was able to post shit time after time and yet get moderated insightful.