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Microsoft Officially Shows Longhorn, WinFX
Theaetetus writes "Microsoft today unveiled its most detailed look yet at its new OS, Longhorn, due in 2006, during Bill Gates' keynote speech at the company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. An article at Internet Week describes some of the goals: avoiding viruses, worms, and 'building apps that are as smart as Outlook.'" The company "also unveiled 'WinFX,' which it described as a new application programming model for Windows that is the evolution of its .NET programming framework."
"During Gates' address, a Microsoft staffer gave a demonstration of Longhorn, highlighting among other features the "sidebar," an area on the right side of the screen capable of dynamically displaying messaging lists, stock quotes, news feeds, times and pictures."
:-/
Can't you do that with kappdoc....???
I'd like to see some screenshots of this 'new interface'.
The article rambles on a lot, but doesn't actually tell you anything. And..well.. I've never really tried it, but is Outlook that amazing
Bored? http://www.dodgybloke.co.uk
These announcements are nothing more than vague future directions...
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Yes, the FX comes from effects, I can buy that on a video card (going for video effects) but how does that tie in to an application framework?
building apps that are easier to use than Outlook.
Apple has it right, they build incredibly intelligent apps, with a minimalistic approach to user interface that has only the options people want. The result is that the apps are very easy to use and they look pretty to boot.
Do yourself a favor, switch to Mac now, you won't regret it. You'll have a easy to use desktop system with strong UNIX underpinnings. Plus, three years between OS releases is a long enough time to significantly erode Microsofts market share.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
"As smart as Outlook"?
They mean smart as in crippling attachment functionality so that it's impossible to open anything even if you know the source and it can't possibly be harmful, like a PDF?
They mean smart as in built-in anti-competitive DRM designed to squeeze others out of the marketplace and stopping me doing what I want to do with my e-mail?
They mean smart as in the Outlook Web Access Client which doesn't work probably in any browser other than MSIE and uses (as always) their non-standard DHTML object model?
They mean smart as in so wonderfully secure that Napster script kiddie Fanning can reverse the password encryption with his new contact updater software?
Yeah I can see that's real smart. Microsoft Smart (TM).
I beg to differ. Many Outlook viri are embedded into HTML messages that require no user action to run.
Well Microsoft is making a big point saying that security is their top priority. The closest they came to anything security related was "addressing problems with viruses and worms." Hopefully it will be something more than a half-assed virus scanner. If it isn't halfway decent, people will blindly believe that it will be enough.
Let's hope Microsoft also does things we have been suggesting for who knows how long: firewall enabled by default, etc. Oh, and go through your OS and disable useless things such as Windows Messenger! Yes, it might hurt Microsoft's feelings if they read Slashdot for 5 minutes but who knows, they might actually get something useful out of it!
Internet Week describes some of the goals: avoiding viruses, worms, and 'building apps that are as smart as Outlook.'
Insert obvious joke here.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
I would wager some money on the fact that this new WinFX is basically .NET with new APIs and some kind of code signing technology with enforced DRM to finally kill Project Mono. It was only a matter of time before they pulled this kind of thing.
.NET apis have changed, and the .NET runtime no longer runs unsigned code, 4 years of work on Mono will be down the shithole.
After all, you didn't honestly think that they'd let that continue for much longer, did you? This way, when Longhorn debuts in 2006, and all the
They mean smart as in crippling attachment functionality so that it's impossible to open anything even if you know the source and it can't possibly be harmful, like a PDF?
.mdb file via email -- even between corporate accounts.
Sounds like a configuration issue on your end. I have no problems viewing PDFs, JPGs, or other non-harmful attachments. You can even tell Outlook to stop annoying you with the bogus "potentially harmful" message if you're sure about it.
On the other hand, we recently discovered that our Exchange backend is configured to automatically delete certain attachments. We couldn't send an Access
They mean smart as in the Outlook Web Access Client which doesn't work probably in any browser other than MSIE and uses (as always) their non-standard DHTML object model?
I call BS -- I use Outlook Web Access with Firebird from home with absolutely no problems. It works differently than it does if you use IE, but it still works.
There's plenty to bash MS for, and Outlook is a lovely example of overly complex, overly insecure software, but at least keep it to the facts.
Bass are relatively easy to catch. Trout hard.
Why? As it turns out it's because Bass are pretty smart fish. They can make generalizations. This thing has certain aspects to it that edible things have. Let's see if it's good to eat.
Who knew that such things as Red Devils, Rapalas and rubber worms would come along?
Trout, on the other hand, are primitive and stupid. They rely on hardcoded pattern recognition to find food. If the available food doesn't match the pattern a trout can starve among plenty. Or ignore your fly.
The problem with Outlook isn't that it's stupid. It's too smart. It makes decisions for the user ( who should, legitimately, be the sole source of intelligence when reading mail. Post your luser joke here).
It's like a Bass. Too easy to catch virii and malicious code because it recognizes that it's something that might be able to run. Well hell, let's try to run it and see what happens.
Gotcha!
KFG
Exactly. There's nothing you can do about stopping someone from emailing a virus. You can stop it at an email gateway of course, but nothings 100%. I accept that.
What I don't accept is virus that are automatically executed simply by viewing an email in the preview pane. As soon as you click on it, you're infected.
We've mostly got visual basic scripting to thank for that.
I think a file system that "makes heavy use of XML" probably won't be very efficient...
in all fairness a large part of the virus-infection problem lies with the end user who clicks on every attachment they receive.
And Outlook is to blame for this, because it LETS THEM.
There is absolutely no reason to launch an executable file from an email attachment. If you attach a non-executable document file to an email, sure, let the application that filetype is associated with open it up from within Outlook, but any attempt to execute an EXE/COM/BAT/PIF/SCR file should result in 'not allowed.'
User security policies are only as good as what the system allows the user to get away with. A system that tells you DON'T DO THIS but then lets you do it anyway is worthless.
Breakfast served all day!
It looks like Microsoft is already playing catch-up with Linux in some respects. The "sidebar"? What about Windowmaker's dock apps? What about gkrellm? What about the various panel apps for Gnome and KDE? I haven't seen any details about the WinFS file system, but I'm betting that whatever Microsoft comes up with could easily be done with some combination of MySQL, OpenOffice.org's document architecture, a pretty GUI and some glue to hold it all together. (It's an obvious point, but in case anyone has forgotten, developers have choices choices choices with open source: the GUI could be motif, Tcl/Tk, GTK, Qt, OpenGL,
In brief, unless Microsoft has a huge ace up their sleeve, whatever they want to do or come up with has already been done or can be done quite quickly with the enormous, comprehensive open source infrastructure that is available today.
Bill Gates just made the Adam Osborne mistake. He announced "WinFX", whatever that is, as the improvement to
Adam Osborne's company made an early personal computer. Adam announced a new model long before it was ready. Sales stopped because everyone wanted to wait for the new model. Adam's company went bankrupt.
It was amazing watching the bankrupting of the company on TV at the time. Osborne's company went from being one of the fastest growing to having insufficient money for operations in about two months.
It was a sobering lesson. Computer companies sometimes die extremely fast. Novell, WordPerfect, Corel, Fifth Generation Systems, and Central Point are examples. There are many others.
Microsoft has not been managed well. The company survives and profits because of having a virtual monopoly on operating systems and on office suite file formats. Think about it, suppose someone had a monopoly on water. That person could soon be much richer than Bill Gates.
For most businesses, the free Open Office is all they need. There are significant benefits to Open Office. It is much less quirky than Microsoft Office, for example. Most people are not very observant about the software they use, and they hardly notice the difference between Microsoft Word and the Open Office word processor.
Right now, many businesses use software that runs only under Microsoft Windows. However, there are many desktops that only need software that is already available for Linux. Those can benefit from the increased stability of Linux.
People don't care about the cost of Windows. The cost is only a few dollars of the cost of the computers they buy. The biggest issue against Microsoft is its adversarial behavior toward its customers. Using Linux means never having to say "My operating system company is partly my enemy."
Microsoft is on the way down. Most people don't realize that yet, however. Microsoft is one of the biggest management failures the world has ever seen. If the company could make a few changes in its behavior, it could stay profitable. However, it seems that abusiveness is more important to Microsoft than money.
Note that WinFX is someone else's trademark. WinFX is the most cracked and cheated program I have ever seen. There are 50 times as many links to cheats as there are to the product!
Microsoft has scheduled an MSDN TV program about "WinFX" for November 6 (Subject to change by Microsoft, of course.)
Microsoft claims that WinFX is their trademark. (The link is to a Google conversion of a
Microsoft has a history of picking inappropriate trademarks. "X" means unknown. It was inappropriate to use the letter X in conjunction with "Xbox" and "ActiveX". Aside from being someone else's trademark, WinFX sounds too trivial for use with an extensive programming product. Traditionally, "FX" has been used to signify "effects".
This is a brilliant marketing move by Microsoft: the commoditization of the desktop. That bar is a freaking billboard, and the only way to connect to it will be Microsoft technology.
Imagine the following scenario, as spun to media providers, such as record companies: the end consumer (that's you, gentle reader) gets a direct broadcast to your Microsoft ProductPlacementBar(tm) that the Band Of The Week has just released a new album. Want to listen to it? Just click the tile. (Don't worry about the music being ripped, Mr. Record Executive, because it's DRM'ed.) Want to purchase it? (Of course you do!) Just click the 'purchase' option to use Microsoft's SecurePaymentSystem (tm).
As a record company executive, wouldn't *you* love to have direct access to such a large market? And you can only get it via Microsoft's Longhorn technology. Hell, you can't afford not to have it. Direct access to the consumers - you can have your own web 'radio' broadcasts, and skip ClearChannel entirely!
So when Longhorn actually comes along, the real functionality isn't applications: it's access to the market. And Microsoft controls both ends.
That's what this beta preview is all about.
Right, because Microsoft hasn't been researching and using natural language processing for years.
The real problem is that Windows infers that a file is executable based on its name, rather than something like execute permissions. This DOS-heritage behavior is dangerous and should be removed from Windows.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
But they allow MS Word attachments, which have also had problem in the past.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
except that in OE 6, attachements that _could_ contain bad material are disabled. Such as Word doc's. Imagine that, microsoft blocking their own file formats. The first thing you have to do is disable that feature so you can even see your word doc. *sigh* Glad I use evolution...although I miss the CLI more ane more :-/
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Microsoft usually releases a patch about 3 months before the viri shows up.
I agree that these flaws should have never been their but I think much of the blame falls on the users.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
So they took the normal windows file-extension stupidity, and added another stupid vulerability on top of that.
I've had to deal with the, "No, I'm IE and I know better than you, Mr. web app designer, and I say this file is [whatever], and not [whatever] as you contend" problem. It's maddening.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
And Reeeeeally? Wow, what huge benefits! And all that from managed code? Who would have guessed! And with a disclaimer too....don't write Java it is a pipe dream. Rewrite everything in: tada! Dot Net. And your apps will run anywhere! Even on Mac (boy am I happy with that, when was that annaocement?) Although be carefull to encapsulate some API calls that wont work on other platforms. Like, uhm, all of the GUI. No, not THAT GUI you are coding now; this new, purty WinFX one! Don't trust Java that does THAT SAME DAMN THING FOR YOU under the hood (you know how that swing draws itself with GDI and D3D on winbloze and OpenGL on Linux/solaris, bah our approach is better, just rewrite GUI and you are in the game, after we port it to any platform imaginable, should be over till 2010, maybe, sorta, if Miguel agrees, such a nice guy), because, .Net is 3.5% faster it eats 2,3% less memory, starts 6,2 % faster (all of those I made up because I STILL can't publish any .Net benchmarks, but numbers are great, trust you me!) and it is after all invented in MS, not like that Java that Sun, IBM, Oracle and others are pushing. Just look at our demo, see how fast it is? OK, it is not really fast now, but just wait for 2006! Can you imagine all that nice and fast hardware? And imagine, just imagine what JIT can do for you. We invented JIT you know! (OK we didn't but it sounds nice, and we hope you will all forget that we spent 5 years explaining how native compilation is better). Just wait, we have that nice "Hot spot" concept in our labs, that will make wonders with footprint. What? It is already invented? Uh, damn, someone cloned it! I was just talking with Alchin yesterday about that beast. Nevertheless, for very brave VB developers, there is Jinidigo for distributed computing. Who says we can't inovate? You just have to be patient. Like you always had. And learn everything from scratch. But, ask your friends good with Java to help you; they should know what we are talking about!
Outlook is used by 400 million people. Far and away, the majority of them would be susceptible to viruses from opening executable attachments. Outlook's development team probably made the right choice--secure by default, and allow folks turn that off (via the regkey you linked to) if they really want to.
It's funny... Locked-down by default has been preached here on Slashdot for ages and ages. Here we have an instance of Microsoft doing just that, and folks on Slashdot bitch some more.
> Novell is dead? Thats news to me!
Yes, Novell is dead. But they were above that magic size for a corporation where you never truly die, you just become an undead dinosaur. But while feeding off of an ever shrinking installed base can keep the lights on for a few years, dead is still dead. When was the last time you heard of a NEW Netware install? And if there will never be a NEW Netware customer, and a few abandon it every year, the end result is forgone. Just like there are still sites using Token Ring or DECNet, it doesn't mean that they aren't both dead technology. Dead in this sense doesn't mean Chapter 11, it just means zero growth, an end to innovation (i.e. maintaince only mode) and a long slow slide to oblivion.
Novell isn't porting to Linux to spur a new wave of sales, they are doing it because hardware is changing faster than they can afford to port Netware to it and the days of every hardware vendor undertaking the driver development effort for Netware are long gone. So they think that by putting a Netware protocol stack atop Linux they can keep selling their captive audience of legacy Netware installations a couple more rounds of upgrades.
Democrat delenda est