Longhorn Developers @ MSDN

ePIsOdEOnline writes "The official Microsoft Longhorn Developers website went live. Content is filled with information fresh from the PDC, and the host of secrecy swarming Microsoft and its next generation Operating System, Longhorn"

Comments

Not eating their own dogfood?

[ChaoticChaos]

"The official Microsoft Longhorn Developers website went live."

Must not be running Longhorn.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually when it's finally done, Longhorn will be stable. From here: It is the first operating system built with managed code, which means that it's a lot harder to crash.

In other words, all the code is written in .NET compatible languages (probably C#, because it sucks less, MS' developers (who are C++ old hands) prefer it, etc.), which is *MANAGED*. If explorer crashes, the virtual machine will pick up the pieces.

This is kind of like Sun's JAVA OS, where everything is managed by the JVM, except .NET is fast, 95% as fast as native, and supports far more languages.

Still I guess some parts of the OS will remain in native mode (I'd be impressed if they did redo all Internet Explorer rendering code in .NET), such as device drivers.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[TedCheshireAcad]

I can't seem to find the CVS repository.

Anyone else had luck?

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[ClubStew]

I did hear from a reliable source that they already have rewritten the ol' mshtml in managed code and it works/looks great, according to the source.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[Waffle Iron]

This is kind of like Sun's JAVA OS, where everything is managed by the JVM, except .NET is fast, 95% as fast as native, and supports far more languages.

That tells us very little, since "native" performance can vary by 10X or more depending on how it's written. An implementation in C++ that uses lots of automatic object construction and destruction with generic containers and algorithms can be rather slow, maybe even slower than a good Java implementation. An implementation in C that makes extensive use of high-level libraries like glib/gobject/etc. can also be a little sluggish.

However, most OSes aren't written like that; they're written using carefully tuned hand crafted data structures and algorithms. These tend to avoid doing any redundant allocating, copying, initializing, etc. This is one reason that it can take hundreds of developers decade or more to produce only about 1 megabyte of kernel image.

I really have to doubt that an OS written completely in a VM is going to get anywhere near 95% of the performance of one of the popular conventional OSes. I also doubt that it's even possible to write a certain portion of the OS code in a VM since an OS often has to muck with page tables and goof around with obscure CPU control bits. During these times, the general-purpose memory management routines of a VM could often be unusable.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[Darren Winsper]

Nice, but I wonder how good the actual rendering engine is. Does it finally supported fixed positioning? Is it actually standards compliant, as opposed to IE6's "standards compliant" mode?

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[EddWo]

Its not the Kernel that is being rewritten in Managed code, thats still plain old NT, albeit version 6. Its the crashprone stuff like explorer.exe and iexplore.exe thats being rewritten. A sizeable chunk of Windows nontheless.
I expect a lot of the problems with explorer came from all the inprocess com objects and third party shell extensions. The .Net version can use remoting calls across appdomains so that plugins cannot effect the core shell.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[mugnyte]

Yeah, remember, "The Windows OS" is more than a kernel. It cannot run without the browser (testify!). So they're rewriting Outlook, IE, SQLServer and many services in C# ? These were the holes over the past few years.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[kavau]

Still I guess some parts of the OS will remain in native mode (I'd be impressed if they did redo all Internet Explorer rendering code in .NET), such as device drivers.

But haven't device drivers been the cause of most stability problems in the past?

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[alext]

This is kind of like Sun's JAVA OS, where everything is managed by the JVM, except .NET is fast, 95% as fast as native,

Benchmarks?

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[Slime-dogg]

If they're C++ old hands, then they are probably writing it in C++. Yes... C++ is offered as a managed language in .NET. However, I highly doubt that they are writing the core components in managed code.

What they might be doing, though, is re-writing their regular C++ compiler so that it checks for boundry errors and such. They're keeping COM around, since MS's version of .NET needs it. Windows Server 2003 is mostly COM, with .NET sitting on top, which is why it suffers many of the same vulnerabilities that Win2K and WinXP have.

What they will change, however, is the API. They might keep win32 around, deprecating it so that developers won't use it, and just promote pure .NET for development of applications. All those snap-ins, folder explorers, games, notepads, yada, will be written for .NET.

Another thing that bugs me is the insistance that .NET has a VM. It's got an inline compiler that compiles code upon first execution, yes, but subsequent executions are made from the compiled form of the code. Everything would be a bit sluggish at first, but blazing afterwards.

Miguel probably knows more about how it's supposed to work.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[karit]

Remember MS said that IE after IE6 will not be avaiable for other version of windows so likely it is running in this VM.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[Bob Davis, Retired]

.NET is NOT fast. You are SO full of shit.

If .NET was even slightly fast, you'd think they'd allow benchmarking. As it stands Java is blindingly fast when compared to .NET.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[esquimaux]

The CLR is a stack-based virtual machine. .NET languages are first compiled into (MS)IL, which is the code for that Virtual Machine. Upon execution the JIT compiler translates the IL operations of the virtual machine into native code for the actual target machine.

What exactly do you think VM means? Are you perhaps reacting to the nasty connotations from .NET's poorly marketed predecessor systems?

It's great that MS has technology which can make all code "blazing". That'll save me a lot of time optimizing some of the cretinous code I have to deal with.

Re:Not eating their own dogfood?

[ergo98]

.NET is fast, 95% as fast as native, and supports far more languages.

Have you developed in .NET? It is a stretch of the truth to proclaim that it is "fast". Of course we know for benchmarks that extremely little exists, and what does exist is generally the classic "tight loop doing a single operation that the JIT compiler can highly optimize...and even then it only achieves 70% of the speed of native". I obviously can't give the numbers based upon some licensing agreements, but I will say that experience has shown that for any mildly complex, real-world activity such as managed encryption or managed compression/decompression, it is absolutely night and day: .NET is good for a VM, but it is not even in the same city block of the performance of native code. I feel the same way about Java, as a sidenote, so this isn't a religious argument. Disclaimer: .NET is a vast jump forward when used for web development, i.e. asp.net, but of course then you're comparing a JIT VM type scenario and totally interpreted every time languages.

As far as Longhorn being mostly managed, my guess (being an outsider) is that what really is happening is that Explorer.exe, the app host, is being replaced with a Managed shell that exposes managed interfaces (though it will still host classic Win32 apps no problem, as it will host apps that think they're interfacing with an NT File System - If these weren't the case then it'd be a big opening for OS XIi or whatever). That is a vast chasm of difference from the OS being rebuilt as a managed system.

Still I guess some parts of the OS will remain in native mode, such as device drivers.

Just guessing, but I would wager that about 95% of the binaries on a Windows system will remain "native", apart from a superficial shell. Of course for anything where performance is remotely desired, like encryption, network services, etc, there will be native code with an API stub in .NET (which is what a significant amount of the .NET Framework is right now).

Tail Pipe

[tonyMontana69]

Looks like Micro$oft did it again and we're gonna have to take the Longhorn up the old tailpipe.

Make or Break?

[Tetsugaku-San]

Make or Break for M$ eh? Ooooo please let it be break! pleaseOpleaseOpleaseOpleaseOpleaseO :)

Re:Make or Break?

[sharkey]

please let it be break!

Gee, what are the chances of THAT happening?

Aero

[vurg]

How do I enable aero on the latest build?

Re:Aero

[vurg]

Well, maybe next time. I'm getting a little fat already.

Re:Aero

[Tagren]

What I have udnerstand there is no Aero in this build.

ugh

[sewagemaster]

when you leave the page a javascript popup asks:
microsoft's conducting a survey. would you like to participate? everything's gonna be 'rigged' with the slashdot effect... :D

Even uglier than XP!

[yabos]

I didn't think it was possible, but MS has done it!

Wise choice

[Max Romantschuk]

If you ask me it's a very Good Thing that Microsoft is making it possible to get developer insigt into Longhorn at this point. After all, the OS is not scheduled to be released for several years.

And before we start with the M$ bashing, let's remember that Microsoft can also do some things right, just as the Gnu/Linux community can do some things wrong...

My 2 cents, anyhow.

Re:Wise choice

[interiot]

Or... it could be interpretted as "we won't have an advance in the OS or browser market for three years, so we're going to keep consumers as disctracted as possible during that time so better products like Mozilla and Linux don't errode our marketshare."

Re:Wise choice

[mahdi13]

But 3 years to polish off what is now in beta?
Who does MS think they are...Debian?!

Re:Wise choice

[DrEldarion]

let's remember that Microsoft can also do some things right

Yeah, they make killer mice.

Re:Wise choice

[Max Romantschuk]

now, see, this is exactly what RMS doesn't want to see when GNU/Linux is mentioned.

RMS: "let's remember that MS can also do all things wrong, just as the GNU/Linux community can do all things right."

Let me get this straight... you post anonymously, make up a fake quote in another persons name. You really think you're blessed with the Jobsian Reality Distortion Field, don't you?

Frankly, the world in not black and white, and your credibility is quite limited.

Re:Wise choice

[FooBarWidget]

"just as the Gnu/Linux community can do some things wrong..."

What are you trying to say? Why point out the obvious? This makes me think you're implying that the Linux community is full of zealots who can't take criticism, and therebefore giving the Linux community a bad name.
(That, of course, is completely false. Why do you think you're modded +5 Insightful, like many other similar posts?)

Re:Wise choice

[LiquidCoooled]

I dont even see this as a beta - its a starting point to getting the best of what we need.

MS *WANT* you to bitch about it, they want to know whats wrong with it.

They want to spend the time fixing everything until you cannot bitch any more.

Most of all, I believe they have listened and want to ship a complete finished stable operating system.

Re:Wise choice

[Max Romantschuk]

What are you trying to say? Why point out the obvious? This makes me think you're implying that the Linux community is full of zealots who can't take criticism, and therebefore giving the Linux community a bad name.

(That, of course, is completely false. Why do you think you're modded +5 Insightful, like many other similar posts?)

Don't jump the gun and generalize... I was mearly trying to point out something that the zealots wouldn't.

I may well have said something obvious, but it's better said than having a completely one sided comment tree ;)

Re:Wise choice

[Darren Winsper]

Considering how much XAML is a rip off of Mozilla, you have to wonder...

Re:Wise choice

[mahdi13]

Sorry, I stand corrected...it's an Alpha with Beta appearance

Re:Wise choice

[rabtech]

Well when you rewrite your entire suite of apps & the shell in managed code, write a completely new window manager that uses the DirectX pipeline as its compositing engine, uses vector graphics to scale to various resolutions and DPI, and so on it can take some time.

There is other new tech going in as well.

This really is a big step, and Microsoft is making it public right now so developers can get on board early in the game and make suggestions or comments on it. Microsoft wants to make developers happy, so they are showing them the way windows development will work in the future to see how the developers react - what parts they like and don't like. It also means we won't have to wait a year after launch for Longhorn apps to appear.

Re:Wise choice

[aardvarkjoe]

This makes me think you're implying that the Linux community is full of zealots who can't take criticism, and therebefore giving the Linux community a bad name.

That sounds about right to me.

Re:Wise choice

[bonch]

"Distracted?" How is releasing a developer preview of their next product distracting anybody? Is that Microsoft's fault?

I think people's bias is showing. It's amusing to read all these criticisms the Slashdot pseudo-experts have levelled against Longhorn, when it's not out for another two to three years.

Re:Wise choice

[frobber]

it's a very Good Thing that Microsoft is making it possible to get developer insigt into Longhorn at this point

I remember the excitement as a developer anticipating Win95 improvements over 3.1. Finally preemptive multitasking, processes running in separate address spaces, if one app crashes the rest are uneffected!, the proliferation of .INI files (clear and concise configuration text files) to be replaced by a central repository of configuration information, the intriguing Registry (soon proving to be a brittle and overcomplicated mess). What a crock it turned out to be...

Re:Wise choice

[JamieF]

Giving a preview of something that won't be out for several years is questionable. Are we to assume that they'll only be doing QA for the next few years (which would be great), so there won't be any changes? What the heck is the point of showing something that's so far from release?

MIght as well say "here are the headers we'll use in the Linux 3.0 kernel; make sure your code compiles ASAP". WTF?

Microsoft seriously has to give up their crazy "one big release every 3-4 years" plan.

Re:Wise choice

[FooBarWidget]

Then how do you explain the fact that he got modded UP? A site full of Linux zealots won't mod criticism up, would it? Your statement contradicts itself.

Re:Wise choice

[1010011010]

How? For the next few years, the trade press will be comparing everything to the "forthcoming and much-anticipated next release of Windows." It won't matter how good, or tangible, non-Microsoft products are now, only how they compare to the potential of Longhorn. Microsoft's hype machine in action. The final product never lives up to the hype *cough*cairo -- but in the meantime, competing products have to compete with press releases and promises, rather than actual shipping products.

Re:Wise choice

[TheAncientHacker]

Nah, the whole point of doing this early a preview is to give time for the Open Source community to clone the UI in time to say they had it first and Microsoft just doesn't innovate.

Re:Wise choice

[bonch]

Exactly. People bitch about Microsoft building foundations and then trying to change them later on (i.e., security), but now they're trying to get input and feedback right from the start.

Re:Wise choice

[interiot]

I personally don't want a clone of its UI. Looks like the only thing they did was cover up a third of the screen with an analog clock. I'm not sure that going from a 50x20 digital clock to a 400x400 one could be called innovation.

Re:Wise choice

[Max Romantschuk]

frankly, you are a fucking jerk off.

You may well be right, but I don't seem to find the need for such language, whereas you do.

Re:Wise choice

[lubricated]

They don't make them, they just tell the maker to slap a microsoft sticker on them and write the drivers.

Re:Wise choice

[TomV]

The last PDC was in 2000 and that was when we got the very first public-ish 'Technology Preview' builds of the .net Framework, the CLR and the C# compiler. It was already rather different by the time Beta 1 came out later that year. Beta 2 was 2001 followed by the Release Candidates and the first RTM was VS2002 a year later.

On the one hand, completing Longhorn is a much bigger task, on the other hand a lot of the work's been going on since 2000 at least, and Moft seem to like to dogfood their major releases for a fair while before RTM.

So, we're in late 2003 for the first Technology Preview. From the .net timescale, make a wild assumption of 2 years until the Release Candidates appear, allow 6 months of dogfooding and we're into 2006 as Moft seem to be saying at the moment.

I can't imaging that all the slashdotters on earth are collectively as sick to the back teeth of the swiss cheese that is Windows at present as are the Moft people who have to work in the guts of it every day, or try to justify it in the face of entirely reasonable accusations of flakiness, or deal with the support burden, or just try and get their jobs done with the company's products. If the flakiness of Moft products costs many businesses too much, then surely it costs Moft too much in spades.

The very existence of all the Moft internal blogs looks to me like evidence of a much more open and transparent approach and a willingness, a desire even, for as much feedback as possible *before* things are set in stone. Plus it's fun reading that the likes of Don Box and Dare (formerly Carnage4Life of this manor) Obasanjo have been writing their respective bits of Whidbey in Emacs :-)

Bill Gates has a history of 'betting the company'. And as 'Chief Software Architect', this time round the final responsibility for any misdesigns lies clearly and personally with Bill. So I can see how he'd be well in favour of spending *whatever* it costs to finally build a secure, reliable, patchable, maintainable OS on personal as well as commercial grounds.

Re:Wise choice

[Planesdragon]

Then how do you explain the fact that he got modded UP? A site full of Linux zealots

This is /., not gnu.org. /. is filled with geeks of a myraid of persuasions--a substantial majority likely don't use Linux, or don't use it exclusively.

Re:Wise choice

[TheAncientHacker]

Wait three years and people here will be extolling the virtues of a 400x400 analog clock and saying how bogus it is for Microsoft to have ripped off the Gnome UI innovated analog clock sidebar...

Re:Wise choice

[uhmmmm]

So we don't have to wait as long for apps to appear, but that also means we don't have to wait as long for longhorn-only apps to appear, and force users to upgrade.

Re:Wise choice

[Saeger]

The only sidebar I need is called gkrellm and it takes all of 70 pixels.

--

Re:Wise choice

[LiquidCoooled]

My sentiments exactly - he has come under a lot of stick for his software of late, and most of it is justified.
If Longhorn delivers more than just a rehashed xp then I will be pleased.

This latest project does seem more community driven and a genuine willingness to offer a decent stable OS.

I believe this openness would not have been forthcoming without having a certain penguin snapping at his heels, and I sense a few interesting years ahead of us.

Re:Wise choice

[Slime-dogg]

But is that entirely wrong? A business is a business is a business. They aren't exercising monopoly powers or anything, they're just releasing developer information for the new version of Windows.

If I were running a business, this would be the things that I'd be doing as well. If it were to be construed as trying to distract developers from OSS alternative, I probably wouldn't give a rat's ass. If it did distract, then it was effective at more than it's actual purpose... But that's not a bad thing.

If MS decided to go to MS shops, and tell them that if they want continued support for MS products, they would have to pay money to upgrade... that's a bad thing. heh.. not like it's ever happened. ;-)

Re:Wise choice

[Slime-dogg]

Bill Gates has a history of 'betting the company'. And as 'Chief Software Architect', this time round the final responsibility for any misdesigns lies clearly and personally with Bill. So I can see how he'd be well in favour of spending *whatever* it costs to finally build a secure, reliable, patchable, maintainable OS on personal as well as commercial grounds.

Titles are just that: titles. They mean next to nothing. Bill Gates will be just as responsible for the next release of Windows as he is responsible for the releases of Windows up to that point. Think on it a second... When you hear "Microsoft's President," or "Microsoft's CEO," or "Microsoft's Representative," do you really think of Stevie Boy, or do you get a mental picture of Billie Boy? I sure see Gates whenever I hear those words, and have to think to remember that he usually isn't any of them.

Bill has been the chief motivator, chief "ethical" businessman, and chief faceplate of Microsoft for years and years. When people have a Win98 machine that crashes constantly, they swear "F*ck XX" where XX could be Microsoft or Bill Gates.

I imagine that now, Bill has gotten the picture, and has decided to be a little more open about what he's doing. If it isn't him that motivates, then it's the developers themselves. A movement from within is really the only thing that could push Bill one way or the other, but he probably doesn't even realize that the developers are being open about what they are doing.

Re:Wise choice

[jamesmrankinjr]

Well when you rewrite your entire suite of apps & the shell in managed code, write a completely new window manager that uses the DirectX pipeline as its compositing engine, uses vector graphics to scale to various resolutions and DPI, and so on it can take some time.

In other words, it's gonna take them several years to write Mac OS X.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

Longhorn apt-get easy!

[Debian Troll's Best]

I've already upgraded my Debian box to Longhorn using a simple apt-get dist upgrade command. I don't know why Microsoft has secrecy warnings all over the place...you should be able to get it from any Debian mirror. Has anyone else upgraded their Debian install this way? I can't seem to find GNOME any more.

Re:Longhorn apt-get easy!

[Malc]

Err, somebody should start a discussion on one of their mailing lists. They do realize that it violates there contract and it belongs in non-free, right?

Re:Longhorn apt-get easy!

[Theatetus]

Dude, that's a 4-digiter you're talking about. Show some respect.

Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[MountainMan101]

The fix was simple. They simply swapped:
$error.backcolour=#0000ff;

for

$error.backcolour=#000000;

Now, no Blue screen of death!

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[Rahga]

No way.

Look, man, you need to know that the video modes used to display blue screens of deaths don't support the use of 16 million pretty pretty colors, or even 256. Nope, those modes use a grand total of any of sixteen colors.

Figured I'd point that out.

Re: Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[Black Parrot]

> The fix was simple. They simply swapped:
$error.backcolour=#0000ff;

for

$error.backcolour=#000000;

Now, no Blue screen of death!

I would have used

$error.backcolour=#dea74

or just

$error.backcolour=#b50d

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[kawika]

Yes, the screen can display 16 colors in VGA mode. However, the 16 colors can be chosen from a palette of 262,144 colors (6 bits each of red, green, blue). I think you are referring to the standard VGA palette.

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[MountainMan101]

The majority of Windows users haven't seen a BSOD since late 1999.

You're right. I think we should apologise profusely to all windoze users. It's not their fault they use buggy software - we shouldn't pick on them. Perhaps we should move back to SCO jokes!

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[WNight]

Yes yes, quite right. The fact that the things which would have caused a BSODs now simply reboot the machine when they happen means that we should all be thankful that MS has rid the world of this terrible scourge.

To be fair, when I use WinXP at work, the greatest instability is that whenever Windows Explorer (the file browser) or IE (required for another intranet I need to access) die, they take out the windows desktop and while it sort-of comes back, it'll keep dying if I open another file browser. It lets me save my work, but it doesn't count for long-term stability. But XP usually goes two weeks or so between this.

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[jacksonyee]

Well, now that the XP GUI has become more cartoony and takes up more space than most of us geeks would like it to for simple items, I'm expecting BSoDs to have a nice big stop sign logo, a blue gradient background, and anti-aliased HTML text in several fonts.

If you're going to crash, you might as well do it in style!

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[TheRaven64]

The X-Box, I believe, doesn't BSoD, but rather Green Screen of Death. It BSoD'd the first time one was demo'ed, and the developers were told that it should not happen again. The second public demo showed the result of this instruction - the new GSoD...

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[Duhavid]

Remember early Win95? Remember the UAE? Well, they got rid of that, didnt they? How was that again? Oh yeah, they renamed it to the GPF. So, that was a big improvement, right?

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[dustman]

It does not matter if you are in text mode or not. The text mode will allow 16 unique colors to be displayed. You still get to choose which 16 unique colors.

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[Crayon Kid]

...so make that $error.backcolour=#0;

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[Slime-dogg]

Except that your example wouldn't even compile.

The correct way of putting it is:

$error.backcolor=#000000;

Re:Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death...

[Barlo_Mung_42]

The fact is almost all BSOD are not MS related. They are caused by buggy 3rd party drivers.
If I write a buggy driver in osX or Linux that brings the system down it isn't the OS vendors fault.

Nice..

[cK-Gunslinger]

That's a nice source of information there. I was especially interested in their description of WinFS.

Everything that is stored in the WinFS store is an item and each item has metadata properties that are described by a schema. Items that follow the schema are stored in the WinFS store as serialized .NET objects and are accessed through T-SQL views that give access to the items' properties.

Re:Nice..

[TheTomcat]

I'm definitely not a MS proponent, but there will probably be an NativeTDS/ODBC hookup for the WinFS datasource, which will make it incredibly EASY to "access all this" via (relatively) simple T-SQL (which in itself is not without fault).

Even from other platforms (I access MSSQL (via FreeTDS and/or the *nix Sybase client) from my Linux workstation, constantly).

S

Re:Nice..

[anaplasmosis]

Only if "nice" is an odd way of spelling "evil". Do you know how crap "everything is a database" really is?

Re:Nice..

[weslocke]

I agree, especially since it's pointed out very plainly in the article on the WinFS system that it's in place for the 'Documents and Settings' folder instead of for the entire hard drive, and that it'll coexist with Win32 for file accesses.

So what I gathered from it is that your hard drive will still be NTFS, but your documents, favorites, pictures, etc will have an SQL database tied to them with the extended information (EXIF data for pictures, ID3 info for MP3, etc) in a easy environment. Especially since it seems that basic T-SQL can access the data (I believe they use that as an example in the article).

If they keep it with documents/etc, I don't have any real problem with it. I was just afraid they were going to hit the whole filesystem.

Re:Nice..

[blamanj]

Items that follow the schema are stored in the WinFS store as serialized .NET objects...

Well, that's says they're betting the company on .NET (or at least maintainging an emulator for the next couple dozen years.) It seems a bit short-sighted to me to put a runtime system dependency into the file system, but hey, I'm not one of the Microsoft uber-genius designers either.

Re:Nice..

[cK-Gunslinger]

Only if "nice" is an odd way of spelling "evil". Do you know how crap "everything is a database" really is?

Actually, *nice* was referring to the information on the site. And if you read the *nice* information, you see that the file system will *still* be NTFS and that only the "Documents and Settings" folder (equivalent of '/home') will have the DB tie-ins and meta-data. You avoid the "everything is a database" problems with system files, etc and gain the benefits of "tons of user data is indexed and searchable."

Re:Nice..

[hatrisc]

actually, i think that's a much better idea than what was previously thought. having access to "home directory" files in that way is very cool. however i'm not sure i'd want to trust my PERSONAL files to a file system that doesn't have significant years under it's belt. i mean, ntfs is a pretty solid file system. winfs.... well we'll see.

Re:Nice..

[Slime-dogg]

At install time, they should allow for the location of "Documents and Settings" to exist on a separate hard disk than just "C:." That's my main bitch. I went through hell to get my "program files" folder on a separate HD, which I then mounted under the "Program Files" folder on my C: drive.

Windows just doesn't have the... niceness that UNIX and it's kin have.

Re:Nice..

[cygnusx]

Not to mention that you can't choose where PROGRAMFILES and COMMONFILES go. Sure, TweakUI can change those but by then the damage is already done (unless you mount a new drive as the PROGRAMFILES folder).

Windows Longhorn business plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Aero is the new Windows user experience. Aero consists of guidelines, recommendations, and user experience values that help your applications get the most out of the Microsoft Windows Code Name "Longhorn"

Step 1: Have all your windows waste even more screen space with extra wide title bars and flashy BIG 3d rendered icons
Step 2: Users must now all buy brand new, larger monitors and video cards
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Muwahahah all the money in the world is ours

Re:Editor's Blog

[Jodaxia]

From the blog page

"And if you think he's missed something, let him know."

nope i think that says it all

Javascript Application

[Ianoo]

Heh. I went to their site and got this:

Microsoft is conducting an Online survey.

Your opinion counts!

Would you like to participate?

[Cancel] [OK]

Participate? They wish!

Guys this is a total Win98SE

[Saint Stephen]

Longhorn is a yawn, a client-only release.

WinFS was supposed to replace NTFS. Now it's just gonna be IMDB (in-memory database) which was stripped from Win2000 at the last minute file-system filter driver, which will be used by Explorer. Neat, but isn't gonna change your business.

The shell theme will change.

The most interesting development, Avalon, will attempt to replace the Win32 api with managed code, *not* Windows.Forms but a new client API. What'll end up happening by RTM is Microsoft will have written a great big propriatary app that you won't be able to use.

There will be minor kernel perf tweaks, but if you still launch > 200 processes you still see random failures from CreateProcess. (Never tried it, have you?)

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[red floyd]

WinFS was supposed to replace NTFS. Now it's just gonna be IMDB

So WinFS will contain all sorts of information about movies? Does Jack Valenti know about this?

(PS, yes, I did read the whole post.)

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[rabtech]

1. WinFS was always running on top of NTFS. It will change things, because the new storage API in Longhorn makes WinFS a first-class entity and the preferred method of working with the filesystem.

2. Nearly all the bits, like Explorer, applets, property pages, etc are being rewritten to run on the CLR. This also means Microsoft has greatly expanded the capabilities of the class library, but much of the windows-specific functionality looks like it will go under the Microsoft.* namespace, making it easy to keep cross-platform if you wish.

3. Aero is the new window manager, which does away with 2D/3D for an integrated, vector graphics & 3D, all-new windowing system. The new Aero classes do not wrap Win32. It talks directly to the window manager. How many of the other classes no longer talk to Win32 and do their work directly remains to be seen.

4. The Longhorn kernel will be the base of the next version of Windows Server, including the focus on managed code as being THE new API. This is a huge shift - Microsoft is basically telling everyone "get ready to move away from Win32/Win64 - it is in legacy mode now."

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[Saint Stephen]

You're reading the hype. I'm predicting what'll happen at RTM.

Darwin was supposed to be this huge thing, and a lot of people use it, but only Office uses install on demand. This will be like that -- new junk for microsoft to use, for 3rd parties, more lipstick on the pig.

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[Politburo]

Sources for any of your wild statements?

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[the_2nd_coming]

they are opinions based on what MS has done inteh passed.

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[Politburo]

Okay. You should present opinions as opinions, then, and not as facts. Example follows:

There will be minor kernel perf tweaks, but if you still launch > 200 processes you still see random failures from CreateProcess. (Never tried it, have you?)

I'm sure they will tweak the kernel a bit, but I doubt they'll fix the CreateProcess random failure bug that occurs if you attempt to start >200 processes. (And then you leave out the smartass bits)

Is it that hard? Now you can be present baseless opinions instead of blatantly incorrect facts.

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[cREW oNE]

Uh. MS will *WANT* you to use Avalon and WinFX in the long term. I can't imagine they plan to keep Avalon, WindowsForms *AND* old style GDI around.

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[Saint Stephen]

I call bullshit. I was a consultant for Microsoft working with a customer who ran a telnet server on Windows 2000. Each telnet connection launched an instance of cmd.exe. After about 100 connections they'd get failures.

Remember "running out of free system resources" with plenty of memory in Windows 3.1? The limit that was 64k then is 48mb now.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=k b; en-us;184802
See cause 2

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[Politburo]

Call bullshit on the OP please (or support the OP, i can't tell what the hell you're trying to say), I was merely correcting his style.

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[TomV]

Remember "running out of free system resources" with plenty of memory in Windows 3.1? The limit that was 64k then is 48mb now.

And Avalon, if it turns out as described currently, should slay that particular little b45t4rd properly, using DirectX exclusively and consigning USER and GDI to the afterlife. Nice to see the back of them.

Re:Guys this is a total Win98SE

[jamesmrankinjr]

2. Nearly all the bits, like Explorer, applets, property pages, etc are being rewritten to run on the CLR.

This is what killed Netscape. They're rewriting everything because, well, just because. And they're creating a totally new API for everyone else to rewrite their apps because, well, just because.

Also, Aero is Quartz.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

Already a bug!

[RyoSaeba]

From their web site:

Announced at the 2003 Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft Windows Code-Named "Longhorn" is the the next version of the Windows operating system.

(emphasis mine)

Re:Already a bug!

[bpbond]

If only we had a word processor that would flag those kinds of things automatically. Acutally, why not correct them automatically, too? And maybe have some sort of animated character to interact with the user...yeah, right, THAT'S the ticket!

Re:Already a bug!

[lovebyte]

the the

It means MS is going back to the 80's.

How are they gonna manage this?

[Jameth]

No, seriously. How are they gonna maintain an active interest during the next two years of development?

I say things up there about 'migration' and 'preparing' and 'interoperability' but I didn't see a way for them to maintain support. Linux can maintain an active beta because people can actually work on it, so they can more easily test it and benefit immediately from that testing.

Microsoft, I've seen many claim, is drumming up support and mostly trying a publicity stunt. The question is, how do you run a 2-3 year publicity stunt?

Maybe they should ask SCO. /jibe

Re:How are they gonna manage this?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, seriously. How are they gonna maintain an active interest during the next two years of development?

Apparently you haven't seen much of the Windows development community. There really are people who write software that uses the latest Windows APIs and need to develop for them before the OS gets released. There were several active WDM mailing lists going on for years before WDM actually showed up in a release OS.

Linux can maintain an active beta because people can actually work on it, so they can more easily test it and benefit immediately from that testing.

This is a beta test for application/driver developers, not OS developers. If you are developing for a new OS, it's handy to have a copy of that OS before it gets released so you can make sure your software is compatible. It's more about getting the latest stuff out there to test with your applications than it is for you to find every Windows hole and get it fixed before release.

Re:How are they gonna manage this?

[T SPIGOT]

They will maintain interest by doing things like this: running the development process "in public", trying not to suprise developers, etc. It is a publicity stunt, sort of. Linux and Mac OS X are getting more and more hype, and unlike MS are shipping working, production code. Microsoft knows that no matter what, running code wins out. If Mac does what you want it to today, if your geek in IT has a Linux box up and running today, they'll lose a sale. So, if we can't ship running code, they figure, let's do the next best thing: let's ship betas till the cows come home. By keeping developers hungry for what it might do (and in fairness, probably will) they'll be tempted to wait. They know Linux and Mac developers will use the betas to stay up-to-date. That's OK; you can always litigate that away.

Re: How are they gonna manage this?

[Black Parrot]

> No, seriously. How are they gonna maintain an active interest during the next two years of development?

Two years? In general you should double the estimated time-to-release for IT products.

And I thought they were saying 2006, so the problem is how to maintain interest for 5-6 years.

> Microsoft, I've seen many claim, is drumming up support and mostly trying a publicity stunt. The question is, how do you run a 2-3 year publicity stunt?

When you have several billion dollars to throw at it, and the press hangs on your every word to begin with, it shouldn't be that hard a problem.

Hell, how long has it been going on already? When was the first time you heard of MS Longhorn?

Re:How are they gonna manage this?

[SunPin]

The question is, how do you run a 2-3 year publicity stunt?

Microsoft has a proven track record of using "innovation" to separate people from their money. If Microsoft is in the process of a 2-3 year publicity stunt, they probably figured out how to do it.

Look for 2-3 years of Linux bashing.

Re:How are they gonna manage this?

[The Grassy Knoll]

>How do you run a 2-3 year publicity stunt?
>Maybe they should ask SCO

Or the Duke Nukem Forever guys...

.

Re: How are they gonna manage this?

[Carbonite]

Two years? In general you should double the estimated time-to-release for IT products.

And I thought they were saying 2006, so the problem is how to maintain interest for 5-6 years.

Although Microsoft may be the Evil Empire, they're not stupid. It's quite likely the project managers estimated the time-to-release at 12-18 months and then doubled that to come up with the 2006 release date.

Re:How are they gonna manage this?

[EddWo]

"ship betas till the "cows come home"."

Thats a good way to describe Longhorn. Was is deliberate?

Re: How are they gonna manage this?

[Black Parrot]

> Although Microsoft may be the Evil Empire, they're not stupid. It's quite likely the project managers estimated the time-to-release at 12-18 months and then doubled that to come up with the 2006 release date.

a) Why would they do that, when no one else in the industry does it?

b) Have you seen any evidence that that's what they've done in the past?

Re: How are they gonna manage this?

[Carbonite]

> Although Microsoft may be the Evil Empire, they're not stupid. It's quite likely the project managers estimated the time-to-release at 12-18 months and then doubled that to come up with the 2006 release date.

a) Why would they do that, when no one else in the industry does it?

Whenever a release date slips on one of their products, Microsoft is criticized. With Longhorn, instead of using their initial estimate, it's likely that Microsoft has added in some "padding" to make the release date realistic. It's not as if Microsoft hasn't noticed that many of their products' release dates have slipped. With Longhorn, they're simply attempting to correct this.

b) Have you seen any evidence that that's what they've done in the past?
As I stated above, Microsoft has a history of products being released later than the initial release date. That doesn't mean that they can never learn from their mistakes. If everyone on Slashdot understands than software projects always take longer than planned, it can be assumed that MS project managers also understand this.

The initial estimate might have said that Longhorn could be completed in 18 months. Instead of announcing that Longhorn would be released in late 2004, it would make sense to double the time-to-release and announce a 2006 release. By employing this strategy, there's very little downside for Microsoft, other than some inital cricitism on the long wait.

Re: How are they gonna manage this?

[tundog]

Two years? In general you should double the estimated time-to-release for IT products.

A colleague of mine once imparted to me some knowledge that was imparted to him from a wise-old research director. Your're on the right track but the time-tested estimate approach is: 'multiply the expected amount of time-to-release by two and take it into the next dimension'

If something is planned to take a day, it will really take 2 weeks.

Therefore an IT project that is expected to take 2 years will really take 4 decades; Longhorn == Windows 2043

Q.E.D.

Loooooonghorn

[thatguywhoiam]

I realize the product isn't finished... and won't be for a long while (hint to /. editors)... but check out this comedy from the developer site.

It's a so-called 'guided tour of Longhorn', which consists of no actual imagery, but rather a gigantic step-list of things for you to click on in your Longhorn alpha, to make you go 'ooooh'.

Just brutal. I mean, if its really a 'bet-the-company' strategy, you'd think they'd splash out just a little cash for a Flash or non-ass-looking PPT prez... or even screenshots.... something other than this. Just looks really amateur.

Say what you will, this is one thing Apple clearly understands and Microsoft seems to have no fucking clue about. People want the buzz. Windows fans especially want the buzz so they know WTF they are waiting years for... and I realize its years away and not close to finished... but yet, people are out there toying with these alphas, so they should get on the ball and do a preview page like Apple did for Panther.

(People tell me all the time that Windows 'won' because of 'superior marketing'... I've never believed they were good marketeers.)

Re:Loooooonghorn

[Max Romantschuk]

I realize the product isn't finished... and won't be for a long while (hint to /. editors)... but check out this comedy from the developer site.

It's a so-called 'guided tour of Longhorn', which consists of no actual imagery, but rather a gigantic step-list of things for you to click on in your Longhorn alpha, to make you go 'ooooh'.

Just brutal. I mean, if its really a 'bet-the-company' strategy, you'd think they'd splash out just a little cash for a Flash or non-ass-looking PPT prez... or even screenshots.... something other than this. Just looks really amateur.

Um... which of these options do you prefer:

1. Microsoft makes fake demos of things that don't exist yet.
2. Microsoft has the guts not to show what they don't have.

This is a developer site, not a marketing splash. Developers want information, not pretty presentions.

The fact that they are willing to give out information on a product which is years from being finished shows both courage and strategic integrity, if you ask me.

Re:Loooooonghorn

[MrBlackBand]

Windows fans...

No such creature exists!
Sure, there are people who tolerate Windows, but fans? Come on!

Re:Loooooonghorn

[Malc]

They did kindly provide an RSS feed...

Re:Loooooonghorn

[ratfynk]

From what I am seeing this version of Windows is only targeted at mouse clicking morons. I think that MS is trying desperately to separated their server and business OS from Windows home users. I would not be supprised if Longhorn will not even fun a compiler when it finally gets released. When the most important alpha features are playlists and pictures, the interest in this software for hackers will be nil.

Re: Loooooonghorn

[Black Parrot]

> It's a so-called 'guided tour of Longhorn', which consists of no actual imagery, but rather a gigantic step-list of things for you to click on in your Longhorn alpha, to make you go 'ooooh'.

> Just brutal. I mean, if its really a 'bet-the-company' strategy, you'd think they'd splash out just a little cash for a Flash or non-ass-looking PPT prez... or even screenshots.... something other than this. Just looks really amateur.

Yeah, you'd think their legal team could whip up another fake demo for them.

Re:Loooooonghorn

[miltimj]

Definitely my favorite quote on that page:

2. Open the "DefaultStore," which is a view of WinFX through the Win32(R) APIs. Drag in copies of a variety of photos, music, and documents. (Use only copies of your data to prevent data loss.)

Re:Loooooonghorn

[spiphy]

No there really are windows fans. I work with a guy who thinks that windows is the only real option. But then again he thinks that VB is the best programing language ever.

Re:Loooooonghorn

[LilMikey]

The fact that they are willing to give out information on a product which is years from being finished shows both courage and strategic integrity, if you ask me.

Hype == courage and strategic integrity? What?

Re:Loooooonghorn

[jkczyz]

It's a so-called 'guided tour of Longhorn', which consists of no actual imagery, but rather a gigantic step-list of things for you to click on in your Longhorn alpha, to make you go 'ooooh'.

If you would have just slowed down a little bit before you started bashing Microsoft, you might have read the page's headline correctly. But instead you miss quoted it after realizing there was no pictures for you to look at.

Try reading it again and you'll see the title is "Take a Self-Guided Longhorn Tour" (emphasis added, of course).

Re:Loooooonghorn

[4of12]

I disagree.

Flashy buzz and things that look nice are generally irrelevant to the OS. I know that lists of OS improvement features aren't flashy to consumers, but developers shouldn't be getting sold on eye candy.

My complaint was the so much of the Longhorn rollout was devoted to flashy things that have no real business in the OS.

WinFS is a worthwhile step forward; the other stuff is just so much marketing hype, needlessly tying higher level interfaces down into the OS.

Apple does a fine job of integrating their overall system, but I don't confuse Cocoa with Mac OS X anymore than I confuse Win2K with .NET or Linux 2.4 with KDE.

Re:Loooooonghorn

[ratfynk]

Yes, the code base does not matter, in their eyes. I think Longhorn is just going to be a bells and whistles OS. It will not really exibit innovation as far as the Windows GUI goes. The innovation will be restricting the 'home' version so that it will not compile squat. We have already seen the beginnings of this with XP. If they can release a very limited eye-candy version that consumers gotta have then that is what they will do. Take a look at the dev site, you will not see any of the security or integration to networking specs, except to say what the OS will do for your music and picture/media files. It is not targeted at servers or even home businesses at all. You can bet it will be cheap even in 64 bit version. It might even be for 32 and 64, at the same price. But the proffessional edition, that can run compilers will cost through the nose.

Re:Loooooonghorn

[DrWhizBang]

This is a developer site, not a marketing splash. Developers want information, not pretty presentions.

I suppose that's how Enlightenment came to be?

I think you are so wrong - the industry has shown over and over again that it is proper marketing that builds mindshare. Microsoft themselves have used that strategy to outmanouvre their competitors, just as they are now being outmanouvered by Apple (and others).

Even "developers" like us can be distracted by pretty lights and funky music.

Re:Loooooonghorn

[Nick_is_my_nick]

Not only that it lacks imagery, the auhtor must have mixed up the new terminology:
"...storage locations, such as the WinFX[TM] default store".
Got to be WinFS[TM]!? Or is this a part of the brand new WinConfuse[TM] ineventory?

Re:Loooooonghorn

[tidge]

Probably won't get many screen shots until after PDC. That's one of the benefits of dropping 2k is to get your hands on the stuff first. Everyone at the conf. is getting a copy of what is currently available.
The first early developer release is later this year.
I don't need screen shots, just give me the specs.

Re:Loooooonghorn

[Slime-dogg]

Go to Borland's Website and check out their preview of C# Builder, or go here to see their preview of Octane (Delphi for .NET). Both "previews" are available as flash (maybe shockwave, I can't tell the difference). Both "previews" are very graphical, make use of music, and even show an application being built.

Of course, there's no actual information present, and both of the "previews" suck major ass. They aren't really useful at all, except to maybe provide entertainment to those PHB's who are drooling at their desks while tripping on acid.

Needless to say, my desire to purchase either product (C# builder or Octane) is not encouraged in any way. Then again, the price of both does little in that way as well. They probably would have been better off selling Octane as a "Snap-In" extension for Visual Studio than trying to pawn it off as a new IDE.

Re:who cares?

[azzy]

I have so little interest in Longhorn, that I won't even post a comment to an article about it. Whoops!

Nothing new here.

[the web]

By using a combination of XAML and C# (or Visual Basic(R) .NET) code, you can build various types of output files including traditional Windows desktop executables, DLL libraries, and console applications.

So, corrupting the Kernel will be just as easy, efficient, and user friendly as with other Windows Versions!

Re:Nothing new here.

[Theatetus]

Really? Explain, then, how dll's and console app's can take down the operating system so easily.

I'm not being an ass, I'm actually curious: how can an application or library cause the entire operating system to fail? The only Windows development I've done is a few DLL's for IIS, and they've never caused problems, but I've seen applications BSOD Win95, Win98, Win2k, and WinXP (in fact, AOL BSOD's my friend's W2k computer every single time he signs off). What is going on there? The only time I've ever seen Linux itself crash (as opposed to the app or the X server) was when I did something really, really stupid with a kernel module I was tinkering with.

What are those applications doing to kill the OS, and how is the OS letting them do it? Is Longhorn going to fix whatever this glaring problem is?

Re:Nothing new here.

[the web]

First of all, who said anything about killing the OS? Allthough It can and has happened to me. Mostly through uninstalls to be precise. Example. I uninstalled VisualStudio and because it overwrote precious dll's when it installed, the uninstaller erased them completely, rather than rolling them back. I guess MS's reasoning is "why would anyone want to erase a MS program?"

Whenever I install a program, and it (depending on the quality or type of installation) overwrites an existing dll file, I consider this corrupted. Perhaps our definition of corrupted is disimilar.

And also I had heard that they were doing away with dll's because of the problems that are created when third party developers re-write dll's with their shabby software/installs. It's always a mixed bag of results though, in my experience.

And all those AC's, you blow ass. AC's always blow ass. You are the blowiest of ass blowers that ever blew ass.

Re:Editor's Blog

[Sayten241]

Looks like a premature launch

And as we all know, premature launches are not satisfying.

Microsoft has solved the ultimate question

[Ianoo]

Aristotle, Descartes, Plato and Socrates couldn't manage it, but it seems that Microsoft has solved the ultimate question. Take a read of this crap:

For thousands of years, philosophers and scientists have attempted to explain the cosmos in terms of dual opposing but coexistent principles: good and evil, yin and yang, matter and energy, mind and body, waves and particles, and, of course, programming code and markup languages. Programming and markup currently coexist in an uneasy truce. In theory, programming languages can do anything the computer is capable of, but they're often clunky for the job of laying out text, images, and controls in a simple visual interface. Markup is great for defining highly textured pages of text and images that adapt to different screen sizes and environments, but is hopelessly inept when it comes time to interact with the user in any nontrivial way. In creating a new programming interface for building Windows(R)-based client applications, the developers at Microsoft have decided not to deny this dualism, but to embrace and celebrate it. They have created an environment in which programming and markup boldly and intricately mesh in mutually supporting roles. The result--the presentation subsystem code-named "Avalon"--may well be the greatest experiment in synergistic duality since Adam and Eve. Vive la difference!

Emphasis my own. I think I'm going to be sick.

Re:Microsoft has solved the ultimate question

[twofidyKidd]

Now, I may be wrong by definition of concept, but doesn't Cold Fusion (Macromedia, formerly of Allaire) do this sort of thing already? I mean, the code syntax and structure was pretty similar to markup, it allowed the developer to use it for both page style and structure, and for "non-trivial" user interaction through scripting. Granted, its not considered a low-level scripting language, but I think as a network/internet based language, it worked wonders before ASP/PHP even got off the ground. (Don't get me wrong, I'd still rather work in PHP)

Re:Microsoft has solved the ultimate question

[Rhubarb Crumble]

Microsoft have decided not to deny this dualism, but to embrace and celebrate it.

Good, now we can look forward to them being burnt at the stake like the heretics they are.
(google://cathars+dualism)

Re:Microsoft has solved the ultimate question

[Raster Burn]

What does Bill Gates think he is, the Architect of the Matrix? Would that make Tux Neo? Ugh, somebody give me the blue pill

The Longhorn slogan?

[falsified]

"Beginning a technology wave that will define the digital decade"

Has anyone heard anything that supports this statement? They're saying that this is the biggest change since 3.1 vs. Win95...but that was what XP was supposed to be. I'm not seeing anything on here that's wowing me.

Re:The Longhorn slogan?

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

Makes perfect sense to me, as long as the "technology wave that till define the digital decade" is "the same as before, only 20% more bugs!".

Nobody says it has to be a good wave...

Re:The Longhorn slogan?

[bonch]

Replacing the interface, replacing Win32, replacing the filesystem, replacing...I could go on.

Re:The Longhorn slogan?

[Syrrh]

"Beginning a technology wave that will define the digital decade"

Hey, why not? If you consider the 'digital decade' to have started around 93 or 94 when the internet took off, the slogan is perfect!

It starts out new and fascinating, but gradually becomes more and more a part of your everyday life. You become dependent on the things that used to be newfangled fluff, and begin to demand more of them. You install a Bonzi Buddy. Then things start to go wrong. It's not entirely clear at first, you know that things shouldn't be quite so easy but you can't let go now. You install Webshots. The teetering crash looms high, and you know it's coming for you soon. In a last effort to stabilize, you shut down unneeded subsystems and plug the drain of resources, but it's too late, and in a psychotic flurry of desperation everything falls apart.

Bitter, disillusioned and poverty-stricken, you start over from nothing...

Have some Alpo!

[Avihson]

Kind of, The site www.msdn.microsoft.com is running Microsoft-IIS/6.0 on Windows Server 2003.

Their up time average is an astounding 18 days! Max was 112 days. Looks like they are finally learning something!

Now if you could just install service packs and sucurity patches without rebooting. When they get to that point, Server 2003 will be Enterprise Ready!

Netcraft uptime

Re:Have some Alpo!

[Disco Stew]

a sign of a disturbing, yet strangely comforting, trend...

Click the link in my sig..

Re:Have some Alpo!

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Their up time average is an astounding 18 days!

Well what do you expect? this is a Beta-quality OS - of course they're going to a: have crashes and b: update the system image rather frequently. No point in running a build with known fixed defects. better to load the version with fixed defects and find new ones.

Re:Have some Alpo!

[the_2nd_coming]

Server 2k3 is not beta fool. it is shipping.

Re:Have some Alpo!

[tuba_dude]

Dude, he said "beta-quality" not "beta".

Re:Have some Alpo!

[Directrix1]

The only thing I find disturbing here is Microsoft's claims of being the first to an Object OS which is capable of natural language search. I do believe Gnome beat them to that by quite a bit, and Gnome is free. Now is the time to kick linux into gear. Longhorn looks like the ultimate lock in machine if you ask me, and if Linux doesn't start de-eliting their tools (read not starting all the program names with a K and not giving every program a retarded almost unrelated acronym name) then microsoft will clobber linux, yet again, right when linux popularity has just started to really rise. Man we could use a linux TV promo right about now.

Re:who cares?

[Malc]

Well, I for one care. I'm sure there are plenty of others here too. Some of us actually have jobs based on Windows technologies that provide well for our families. Interesting concept, eh?

I don't like that name

[bigjnsa500]

Being a Texan, its excrutiating to me that Microshaft chose this name. I just wanted to let everybody know that this in no way means Texas equals MS.

Oh, IMHO some UT Austin grad probably works for MS now and said "oh lets name it after my almater". I would have said, "Ok, lets name it after Bevo."

Microsoft Bevo Release Candidate 1

Gosh, it just sounds more appropriate.

Re:I don't like that name

[xswl0931]

The codename Longhorn has nothing to do with Texas. Win2k3 was codenamed Whistler, the next release was supposed to be Blackcomb, these are two mountains in Canada. An intermediate release was decided upon and this was called Longhorn. Longhorn is a bar that sits between Whistler and Blackcomb.

Re:who cares?

[azzy]

I have so little interest, I didn't even read your reply.

rats!

[snooo53]

The first time I wish I actually had gotten a popup in Mozilla! :)

Re:rats!

[sewagemaster]

me too. on firebird. i have all ads blocked, and i was quite surprised when it happened!

Re:rats!

[dollar70]

Since you people mentioned it, I changed my settings on Firebird so I could get the pop-up. I started taking the survey, but found it just got more and more mind-numbingly painful to try to read all their multiple choice options.

I gave up and shut off pop-up's again. It just wasn't as amusing as I had hoped.

Then again, no one ever accused a Microsoft drone of having a personality...;-)

Q: Why did you stop by MSDN's website?

• Accidental click from another site
• Morbid Curiosity
• I thought this was the LSD.net site

Interesting comment from Bill

[swordgeek]

Over on C|Net, there's an article about Longhorn. Bill Gates has called this their biggest effort since Win95. Now if we assume that he's telling the truth (hey, why not?), it brings up some interesting parallels.

Windows95 originally was just going to be Windows 4.0--an updated version of Win3.1 Turning it into more than a GUI for DOS, adding multitasking, recreating the GUI, and so forth, was a HUGE undertaking which lead to endless delays. (Win4.0 was supposed to be out in '93; Win95 barely made it into it's named year.) But what threat caused the massive effort? OS/2. OS/2 2.1, the PPC chip, and the Pentium FP math bug got MS good and scared, and they came up with a (relative) miracle.

Now they're saying that they're putting that effort in again. What, pray tell, is the threat to MS this time, hmmmm?

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[interiot]

And both times, IBM has an active role in leading the charge.

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[j_dot_bomb]

>Overzealous government?

Not that I agree, but it points to something interesting. They are focusing on security in this release. Security was the key thing specifically excluded from their "consent decree": they could do what ever they wanted in this area.

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[tbone1]

Oh, I don't know, do you?

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[IANAAC]

Do you honestly think MS is threatened by Apple? I mean, really? When was the last time you saw medium-to-large businesses considering the switch? On the desktop? How about in the server room? Now, for home users, you may have a valid point, but not for businesses.

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[Tim C]

With the release of Windows 2000 and XP, it's also one of the main areas in which Windows can truly be said to be lacking.

Say what you want about servers with uptimes measured in years, XP is stable enough for everyday desktop use. I've not used 2k3 Server, so I can't comment on that, but I assume that (properly maintained) it'll give a Linux-based server a run for its stability money.

Security, on the other hand, is definitely somewhat lacking. Sure, my nearly-always on, nearly-always connected XP Pro box at home is in little or no danger, but that's because I'm careful. I have anti-virus software and a software firewall (as well as XP's own one), and I'm careful about what I do. But I'm the exception, not the rule...

MS needs to concentrate on security, because that's the main area in which their customers find Windows to be lacking, simple as that.

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[Eslyjah]

Do you honestly think MS is threatened by Apple? I mean, really? When was the last time you saw medium-to-large businesses considering the switch? On the desktop? How about in the server room? Now, for home users, you may have a valid point, but not for businesses.

Let's call it a two-pronged assault: Linux in the server room and Mac OS X on the home PC is going to make management less likely to believe the MS FUD. Unix won't be so scary to them. And if they start to realize that the computers they use at work suck a whole lot more than the iMac their kids use at home, the wheels will start turning. And when their work computers get infested with the latest virus and their kids say, "Don't worry, Dad, we don't need Norton Anti-Virus because we have a Mac," the wheels will turn some more.

Now, whether or not this happens is a matter of speculation. Maybe Apple will move to 15% desktop marketshare and Linux will get 75% on the server. Who knows? But MS doesn't want to see any marketshare erosion and they're going to fight it tooth and nail, which is why they've geared up for this big effort.

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[leoxx]

I do.

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[Quarters]

I know you want us to all shout "Linux". But, I'd consider lagging sales, a stagnant stock price, loss of maintenance subscriptions, and lack of people upgrading from the Win9X and Office9X sereies OSs and Office suites to be more of a concern to them.

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[1010011010]

Here's another LongHorn article.

hehehe

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[cpeterso]

OS/3?

Re:Interesting comment from Bill

[cygnusx]

And when their work computers get infested with the latest virus and their kids say, "Don't worry, Dad, we don't need Norton Anti-Virus because we have a Mac," the wheels will turn some more.

If he were a smart dad, he'd wonder why it was on sale then.

New OS, same old company behind it...

[ackthpt]

Any word on how the much ballyhooed Trustworthy Computing fits into the picture?

Or is there going to be the convenient clause in the EULA which states, "the consumer will be obligated to periodically, by an automated process download and install patches or warranty is void" This could be the OS that finally gets everyone onto broadband/DSL/etc. due to the shear volume that each will have to download. Yay!

Then again, many will try to use this operating system on stand-alone systems, which will probably be some violation of terms of the EULA, where Microsoft needs to know everything you have on your computer and what you're doing with it.

I could make an 'all your base' reference, but as Breathed and others have noted, you can't compete with reality anymore.

Re:New OS, same old company behind it...

[nsebban]

Ok, but is that really the point of this news ?br>
Longhorn MSDN sub-section is a reliable source of informations for people that are going to develop for this platform, just as Gnome central is for people that develop for Gnome.

Re:New OS, same old company behind it...

[Waffle Iron]

the consumer will be obligated to periodically, by an automated process download and install patches or warranty is void

What warranty?

Observations

[Max Romantschuk]

It seems the signal to noise ratio of this discussion is terrible. People are bashing the site like there's no tomorrow, without taking into account what it's for.

This is a developer resource. Take this UI guide on the Sidebar. Excellent writing, and finally something which approaches what has made Apple keep the UI edge for all these years.

If an article was posted about the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines I suspect the crowd would be singing to quite a different tune.

Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?

Re:Observations

[FooBarWidget]

Yes. If Slashdot posts an article about the GNOME HIG, it won't end up at the front page (only in the Developers section) and 95% of Slashdot won't read it. Next time another GNOME article is posted, Slashdotters will happily continue complaining about that open source needs a unified HIG and that Linux will never succeed on the desktop and how great Windows XP is.

Re:Observations

[b-baggins]

Not really. Perhaps it was just for the example in the paper, but the sidebar still seems to suffer the typical Windows and Windows developer GUI problem: Clutter. It's almost as if they try to throw as much crap on the screen as possible to show everyone how powerful the software is.

Re:Observations

[worm eater]

Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?

What do you want, this is Slashdot. Besides which, it's way too early to know anything about how MS is dealing with the security and stability problems in Windows. There are a lot of promises about this and that, but until a late beta gets released, what can you say about it? Nothing. Therefore, commence the MS bashing!

Re:Observations

[frank_adrian314159]

Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?

Objectivity? On Slashdot!?! Dude, I want some of what you're smoking!

Really! Where do people get the idea that Slashdot (or any source of information) is objective? All information comes packaged with bias - you can't avoid it. Even the fact that an article is finite length means that (by design) some information is left in and some taken out. This binary filter acts as an importance/relevancy bias.

So keep on searching for your objectivity, my friend. You'll be a long time searchin'.

Re:Observations

[Max Romantschuk]

Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?

Objectivity? On Slashdot!?! Dude, I want some of what you're smoking!

In response to this and several similar comments...

I might be idealistic and unrealistic when hoping for at least a little objectivity here. But I'd take idealism over cynicism any day ;)

The world will never be perfect, but unless we aspire to be more than what we are there's really no point in existing in the first place, is there?

Some may be content with just doing what they've always done, but the day I stop learning is the day I die.

Re:Observations

[bonch]

Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?

To be fair, the only reason Slashdot keeps posting these Microsoft articles (count 'em...at least three in the past two DAYS!) is because all the Linux people have a field day bashing and bashing and bashing.

It's a really poor reflection on this community and makes it seem like they're just a bunch of trolls. Nobody can appreciate the technology anymore because it's "M$."

Could you imagine how nice this site would be if it was nothing but mature veteran UNIX hackers who calmly and rationally discussed the next version of Windows and how it fits into their computing paradigm? If it was just something they talked about (maybe even praised) and then moved on. Instead, we get "M$ IS CHANGING THEIR BSOD INTO 3D!!!1 HAHA" (+5 Funny)."

If anybody knows of a "News for Nerds" type site that doesn't have a corporate-owned agenda (*cough* Slashdot), could someone direct me to it?

Is Slashdot pro-Linux or anti-Microsoft? I'd rather see more Linux articles than Microsoft articles on the front page, so what happened that changed Slashdot into a Microsoft news site?

Re:Observations

[frank_adrian314159]

I might be idealistic and unrealistic when hoping for at least a little objectivity here. But I'd take idealism over cynicism any day ;)

Well,
On Slashdot, I don't think of it as cynicism as much as normative behavior and smartass wise-cracks with the goal of karma whoring :-). In any case, I do believe in making the world a better place. But I think of media in general as a fairly unfruitful place to start my crusades.

Media is nothing more than a tool - a mirror, allowing us to see a distorted reflection of of object (which may be closer than they appear :-). Rather than taking time and energy to polish and improve the mirror, one should put it down until the work on the mirror's object is complete. Then you have an eternity to work on the mirror.

Re:Observations

[WNight]

Considering that Microsoft has stated publicly (and personally from the Ballmer and Gates) that Linux and free-software and communist in nature, anti-american, unstable, and should not be used in any way by government or business, I think it's reasonable that supporters of open source are a bit anti-Microsoft.

In a technical sense, Linus is exactly right. Microsoft is technically uninteresting and Linus wouldn't get anywhere (that he wanted to be) by copying them, nor I would guess, anywhere financially either (MS does dominate markets well). The only reason to consider MS, except as a security hole for servers and yet another unstable desktop OS, is that MS seems hell-bent on destroying our right to use free software (and establish open standards, so that software will always be free in a useful way).

Also, Microsoft has on numerous (and documented) occasions, lied, stolen, perjured, faked evidence, conspired illegally to destroy a competitor, slandered and libelled, and threatened unjust lawsuits to silence critics. But other than that, they're fine neighbors...

Why shouldn't we wish for the collapse of MS, it's them or us, by their choice.

Re:Observations

[Sentry21]

Take this UI guide on the Sidebar. Excellent writing, and finally something which approaches what has made Apple keep the UI edge for all these years.

I agree wholeheartedly. The Sidebar guide is fantastic, and should give developers something to really think about. Finally, a guide as to when to clutter up the screen and when not to. 99% of system tray icons I've seen are completely useless (if Realplayer really needs help starting faster, maybe they should learn to code better instead of just pre-loading everything). This is a useful and intelligent developer resource, and people don't seem to understand that.

--Dan

Re:Observations

[jamesmrankinjr]

Could you imagine how nice this site would be if it was nothing but mature veteran UNIX hackers who calmly and rationally discussed the next version of Windows and how it fits into their computing paradigm?

You'd probably have about two readers a day.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

Re:Observations

[nathanh]

To be fair, the only reason Slashdot keeps posting these Microsoft articles (count 'em...at least three in the past two DAYS!) is because all the Linux people have a field day bashing and bashing and bashing.

And other people immediately complain about the "unfairness" of Slashdot, and get moderated up to +5 insightful.

Yeah, so an opposing point of view given equal forum and exposure, that sounds really unfair.

Re:Observations

[Malcontent]

Get off it wilya. Go to gotdotnet.com to get your fill of linux bashing. Better yet go there and bitch and moan about how MS trolls are unfairly spreading FUD against Linux or Java. At least slashdot does not censor posts like gotdotnet does.

"If anybody knows of a "News for Nerds" type site that doesn't have a corporate-owned agenda (*cough* Slashdot), could someone direct me to it?"

It's a big internet. There are lots of sites out there. Don't tell me you can't find one to your liking. Have you tried serverside? How about k5? Yes that's the ticket go to K5 get bored to death. Just look for five minutes and I am sure you will find something. When you do please don't come back here. You are needlessly aggravating yourself. You hate it here so don't come back. Go someplace nicer. This place sucks, It's full of idiotic trolls who sprout nonsense all day long. By posting here you are smearing yourself with their stink. If you continue to post here people might mistake you for a stupid childish troll. Go away before you do yourself all kinds of harm.

"Is Slashdot pro-Linux or anti-Microsoft?"

Both! Neither!. It's the chaotic chatter of thousands of people. You are one of them and so am I. Why is that so hard to understand?

BTW you were modded up to +4. There were lots of pro MS posts modded up too. There is no better way to karma whore on slashdot then to defend MS or bash slashdot. It worked for you and it can work for anybody. If your karma sucks write about how stable XP is or how much you hate that people put a dollar sign in M$.

Re:Observations

[Tony-A]

because all the Linux people have a field day bashing and bashing and bashing.
Don't forget us Microsoft people. Just because we use it does not mean that we like it.

so what happened that changed Slashdot into a Microsoft news site?
Dunno, but it seems like Slashdot is the place to keep up with the Microsoft wormage that matters.

XAML Proprietary?

[PSaltyDS]

I am not a developer, so please help me out. I am interested in this from an interoperability angle: XML was to bring open standards support to M$ documents. But, I read on /., XML is only a framework that allows proprietary schema to be used, so there is really no progress there. Now we are talking about XAML. Is this just a name for one of those proprietary schema in XML, or is it a new proprientary markup type trying to score off XML's name, or...?

Any technology distinguishable from magic is not suficiently advanced.

Re:XAML Proprietary?

[gd23ka]

"XAML" is what they want to use to describe GUI elements. Something like

<dialog title="Longhorn General Application Fault">
<button id="idok">Crash System</button>
<button id="idcl">Trash System</button>
</dialog>

Like I pointed out before, describing GUI elements
like dialogs etc. using some sort of markup language is nothing new. Mozilla has already been doing this for years. They call their markup language (it's based on XML) XUL.

Re:XAML Proprietary?

[gregmac]

I am not a developer, so please help me out. I am interested in this from an interoperability angle: XML was to bring open standards support to M$ documents. But, I read on /., XML is only a framework that allows proprietary schema to be used, so there is really no progress there.

Well, XML was really mostly a buzzword that PHB's and marketing types threw around a couple years ago. Remember how XML was going to allow business to automatically place orders, any device to get any piece of information, your toaster to talk to your fridge, etc.? Well, I guess what they failed to mention was that it had to actually be implemented in everything.

XML is a nice format, for some things: it's human readable, it's extensable, it's based in plaintext, so easy to compress/transmit/whatever, and it's a good way of representing objects in lists or a hierarchy (or both). To make it actually do anything though, you have to specify a format. For two business to talk to each other, they have to use the same formats, and provide the interfaces.

Now we are talking about XAML. Is this just a name for one of those proprietary schema in XML, or is it a new proprientary markup type trying to score off XML's name, or...?

I've actually never heard of XAML before, but according to Webopedia, it sounds like the same old crap, once again. :)

Likely scoring off XML's name isn't too far off, either. PHB's eat this stuff up.

Re:XAML Proprietary?

[Crimson Midget]

As far as I know XAML is Microsoft's proprietary version of XUL. XUL being the user interface language developed by the Mozilla team. It's pretty much an XML structure with CSS and javascript.

Hopefully XUL and XAML will be convertible, but a number of web developers fear Microsoft is looking for a major browser lock-in.

(BTW there's already something called XAML that uses XML message formats for ecommerce.)

Re:XAML Proprietary?

[AT]

It looks like XAML uses its own style system, different and incompatible to CSS.

The other major difference appears that while any .NET language can be used for the code bindings, they have to be compiled, unlike XUL/Javascript. This seems to suggest remote, browser-based XAML applications won't be possible, although IE can be used to preview the XAML layout.

But it does at least show MS thinks an XML interface description language ala XUL or MacOS X NIB(?) is the direction of the future.

Re:XAML Proprietary?

[cygnusx]

I've actually never heard of XAML before, but according to Webopedia, it sounds like the same old crap, once again. :)

I don't think XAML as used in Longhorn (i.e., a declarative presentation language) is the same as Transaction Authority Markup Language. In fact, MS seems to be pulling a Firebird on the XAML guys.

WVG?

[HickNinja]

"Avalon" offers several layers of access to graphics and rendering services. At the top layer, Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Vector Graphics (WVG) provides a number of advantages common to XML-based graphics markup. WVG is straightforward to use with the rest of the "Avalon" object model, it is readily reusable, and it is familiar to users of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).

Sounds like classic embrace and extend.

Security Memories?

[Captain Sope]

Manifest files are plain XML files. When users point their browser to the specified deployment location, Longhorn automatically downloads and installs the application and its manifests on the client computer and creates a shortcut to the .deploy file. At the end of the process, users run the application by clicking on the .deploy file.

Doesn't this sound a lot like activeX's goals. Now it's just sugar-coated with XML and more proprietary BS. I can almost read the CERN advisories now!

Who cares?

[miffo.swe]

For the first time i aint even the slightest bit interested in what they may come up with. It feels like the release party of the next generation can opener or something. They upgrade their systems in such small steps that its like watching grass grow. There will be many realeses between now and longhorn so its just not worth it to speculate. Lets wait for W2003,2003SE,2003ME first.

The mere hype is making every release an anticlimax and by now we know that what seems new and shiny is most surely the old clown with some new colors, nothing new, nothing exciting.

No C/C++ API... ??

[tobe]

Flicking through the SDK docs it seems Windows app. developers.. hell.. maybe even the driver developers... are going to have to brush up either C# or Basic .NET.

As far as I can tell MS have tied all future app. development on Windows into proprietary languages...

Ace..

Re:No C/C++ API... ??

[tobe]

But the API is presented as C#.

Re:No C/C++ API... ??

[tobe]

Oh... ok then..

So from whom do I buy my C# or Basic .NET compiler from ?

Re:No C/C++ API... ??

[emmetropia]

Most of what's in Longhorn (from what I know of right now) is .NET code. I'm almost 100% sure that explorer was modified to be .NET. This doens't mean that you can't write windows apps in C++ anymore, because there are .NET compilers for C++, as well as VB, and many other languages. And C# isn't a proprietary language, if you do some reading you'll find that out. Do your homework, my friend, before you start bitching.

Re:No C/C++ API... ??

[multi io]

.NET supports [...] Python [...] LISP

How are highly dynamic classes like Python's or CLOS's implemented? Or Lisp macros? I somehow doubt that you can implement anything other than single-dispatch class-based languages on a single-dispatch class-based runtime like the CLR _efficiently_. Of course, you can in theory implement any turing-complete language on any turing-complete runtime, but if it were so easy to do this efficiently and without semantic losses, it would have been done a long time ago.

Re:who cares?

[tbone1]

slashdotters have bred? I don't think 'interesting' is quite the word ...

Re:who cares?

[gregmac]

I have less then zero interest in longhorn

You know, that's exactly how I feel.

I still run 2k on my home system (mostly out of lazyness really, theres nothing windows-specific that I really rely on, save a couple games on occasion). I still run 2k on all the workstations at work (except mine, which is RH). My PDC is NT4 on a 500mhz box, as it has been for 3 years, and once I get time it will become Samba3 (it also runs Apache and BIND).

I do have a 2k server, which is running our accounting system (unfortunately, the low-cost (under $1k) linux-based stuff didn't meet our needs, linux mid-market ($5-20k) doesn't exist, and the rest is $90k+). We ended up going with a mid-market windows-only solution, but that system is ready to be a terminal server.

I have all the pieces in place, and my ultimate plan here is to switch all our desktops over, once I find something that isn't going to reduce the 'feature set' of our desktops. An upgrade isn't really viable if I have to tell everyone "oh sorry, you can't select printing options when you print anymore, they can only be set in the driver options - which you can't access".

I'm just totally giving up on windows. It's just not worth the hassle anymore. I can't do any sort of automatic app installation, which is one of the things that bothers me a lot. Our office is small - 8 workstations - but it's big enough that it takes a lot of time to go around doing windowsupdate, installing version x.y+1 of whatever, etc. I never found a nice solution that didn't cost a lot of money. (And yes, I know 2k can do it. I've used it at another company, and we had to turn it off because it made things more difficult). This is the sort of thing that I can use rsync and a couple shell scripts for, and have a working solution in half an hour. Flexibility is key: My job is not to be a sysadmin (we're not even a computer-related business), so the less time I spend sysadmin-ing, the better.

Anyway, that kind of turned into a rant, and i'm not looking to fight with any of you MSCE's that are going to try and counter everything I've just said - I've heard it a million times. I'm just trying to point out that if you're going to wait, wait for something worth waiting for. I personally don't see longhorn adding anything that justifies the expense.

Foghorn Leghorn

[turgid]

Surely I can't be the only one who keeps seeing "Foghorn Leghorn" instead of "Longhorn?"

Re:Foghorn Leghorn

[thebatlab]

No I'm pretty sure you are.

Re:Foghorn Leghorn

[FooBarWidget]

You're not the only one. The first time I heard "longhorn" I immediately thought about that cartoon chicken.

Re:Foghorn Leghorn

[Crimson Midget]

Well I hate to, I say, I hate to tell you son, you probably are.

Re:Foghorn Leghorn

[snooo53]

That'd be really funny if they could get the voice down for error messages

"I say, I say, you've got a fatal exception at 0E33, son."

Clippy:"Well, barbeque my hamhocks, looks like you're writin' a letter. I'm gonna give you a bit of advice, boy. So far, this letter's about as sharp as a bowling ball..."

Microsoft's Obvious Strategy

[TheRealFoxFire]

Microsoft knows that the delay to 2006 is unfavorable for them. First its a problem for all of the companies that bought into the subscription licensing, who are now seeing their money wasted essentially, paying MS for nothing for three more years. Second, it gives their competition nearly three years to advance before MS has an answer to any of it. Mac OS and to a lesser extent the Linux desktop will be quite different in 2006.

Knowing that, Microsoft is deliberately drumming up the hype now with an outrageously early beta, leaked screenshots, and surreptitious press releases and leaks about their upcoming features. Why? To get the current installed base excited about the next release, and to quiet any concerns they have that might make them switch in the interim. If they saw no compelling reason to stick around until 2006 they may migrate to other platforms. The leaks and beta try to give them that reason.

Some lines from the site

[selfsealingstembolt]

"Take a closer look at the Longhorn build-once, deploy n-times application model."

Sure. THAT is new. They made it possible to copy some of your files/settings to other machines...

The interesting part in that quote is the n in "n-times". Sounds like some new DRM for developers. Next time you want to distribute your just finished application it says: "Sorry, you are only allowed to ship this product to n users. With your Visual Studio license, n is limited to 5. Have a nice day!"

Re:Some lines from the site

[Politburo]

Since when did "n-times" mean DRM? Last time I checked, "n-times" meant "any number of times".

MS "XAML" is nothing new. XUL was there before.

[gd23ka]

Describing user interfaces using markup language like "XAML" is nothing new. Mozilla's user interface is completely based on XUL and scripted with javascript therefore making it "prior art"

oops. . .

[Robert Hopson]

I take it all back, please bring back the daily SCO coverage.

Why the silly codenames?

[Viol8]

Is it some sort of inate desire in computer types to play soldiers or spys or something? Why do these products always get these silly codenames?
We all know it'll be called "Windows " so why don't they just call it that from the start?
They can always rename it if they get bored or are these names just to make a very uninteresting product seem somehow mysterious and fascinating?

Re:Why the silly codenames?

[DrWhizBang]

... because Microsoft is seriously needing to promote it's next OS as a phallic symbol, it chose the name "Longhorn". I believe they got hte idea from their friends at Disney, with the Lion King's "Pride Rock".

Re:Why the silly codenames?

[IWorkForMorons]

... because Microsoft is seriously needing to promote it's next OS as a phallic symbol, it chose the name "Longhorn". I believe they got hte idea from their friends at Disney, with the Lion King's "Pride Rock".

Phallic symbol? Longhorn? "Pride Rock"?! OMG!!! There really is a HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA!!! And it's taken over Microsoft!

Ah well...maybe Longhorn will finally be as pretty as OS X...

Re:Why the silly codenames?

[2short]

It actually makes sense. As a developer, I need to call a project something, and it's going to be a huge PITA to change names once I've picked one and it has propagated through code and directory names, etc. The name the project will eventually be shipped under will be picked by marketing and/or client types, but they won't pick something until I'm well into development, and they'll probably change their minds a few times.
As for MS, they certainly can't call it "Windows", that's the name of all their OS projects. They could call it "Windows 2006" or "Windows FX" or whatever, but again, any number of unforseen factors could force a change for marketing reasons, so why should developers set themselves up for problems?
I understand "Longhorn" is the name of a bar. This is a fine tradition; several of my projects have been code-named for the bar on whose napkins the original idea was first sketched out.

Re:Why the silly codenames?

[TomV]

The Moft codenames tend to be placenames, and we've adopted that at work. But we're not quite as glamorous as the big boys, so since we finished 'Grimsby' (a key-from image datacapture thing), we've been working on 'Cleethorpes', which should be done at the end of next week.

The minute we know a project's coming we get the source control and so forth set up, and we need a name straight away. We've got our hearts set on 'Tewkesbury' for the next project, though with a week and a half to go they all seem to turn into 'Slough'.

XAML or XUL?

[bahamat]

I find some of this Longhorn stuff really fascinating. As I was looking through I found this page which describes XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language). If you haven't looked yet, XAML looks to me an awful lot like a knockoff of XUL. The basic idea is the same, you build the user interface in XML. From the looks of the screenshots the majority of Longhorn's GUI is built in XAML.

Aparently they've taken notice of Mozilla, they notice that it rocks, and they noticed it so much they're redesigning Windows around philosophies born in the Mozilla Project. You know what they say, imitation is the sinserest form of flattery.

I never thought I'd say this, but thanks Bill! We didn't know you thought so highly of us :-)

Re:XAML or XUL?

[tommck]

You know what they say, imitation is the sinserest form of flattery.

And spelling properly is the sincerest form of flattery to your 5th grade teacher!

;-)

Re:XAML or XUL?

[bahamat]

Mozilla stole XUL from Microsoft. XAML has been discussed for about 4 years now...

Well that's handy. Mozilla is going on 6 (started 1998-03-31).

I couldn't tell if you are trying to be funny, a flaming troll, or are just genuinely stupid. I hope that my reply will be equally appropriate for any case.

Re:XAML or XUL?

[dcuny]

Actually, XAML is just extending ASP.NET out to the desktop.

They both have the GUI defined by an *ML grammar, and can either have the code either embedded in the XML, or put into a codebehind page. And they both rely on .NET to compile them - no interpreting allowed.

The only thing really new is the partial keyword, so you can spread your class definition through several source files... Bleah.

The XML primarily allows you to specify the layout of widgets on your form (whatever the render happens to be: Windows.Forms or Areo's Canvas class). Sure, it's nice to be able to define this in a standard format, but I'm having trouble figuring out what's the big deal?

The irony is that HTML was actually designed too seperate the specifics of the look and feel from the document. Instead of having to worry about the font face, and how emphasis was rendered, you'd let the browser worry about it.

Now, XML is being used to specify the look and feel down to the last pixel. By default, ASP.NET generates HTML that is located by absolute position, and text is specified with a particular font in a particular size...

Could someone explain why this is so fabulous?

Re:XAML or XUL?

[Politburo]

And I'll say it to you too: XUL looks to me an awful lot like a knockoff of Sonique's skinning system (which I don't believe has a fancy acronym). Your point?

Re:XAML or XUL?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Yeah, but if you check the MS examples you'll note that they're using nice FontSize attributes rather than CSS. Thats really clever isn't it! I mean, why build a UI in code, when you can use markup to describe it, and then stuff the whole concept up by gluing presentation directly to the interface.

DO NOT USE THIS -- USE XUL.

XUL is cross platform, open, and available now. It is stable and secure. Personally, I don't trust MS to develop an entirely "new" technology using new code, and actually have it all work perfectly with no security flaws first go.

Re:XAML or XUL?

[bahamat]

It's funny you mention that...I hated her.

Re:XAML or XUL?

[gd23ka]

The XML primarily allows you to specify the layout of widgets on your form (whatever the render happens to be: Windows.Forms or Areo's Canvas class). Sure, it's nice to be able to define this in a standard format, but I'm having trouble figuring out what's the big deal?

The "big deal" is that you don't (always) have to recompile your program code just because you want to change the way the GUI looks. Maybe Longhorn/IE is some day going to be as kick-ass as Mozilla is today...Maybe :-)

Re:XAML or XUL?

[multi io]

The XML primarily allows you to specify the layout of widgets on your form (whatever the render happens to be: Windows.Forms or Areo's Canvas class). Sure, it's nice to be able to define this in a standard format, but I'm having trouble figuring out what's the big deal?

AFAICS, it's basically a rip-off of the persistence mechanisms used in e.g. NextSTEP's or Delphi's UI frameworks. The idea has also been adopted in Java's "Long-Term Persistence for JavaBeans" facility, which is part of the java.beans package in JDK 1.4+.

The XAML files (as well as Delphi's .form files or the XML written by Java's bean framework) contain declarative descriptions of the object(widget) tree that makes up the form/window/page described by the XAML/XML/.form file. A tag name in an XAML is just the class name of the corresponding widget's class, the attributes inside the tag hold property values. The java.beans.XMLEncoder class in the JDK produces such a similar XML representation file for JavaBeans-based GUI elements and JavaBeans in general.

The idea is to have those files generated by a GUI editor at design time, then read them back in and recreate the corresponding window/form/etc. at runtime.

Now, XML is being used to specify the look and feel down to the last pixel.

Not necessarily. You can use "panels" which arrange their child controls in a more flexible manner.

By default, ASP.NET generates HTML that is located by absolute position, and text is specified with a particular font in a particular size...

Well, that's unfortunate, but certainly not a technical necessity...

Re:who cares?

[ClubStew]

Yeah, that managed code that has proven to be quite stable and that will make up almost the entire OS is really going to suck. Get a life and get off the bandwagon.

/. et. al. is always complaining about Windows' instability and now that it just might be stable you bitch about that. C'mon! Where does it end. Just admit that you have a one track mind and are not open and move on.

Re:who cares?

[Sonic McTails]

I have to agree with you, Windows is a compelete hassle, and I really wouldn't care for Longhorn, even if MS made to run on macs !. All but one of my machines use Linux or Mac OS X. My last computer runs WinXP because I have a few games I want to play :-P

NTFS version?

[irgu]

Could somebody check fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo DRIVE: on Longhorn? It should tell the NTFS version. Linux knows 1.2, 3.0 and 3.1.

WTF?

[Jack Auf]

Why are the /. ed's posting all these stories for a product that will not be released until 2006?

How is Longhorn possibly relevant at this point in time? Oh wait, Apple just released an OSX upgrade and Microsoft has a habit of releasing a flurry of press releases, product announcements, screenshots, and astroturfing efforts in a sad attempt to redirect public attention to themselves.

Re:WTF?

[Max Romantschuk]

Why are the /. ed's posting all these stories for a product that will not be released until 2006?

How is Longhorn possibly relevant at this point in time?

Three years is a very short time in business. For large firms the thought of upgrading their network in three years time is just around the corner.

For example in the automotive industry things have been more or less settled for the last 50 years. The same basic ideas still apply.

Computing on the other hand is still in it's infancy. Right now the industry is reinventing itself at a pace which is very different from other established industries.

So for the majority of the future users of Longhorn, every industry including computing, 2006 is not that far off.

Re:WTF?

[Jack Auf]

Get real. Two or three years is an eternity in IT.

Re:WTF?

[Max Romantschuk]

Get real. Two or three years is an eternity in IT.

Get real. The IT industry is funded by pretty much every other industry. Everyone doesn't wish to upgrade all the time.

Re:WTF?

[TomV]

How is Longhorn possibly relevant at this point in time?

Leaving aside the matter of relevance, Longhorn is very topical right now for a news site because this is the week of Moft's Professional Developers' Conference in LA (2 grand, sold out ages ago) and there has therefore been a huge amount of new information released - a lot of the gags came off at the start of the PDC. 'News For [a subset of] Nerds, Stuff That Matters [to some people]'.

Which brings us to relevance. Relevance requires an indirect object - an entity can only have relevance to another entity. So it's not easy to answer your generalised question on the subject. But Longhorn might be relevant to the future of Linux depending on how it turns out, and you should always know your enemy. Getting to know the fundamentals of what may be a very different OS as early as possible may be relevant to those who'll need to look after Longhorn systems in three years, and if nothing else it's relevant to all of us Windows developers as a good early warning to get divorced from non .net (i.e. unmanaged) development as soon as possible because there's no future in it. It may of course be of no relevance to you...

Longhorn's target PC specs...

[freejamesbrown]

"4-6GHz processor
2GB+ memory
1TB hard drive
Graphics processor 3X today's performance
1GB Ethernet, 54Mbps wireless networking"

4-6Ghz? "Trend: Developers rent meat lockers."

2GB+ memory... "our API has completely done away with garbage collection. we just periodically reboot."

1TB? are we going to support versioning of the entire hard drive? (might be an interesting way to roll back virus damage.) ...
m.

Re:Longhorn's target PC specs...

[MtViewGuy]

I don't think Microsoft will push the demands for Longhorn that high.

It's more realistic that Longhorn will probably need at least an Intel Pentium 4/Celeron CPU running at 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon XP CPU running at 2500+ speeds, about 1 GB of RAM, 512 GB hard drive, graphics card with performance about that of the ATI Radeon 9600 card, and 100Base-T Ethernet (NOT 10Base-T Ethernet).

Re:Longhorn's target PC specs...

[sharkey]

"our API has completely done away with garbage collection. we just periodically reboot."

Wasn't that a feature of Windows 95?

Re:Longhorn's target PC specs...

[Darren Winsper]

Err...no, 10Base-T will be fine. I don't know about anywhere else, but in the UK the average broadband house has a 512Kbit connection. Whilst the big push towards 1Mbit has now started, consumer connections aren't going to be much faster than 2Mbit in 2006.

Re:Longhorn's target PC specs...

[geekoid]

Actually, they want enough data so nothing ever gets deleted.

Re:Longhorn's target PC specs...

[burns210]

sure, maybe a CVS of the entire system? actually, that might be a nice feature for your documents file, an automated cvs/backup/versioning system for those files.

Better wait for the REAL beta test!

[MtViewGuy]

Folks,

I think people need to realize that Windows Longhorn is still quite a ways from making it to beta release!

People conveniently forget that Microsoft made MANY changes during the alpha phase of Windows 4.0 before settling on the interface and features that became the Windows 95 beta program.

I don't expect the beta program for Longhorn to start until at earliest February 2004 when Microsoft has completed the features freeze for the new operating system. Besides the WinFS file system, it appears that Microsoft will come up with a completely new interface that will be totally different than the interface look and feel that has been around since Windows 95 (Windows XP today is still in many ways very similar to the original Win95 interface).

Re:Who cares?

[Traksius Egas]

For the first time i aint even the slightest bit interested in what they may come up with.

I totally agree. I know it's still early, (by a few years) but I have become so bored with all things Microsoft that I can barely stand it. Luckily I have the many flavors of Linux to keep things exciting.

Re:who cares?

[KingAdrock]

I have all the pieces in place, and my ultimate plan here is to switch all our desktops over, once I find something that isn't going to reduce the 'feature set' of our desktops. An upgrade isn't really viable if I have to tell everyone "oh sorry, you can't select printing options when you print anymore, they can only be set in the driver options - which you can't access".

I'm just totally giving up on windows. It's just not worth the hassle anymore.

It really doesn't sound like it is Windows that is the hassle.

How to get Longhorn

[Nick of NSTime]

From the MSDN Subscriber downloads page:

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".

I just called MSDN customer service and ordered my set. It was really easy, and it will take 7-10 days for the discs to arrive. Note that it's DVD-ROM format only.

Hope that helps.

Re:How to get Longhorn

[MagPulse]

How much?

Re:How to get Longhorn

[Nick of NSTime]

Free, as long as you have a qualifying MSDN subscription.

This is all coming from the PDC...

[freejamesbrown]

where you PAY to go and learn about what's coming up. this isn't a public roll out. it's an alpha preview for those developers who actually program on the platform.

i'm sure if you're AT THE CONFERENCE, it feels very professional.

m.

Re:who cares?

[TheRaven64]

Some of us actually have jobs based on Windows technologies that provide well for our families. Interesting concept, eh?

Considering your target audience, I think the words between `jobs' and the full stop could have safely been left out...

wasted screen space

[green pizza]

Does MS assume everyone is running their displays at 1600x1200? I thought OS X wasted screen space, but this with the taskbar, sidebar, and superdeluxebig++ window frames is even worse.

"It's funny because it's true".

Re:wasted screen space

[TomV]

Does MS assume everyone is running their displays at 1600x1200?

They may be prepared to gamble that by the time they release Longhorn (2006?) 1600*1200 will be pretty common. Win2k works OK-ish on 800*600, not pleasantly, but usably. Bear in mind that with Avalon the whole graphics subsytem will use DirectX so they're already betting on a certain level of hardware graphics support.

Enough with the MS press releases

[re-geeked]

How many Longhorn articles is this now?

Is Slashdot still interested in Free Software?

Or did someone forget to tell me that Longhorn is GPL'd?

Also, isn't there someplace better than the front page to discuss minor updates to legacy systems?

I mean, really, Windows?? Who uses this crap any more?

It doesn't matter, we'll all end up using it

[green pizza]

Prepare to lose all karma...

Yeah, we're all bashing Longhorn and Microsoft's ways right now... but come 2006, Microsoft will win once again as millions of businesses and tens of millions of homes upgrade to Longhorn. Even the most hardcore geek will have Longhorn on a partition within a year of its release.

We bashed Win98, but ended up using it anyway. Ditto for Win2K and XP.

Sure, our servers will still run un*x, but as long as we keep using Windows at work for "compatibility" and "familiarity"... and a single innocent Windows box at home "just for games", Microsoft will keep winning.

This is not a flame or a troll, but just a prediction based upon the past. I would like to be proven wrong, though...

Re:It doesn't matter, we'll all end up using it

[jamesmrankinjr]

Linux and Apple now have three years to change that. MS has now told everyone they won't have anything new to show until 2006. Since OS X is pretty much now what Longhorn promises then, Apple can make huge strides during this period. Likewise, all the governments and companies considering Linux have 3 years to decide whether to get off the MS forced march or not.

And what are the compelling business features? 1. We get to rewrite all our custom apps that work just fine to use new APIs! 2. We get to buy all new computers for our employees with 4GHz processors and 1TB disks so the file open dialog box can be 3D and texture mapped with moving video! Or something. (ps The Longhorn graphics features run on current Apple hardware in OS X now.)

Meanwhile, MS is already starting to see revenue losses due to companies hesitant to upgrade because of security concerns.

I'm starting to feel almost bad for MS. Nah, not really.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

Yes and NO....

[SerpentMage]

Yes you are right .NET is much faster than Java OS. However, there is still a price to pay.

Remember the original version of NT? The version where the GDI was a subsystem onto itself? Back then NT was essentially a micro-kernel approach. However, starting in NT 3.51 the GDI was pulled into the kernel and the result is that NT is less stable in theory.

Of course with enough testing it can be made stable. However, now contrast Windows XP with Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is rock solid, whereas XP can be slow and can be buggy. In essence a step backwards.

Now lets tie this together. .NET is faster because it is NT 3.51 where the GDI is tied into kernel. .NET is faster because many many pieces are hand coded in C. For example SWING is largly coded in Java whereas GDI in .NET is coded in C, and C++.

The end result is that applications will not necessarily more stable. In fact instead of being more stable there could be consistent big bad bugs due to bugs in the .NET runtime. The key is in their drive to add more features will it make the .NET runtime more stable or less stable. My current thinking is that if they can break past habits then indeed .NET will be stable.

Re:Yes and NO....

[alext]

Yes you are right .NET is much faster than Java OS.

Ah, finally somebody with some benchmarks.

Link?

Re:Yes and NO....

[tshak]

whereas XP can be slow and can be buggy

I stayed on 2K because everyone was saying this. I waited until SP1 and then upgraded my two machines to XP Pro. My laptop is always being thrashed as it's compiling and running my crappy code, while running IIS, Sql Server, VMWare, and Outlook 2003 Beta. My other machine (desktop) is used for my recording studio, as well as gaming (not a great combo but I don't have room for two desktops). Using Pro Tools, I've recorded 100's of hours of material, some sessions going as long as 3 hours. Niether machine has ever crashed. I've never lost work due to XP being unstable. Anecdotally people around me have similar success with XP. I don't buy the "it's a step backwards in stability" bit.

Re:Yes and NO....

[canajin56]

It completely depends on the hardware. Lots of older hardware has completly awful driver support for XP. It will crash a lot. Whereas that same older hardware was more likely to have 98 and 2000 drivers...the end result is, many people upgraded and found worse stability when it first came out...and many others upgraded and found better stability.

Many windows crashes are caused by drivers, not the core system. I have never had my 2K system crash on me, except when I install bad drivers. But everybody blames MS. It's like blaming Linus because some third party device module crashed your Linux system. The only thing they could reasonably do is make sure that only drivers they have tested can be installed. DRM is part of that.

Re:who cares?

[rabtech]

Don't blame us if you aren't using Active directory with Win2k/XP clients w/Group Policy and SUS.

Microsoft has provided the tools to make software installation, management of desktop settings, and automatic pushing of patches and service packs completely automatic and easy to do.

If you refuse to use the technology, you deserve what you get.

If you use Win9x/ME, you deserve to be shot.

What the?!

[Delphix]

from the developer page:

Stop by this section of the LHDC for the latest code samples and tools from Microsoft and the community at large. Even better, if you've built something, put it up for all of us to share!

Share? The largest monopolistic company on the planet encouraging people to share? Does anyone else note a sense of irony?

Its still early on about longhorn

[3seas]

One place where I've mentioned what MS is up to. I've also mentioned it here on slashdot but slashdots search engine sucks. But anyway, I mentioned Longhorn specifically along the same lines as that link while getting one response that I'm either an idiot or a genius.....

Guess I'm a Genius... duh!

Re:Its still early on about longhorn

[3seas]

I have no idea how the url got changed to include "slashdot.org" so I'll try again. maybe it was a firebird problem...as preview gave me a slashdot page empty of a preview.

anyway

an autocoding tool project

and as an extra, since I had to correct the link..

more information on autocoding and a link to an excuse to ignore the research and links

Some things you cannot patent or otherwise claim rights to.

Re:Its still early on about longhorn

[3seas]

MS does not have the resources to do it right, but they sure as hell can do what they can to put constraints on the abilities of
others to.

slap an autocoding engine on top of what is a non-conflicting sum of programming concepts and data types (with a bytecode layer
and excecution engine) and slap a patent on it. and in the mean time while you are waiting for the patent, you copyright integrated databases
used by the autocoder.....

in the end, you enforce your IP rights.

Market cornered.

they're running IIS 6.0

[kaan]

I can't tell what the OS is, but sniffing the http response header (after sending a request for http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn) produced the following server info:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:23:43 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
P3P: CP='ALL IND DSP COR ADM CONo CUR CUSo IVAo IVDo PSA PSD TAI TELo OUR SAMo CNT COM INT NAV ONL PHY PRE PUR UNI'
X-AspNet-Version: 1.1.4322
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 24182

btw, if anyone's interested, http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn does a silent redirect to http://207.46.196.115/longhorn, so that's the server info you need to check against, not msdn.microsoft.com.

i forgot..

[Suppafly]

I forgot, do we like Microsoft on tuesdays?

Re:who cares?

[bonch]

You complain about a four year old operating system, you list off a bunch of complaints, and then you say you will ignore Longhorn, which fixes all those complaints. With Longhorn, you can even write your own XML-based installation scripts.

I'm just trying to point out that if you're going to wait, wait for something worth waiting for. I personally don't see longhorn adding anything that justifies the expense.

I'm sorry, but you're an idiot if you don't think .NET, WinFS, Avalon, and the rest of the Longhorn technologies aren't better than crappy old 2k.

Re:MS "XAML" is nothing new. XUL was there before.

[junklight]

Ha Ha - I think we can all see what is comming.

Patents are often not awarded for years after they where applied for and are back dated to when they where applied for.

Bye Bye XUL.....(although obviously they will wait until everyone is sold on the idea)

MOD PARENT UP!!

[SonOfThor]

That was fucking hilarious!!!!!!!!

Re:MS "XAML" is nothing new. XUL was there before.

[Politburo]

So? Mozilla (more accurately, Mozilla users) marketed it as something new when it had also been used in programs such as Sonique. Do you have a point?

Troll

[bonch]

Please. This is not Win98SE. You obviously have not read up on anything regarding Longhorn. I can't believe you got modded up by somebody.

Longhorn is a yawn, a client-only release.

Nope, there is a server version planned.

WinFS was supposed to replace NTFS.

No, it wasn't. Slashdot reported that it was supposed to, but that was false. A little reading, and people would have figured that out.

Now it's just gonna be IMDB (in-memory database) which was stripped from Win2000 at the last minute file-system filter driver, which will be used by Explorer.

What FUD! WinFS never existed in Windows 2000 and was never stripped at the last minute.

Neat, but isn't gonna change your business.

Uh, it's sure gonna be nice when I'll be able to search my 100+ GB hard drive for everything from contacts to e-mails in one window.

The shell theme will change.

The entire interface will change. It will be replaced with a DirectX accelerated photorealistic interface called Aero. Not only will visual cues be enhanced and smoother, but resolution-independent window resizing will exist so that no matter how high your resolution is, widgets remain the same size. This will extend to older applications as well.

The most interesting development, Avalon, will attempt to replace the Win32 api with managed code, *not* Windows. .NET is what is replacing the Win32 library. Everything will be managed code, and as I hear, explorer.exe in the latest beta already is. Your next statement was confusing. I assume you thought there was some sort of confusion over what .NET is replacing, when everyone knows it's going to be the ancient Win32 API. Replace Windows? Huh? How could it replace itself?

Forms but a new client API. What'll end up happening by RTM is Microsoft will have written a great big propriatary app that you won't be able to use.

You're not even making sense. What big proprietary app? Are you talking about the .NET run-time? What on earth are you referring to? You seem to fancy yourself as some sort of psychic, predicting what "Microsoft will do" three years down the road.

There will be minor kernel perf tweaks...

I guess you must be some Windows kernel engineer who magically obtained the source code to Longhorn. ...but if you still launch 200 processes you still see random failures from CreateProcess. (Never tried it, have you?)

Yes. Have you?

Re:Troll

[LarryTheGeek]

Now it's just gonna be IMDB (in-memory database) which was stripped from Win2000 at the last minute file-system filter driver, which will be used by Explorer. What FUD! WinFS never existed in Windows 2000 and was never stripped at the last minute. Well, there was a product called IMDB that got yanked from Win2k, but it was not the same thing as WinFS. It was essentially a SQL database pinned into memory that you could use to store data that didn't change much. Good idea, too bad it didn't make the cut.

Re:Troll

[Saint Stephen]

I guess you must be some Windows kernel engineer who magically obtained the source code to Longhorn I was a consultant at Microsoft from 2000 to 2003 who had read only access to the NT source depot and worked on the kernel perf team. I read the "Longhorn API" spec that was published internally about 1 year ago.

Where's the irony?

[Otis_INF]

They shared the recent build of Longhorn with all PDC visitors, MSDN subscribers and it will be available soon on microsoft's website for download.

And just a FYI: Microsoft releases a lot of sourcecode each year: examples, starterkits, free applications (that's right) etc. This sourcecode comes without a GPL-ed license, so you can include the code in your own projects if you want.

You might not like what you see, but at least keep in touch with reality.

Re:Where's the irony?

[mugnyte]

Reality? Microsoft does well trying to put on a welcoming face to developers, but their marketing is just awful. I've seen requests here for objectivity, but just days ago we were reading garbage from Gates and Balmer mouths about Linux as competition. The site in this article, BTW, is worth reading.

Re:Where's the irony?

[mugnyte]

nono, I agree. I just can't believe that while the "technology" of Longhorn is getting cudos from people, the marketing of it is just a sickening blast of hot air. I have posted many times about the MS/Linux competition. It's the marketers versus the tinkerers, and innovation happens on both sides.

Avalon isn't the most interesting, Indigo is

[Otis_INF]

You declare 'Avalon' as the most interesting development of Longhorn. That figures. The OS, like ANY OS, isn't about the pretty pictures and the smooth animations. It's about the guts and glory below deck.

Indigo, the complete new core for distributed services which replaces a whole set of current fragmented technologies, is what makes Longhorn special. If you don't believe me, that's fine, but it shows at the same time that you probably won't be in the front seat of IT in 2006.

Re:Avalon isn't the most interesting, Indigo is

[Saint Stephen]

When servers written using Tomcat interact with clients using Indigo, I'll believe you.

God, the astroturfers are out in full force.

Trustworthy Computing and Win2003Server

[bonch]

I think Microsoft succeeded. Hear of any holes for Windows 2003 Server other than that RPC bug that affected all Windows products? Red Hat introduces more security errata updates per week than Windows 2003 Server has had its entire life span.

Re:Trustworthy Computing and Win2003Server

[petabyte]

Thats a valid point but I'd like to make a counterpoint:

How many versions of Redhat/Fedora are going to be released during the time span of XP's launch to Longhorns?

Most desktop users will be running Redhat 20 on Linux 3.0 (I'll be running linux 3.11 at the time for laughs:)) by the time Longhorn ships. Oh yeah, *obligatory comment about how I can see/modify/patch the code on my Linux boxen.*

What is why?

[bonch]

You don't ever explain what the "kicker" is.

Longhorn will come out, everyone will move to .NET, Linux will try to implement Mono to keep up, and things will keep moving along as usual.

Re:What is why?

[alext]

Linux will try to implement Mono to keep up

Linux? Who's he?

Meanwhile, the Linux user community will carry on using Java; the investment in Java-on-Linux being at least four orders of magnitude greater than Mono-on-Linux and the greatest single factor in establishing Linux in at the core of enterprise IT.

CVS? Glory!

[twitter]

I can't seem to find the CVS repository.

What a buch of arrogant bastards they are for not giving CVS commit access to all those poor saps doing M$ development. Just the fact that they have been doing this difficult work for years should be proof enough of their good intentions.

What? this is not the XFree86-Citrix page? Oh, I'm sorry Bill, let me get back there right away.

Yes master, I love you and all your leet new tools. The best effort since 95. All glory to you for your second release in 10 years. Please don't sell it to China before you let me peek at it. I promise I'll never look at another line of code ever, please, please throw me a bone.

Sidebar

[bonch]

For all you trolls bitching pointlessly about the sidebar (which is optional anyway), this is from the UI guidelines page. which nicely describes what the sidebar is for:

"The sidebar will be most useful to users with large monitors who will have the space available to keep the sidebar open all the time. Users with small monitors will usually keep the sidebar minimized. When the sidebar is minimized, all sidebar tiles will have an icon in the taskbar; clicking an icon lets the user access the related tile."

In other words, it's not a big deal, and it won't take up your space. I think it's silly to react this way about an optional sidebar, when probably at least 80% of you run gkrellm and whatever other sidebar apps exist for the Linux desktop environment. This is just Microsoft's XML-based version of that concept (now comes the "they're stealing ideas again" replies).

Kind of reminds me of when Red Hat dared change their desktop theme, and all the knee-jerk Slashdotters flamed them to hell for absolutely no reason. Then it turned out not to be a big deal after all.

Re:Sidebar

[Slime-dogg]

heh. They only changed the icons and the window shapes... And it's all usable from Gentoo.

I remember the reactions though. People thought that Gnome and KDE were going to be "Integrated," or whatever that means. If you have Qt installed, you ought to be able to run KDE apps from within GNOME, and vice versa.

I run KDevelop from Gnome without a problem. I did this before Redhat went all Icon crazy. I still have a hard time believing that people are so against change that they object to "prettifying" the superfluous parts of a desktop.

Re:who cares?

[gregmac]

You complain about a four year old operating system, you list off a bunch of complaints, and then you say you will ignore Longhorn, which fixes all those complaints.

My With Longhorn, you can even write your own XML-based installation scripts.

Ok. Well, I can do this on linux today. In fact, I already have done it (I use an XML-based install/update script for a large application I'm developing). But I can even accomplish it with a simple call to rsync. No hidden settings, no scattered dll files. If I want, an application installs all in one directory. rsync that directory, and thats it- applications are updated and/or installed automatically.

Of course, I could also wait 3 years for windows to get to this point.

I'm sorry, but you're an idiot if you don't think .NET, WinFS, Avalon, and the rest of the Longhorn technologies aren't better than crappy old 2k.

I didn't say that they aren't better than 2k. In fact, you even quoted me saying "not worth waiting for". I don't think they are. I'm not totally convinced on .NET, a lot of it is marketing fluff, and it's being controlled by a corperation that will change everything, if it meets their business needs at the time (it's hard to maintain an application when the API is not totally documented and will randomly change).

Avalon has been done (XUL), and is cross-platform. I don't see the point in waiting 3 years for a proprietary version that's less mature.

WinFS is about the most interesting development, but worth the headaches of windows? Probably not. There are similar concepts in development for other OS's anyways.

Re:who cares?

[pmz]

Some of us actually have jobs based on Windows technologies that provide well for our families. Interesting concept, eh?

I wonder if the Flatus Odor Judges and Barnyard Masterbators say similar things in defense of their jobs.

One thing I look forward to is Windows Administrator becomeing the Buggy Whip Maker of the future. We are in the midst of a new technological revolution, and I'd say we're still in the "pre-teen" stages of its maturity.

The 64-bit question

[Nom du Keyboard]

It was reported that at the conference a DVD with the Alpha release in 32- and 64-bit editions was given out. But nowhere did it comment which 64-bit edition (Itantium, AMD64, or Prescot/Tejas/Yarnhill secret 64) was supplied.

Anyone here have one of those discs?

Re:Observations - different tune of course

[bit01]

You're damn right Gnome would be reported differently.

Why is Longhorn being reported on slashdot at all?

- Longhorn is still vapourware.

- When it is finally realized it will be designed not to be hackable.

- M$ has more than enough front organisations to market its products without open source sites like slashdot supporting them.

Slashdot editors should try harder to avoid being suckered by the M$ marketing machine. It needs to cancel out the insane amount of M$ marketing drivel on the net and elsewhere to make the net as a whole more balanced.

The M$ people who say slashdot should give equal time to M$ are talking nonense. Such people should go back to microsoft.com where they belong.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Active Directory ties you exclusively to Windows on the server, Samba aside. Unfortunately Samba cannot be a full AD controller because of Microsoft's bastardized idea of LDAP support. Doing group policies on Win 2000 is a nightmare - things suddenly just don't work, especially for ordinary users. As a stop gap measure you have to log people on as Power Users or Admins, which completely negates the concept of security! I never thought printing would be such a bloody nightmare! And no, I don't want to have to go through all of that Knowledge Base crap because I shouldn't have to. There's a lot of stuff in Win 2000 where you think "Ooo, great." but once you try to get it all working, on a day to day basis, on the ground, it falls well, well short.

Microsoft has not provided adequate tools for updating. This guy does not have a Windows server. So to get his desktops running properly he's going to have to buy Win 2003? Give me a break! This is why people are cheesed off with Windows. Besides, if you knew anything about patches, Automatic Updates, even with SUS, is a bad idea. Updating requires testing, and takes a long time.

If you use the technology fully you have to have Windows servers and buy yet more Microsoft software. That's not acceptable to SMEs, a market Microsoft thinks it's going to get into.

Many people have paid good money to Microsoft for 9x/Me and it's only a few years old. Are you suggesting Microsoft's loyal paying customers should be shot for not upgrading everything every eighteen months? Sounds like a good advert for alternatives to me :).

more Apple-oriented UI

[flwombat]

I especially love how most of the screenshots on this page have a brushed metal interface.

Note that Apple has been moving to more and more brushed metal interfaces in their recent operating system releases as well as many apps, and even their website. This has not been universally well-received, but it seems that Microsoft just can't help playing copycat.

Or maybe Windows already had brushed metal windows, or maybe my eyes are just fooling me. Anyway, it's amusing to speculate.

I do think the use of XML to specify UI elements (referenced in the article I link to at the top) is interesting, and probably a step in the right direction. Many Windows developers will probably think that Microsoft invented the concept, but whatever.

I think they mean

[michaelggreer]

I think they mean "End times"

Re:who cares?

[t0ny]

I have all the pieces in place, and my ultimate plan here is to switch all our desktops over, once I find something that isn't going to reduce the 'feature set' of our desktops. An upgrade isn't really viable if I have to tell everyone "oh sorry, you can't select printing options when you print anymore, they can only be set in the driver options - which you can't access".

Learn how to edit the registry. You can also serve out the changes over the network with a logon script, if you want to automate it.

Alternately, you can just set those options at the server level, and have multiple 'printer' objects (like the printer set for one-sided and a different for duplex).

Most complaints from linux people are due to them not really knowing how to do things, not an inability of it actually working. Just a tip- everything in Windows can be set or modified in the registry.

I can't do any sort of automatic app installation, which is one of the things that bothers me a lot.

Wininstall, SMS, etc. There are nothing but options out there for this; more looking, less complaining.

but it's big enough that it takes a lot of time to go around doing windowsupdate

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Automatic Updates.

Ya, they really make it hard. You can also set up a server with Software Update Services (SUS) if you only want it grab the updates via the LAN, and/or if you want to test the patches first.

My job is not to be a sysadmin (we're not even a computer-related business), so the less time I spend sysadmin-ing, the better.

Its not that hard or time consuming to do. Do it, its easy.

i'm not looking to fight with any of you MSCE's that are going to try and counter everything I've just said - I've heard it a million times.

So what are you complaining about, that Windows doesnt do everything itself, or Bill Gates doesnt come over and configure everthing? Anyway, these are just some suggestions, dont take this as a rip.

And no, there is no compelling reason to upgrade from 2000 to longhorn. There is nothing forcing people to switch to XP either; in fact, I dont even see MS trying to force people off of 2000.

Im recommending people get Win2k3 servers, because there are compelling reasons for it. But, as I said, your needs dictate what you purchase. I dont see MS trying to.

That's not the beta, just a dev preview

[bonch]

The official beta 1 of Longhorn is scheduled for next summer. As Paul Thurrott of Wininformant pointed out, this means it's entirely possible Longhorn could ship in 2005.

It also means it's not vaporware, to you certain trolls out there. :P

Where Microsoft is going aka kill competition

[theolein]

If you take a look at the Aero application archetypes section of the Longhorn preview, you'll notice that Microsoft is milking .Net for all it's worth and attempting to embrace and extend the internet yet again. All those pretty "Rich client" demos of .Net apps that don't need a website, while interesting and pushing the curve a bit, point to Microsoft trying to get companies to develop sites with web services (theoretically cross platform but hopefully Windows servers obviously) and to develop native .Net applications that use those web services instead of developing websites for them. The advantage for Microsoft is that it would be an effective way to lock people into Windows clients ("This travel site application only works on Win2k6").

Apart from that I see Microsoft is developing detailed usability guidelines which is a good idea considering how poorly implemented some Windows applications are. what is even more interesting is that they have some interfaces that are still as confusing as ever.

Learn more about XUL / XPCOM / GECKO... here.

[gd23ka]

Anybody really interested in Mozilla Technologies like XUL / XPCOM / GECKO etc. should pay a visit to the following sites:

XULPlanet

mozdev

Mozilla main site Somebody just pissed up my leg in this thread pointing out that Mozilla wasn't the first project that uses an markup language to describe GUIs. He may be right, but I don't think anybody else except Mozilla has such a kick-ass and complete implementation of the concept. Microsoft probably just has screenshots and they're still busy rewriting the XUL specification :-)

WTF is up with Slashdot?

[bogie]

I mean we all agreed Long ago that part of the reason for MS's monopoly and why they are able to freeze Linux out so well was because of their ability to sell everyone on products that aren't finished yet. And here we are at Slashdot and I'm starting to forget a time when Slashdot wasn't among those those sites who hyped Longhorn on a daily basis.

Come on already, one announcement was enough. Why are you linking to Longhorn's developer site considering there is no news except for that it opened? Hoping to get a few Opensource developers to switch sides? Hearing that the Longhorn developer site got hacked etc, or that someone did some benchmarks that's news.

Hey I'm not saying Slashdot should only do articles about MS and antitrust etc, but jeez Longhorn is a long way off. The more Slashdot talks about it the more "real" Longhorn becomes and the better off Microsoft is. Give the Longhorn hype a rest already. If people really need more MS news there are a ton of sites out there that are way more suited to Microsoft PR then Slashdot.

Re:WTF is up with Slashdot?

[actiondan]

What, so actual examples of the next MS operating system working are not worth mentioning?

Pandering to hypoe is one bad thing, but ignoring information about it is just as bad.

Dan.

Re:who cares?

[gregmac]

Active Directory ties you exclusively to Windows on the server, Samba aside. Unfortunately Samba cannot be a full AD controller because of Microsoft's bastardized idea of LDAP support. Doing group policies on Win 2000 is a nightmare - things suddenly just don't work, especially for ordinary users. As a stop gap measure you have to log people on as Power Users or Admins, which completely negates the concept of security! I never thought printing would be such a bloody nightmare! And no, I don't want to have to go through all of that Knowledge Base crap because I shouldn't have to. There's a lot of stuff in Win 2000 where you think "Ooo, great." but once you try to get it all working, on a day to day basis, on the ground, it falls well, well short.

Wow, right on the money.

If you use the technology fully you have to have Windows servers and buy yet more Microsoft software. That's not acceptable to SMEs, a market Microsoft thinks it's going to get into.

In a business where the people doing purchasing decisions know NOTHING about the computer, it's hard to say "we need to pay $5000 for this server (hardware and software) to maybe get protected from certain viruses we might get".

IIS 6.0 is Windows Server 2003 *no text*

[spideyct]

IIS 6.0 is Windows Server 2003

The Big Merge

[BaronAaron]

I see Lonhorn as basically taking server applications and integrating them into the client.

WinFS is basically a desktop version of SQL Server.

The Longhorn App Model is basically a desktop version of IIS running ASP.NET like pages.

As a windows developer, I think it would be great knowing that every client my application runs on will have a SQL Server. No more registry crap.

Sharing information is a GOOD THING, remember?

[spideyct]

"Giving a preview of something that won't be out for several years is questionable."

How long was Mozilla "out" before it reached 1.0?

They are sharing information with developers for 2 reasons:
1) Educate developers on the new API's so that they can create applications. A platform without applications is useless. Sure, the API's may change, but the basic concepts shouldn't.
2) They want feedback from developer's. If one of their API's is really clunky or stupid, people will complain, and MS will react. This has been stated on many MS developer's blogs, etc. Of course to believe this, you have to be able to get your head around the concept that individual developers that work for Microsoft are just as interested in cool technology as you are. They are not responsible for the marketing or business tactics of the company as a whole.

And since when is sharing information a bad thing?

Microsoft hides their API's, they suck!
Microsoft divulges their API's, they suck!

Re:Sharing information is a GOOD THING, remember?

[Frizzle Fry]

Microsoft hides their API's, they suck!
Microsoft divulges their API's, they suck!

Agreed. We also now seem to have an attitude here that "one big release every 3-4 years" is crazy. So perhaps Microsoft should update things frequently? But then people complain about being an upgrade treadmill and having to constantly buy new versions, or of having to constantly download service packs. You can't win.

Re:Sharing information is a GOOD THING, remember?

[TomV]

FWIW I've seen the very same sentiment on several Moft Program Managers' blogs. If nothing else, the people developing what they feel are great new features, naturally enough, seem keen to get their work out into developers' hands sooner rather than later.

There are a couple of areas in which they have taken this approach already - the SQLXML extensions to SQLserver 2000 have been upversioned a few times while we wait for Yukon, and various Web Services extensions are also available well in advance of the v2.0 (Whidbey) release of System.Web

Thinking on a bit, if WinFX in Longhorn gives Moft a clean, modular API to replace the spaghetti'd mess that is Win32, it might then become a lot easier to do incremental upgrades to specific areas of the OS functionality.

Re:Sharing information is a GOOD THING, remember?

[JamieF]

Mozilla was available to the public well before 1.0. It also changed quite a bit. Calling Mozilla 0.2 a "preview of Mozilla 1.0" would be pretty ridiculous.

It's ridiculous to ship APIs several years in advance. Yes, they will change in response to developer feedback, and that's good, but my point is that it's silly to call it a preview, and it's silly to even have a developer release that far ahead. You might as well call Mozilla 1.5 a preview of Mozilla 3.

>Microsoft hides their API's, they suck!
Yup.

>Microsoft divulges their API's, they suck!
Better than hiding them, but they're not really APIs to a product. They're APIs to a far far future product, which calls into question how useful they are.

Think about this: Microsoft ships a CD with a preview of their post-Longhorn OS, to ship in 2012. But you can get the APIs now! Awesome! And you can look at the screen shots to see what the UI will look like in 2012. Start porting your code now. That way, as you re-port your code to each successive developer release, when they change everything several times, you'll be so familiar with the APIs that you'll be able to write a book about all the shit that they never actually put in a general release, and won't that be wonderful. Managers should definitely invest lots of time in having their engineers port their apps to operating systems that don't exist, and won't ever exist in the currently documented form. That'll save them so much money!

Re:Sharing information is a GOOD THING, remember?

[JamieF]

Well that's the problem - the reason MS bundles all their changes into earth-shaking releases every few years is so that everybody feels the need to upgrade. If you could just get Win2K plus a few (free) service packs and optional modules to get your app running, why buy the next release?

The downside of course is that people who don't want to / can't afford to pay for the upgrade just run the old buggy POS version and get hacked. Yeah, vendors have to cut off support sometime, but MS is not exactly a shining example of patch management (their backporting, QA, and automated installation are all pretty poor).

Apple is doing much more frequent releases and charging for all of them. It's probably annoying to some that they keep having to rev their applications, but the payoff is that when Apple ships a new OS, the changes aren't so dramatic that you have to sell a whole new app. There's the downside of having to ship a binary that works with OS 10.0-10.1, another for 10.2, and yet another for 10.3 (in some cases), but all of those binaries actually make money. Contrast that with years of dev builds compiled against an OS that nobody has, in hopes of eventually making some money when the damn OS rev ships. How much fun is it to keep those 2 code bases (old, shipping OS vs. new developer preview of OS) in sync and debugged? Once the new OS ships you can choose when to abandon the version of your app that targets the old OS, depending on how hard it is to backport patches (isolate OS calls that changed, so it's trivial?) and whether anybody's still buying the old version, and what you promised on your license agreement.

Now we just need to get Apple to stop charging so much for every release. :)

choices and options...

[green pizza]

Well, we'll see.. MS's current offerings suck ass. I recently had to install XP after I had been using Linux for years exclusively. I can tell you, I was not thrilled with the experience (pardon the pun). I spent more time trying to get rid of MS's bug laden software such as IE, Outlook, Media Player and replace them with something sane than I would trying to compile and install extra software for Linux.. and the hard part was making sure those bastard programs never popped up again in the course of my day.. because I was not given a choice to de-install them permanently.

Wow, all these years I took granted that I could surf the web without even the thought about having a slimy piece of spyware installing itself on my machine. I truly feel sorry for all of Bill Gates' minions.

It's pretty amazing what people put up with, isn't it.

90% of the computing world would be happy with Firebird, OpenOffice (or even just AbiWord), and a good webmail account. But they instead pump money into Microsoft for Windows/IE and MS Office.

This leads me to a question that maybe someone could answer... is there a good AbiWord-like word processor for un*x that DOESN'T try to be Word clone? If so, I'd be interested in trying it out.

The ENTIRE suite?!

[landaker]

...when you rewrite your entire suite of apps...

Whoa, the entire suite?! Yeah, I guess it could take a while to port notepad and minesweeper. ;)

How is this dev conference not massive FUD?

[fruscica]

Orienting developers now to an OS that is 3 years from release -- at best!?

How is this not a tacit acknowledgement that Linux is going to completely disrupt MS in the server space?

Thanks kindly for any insight.

The browser end-game

[dimator]

From this:

Finally, it is worth noting that Windows executables can be hosted in a window (by default) as well as in the browser.
For Longhorn, desktop executables are the next version of today's Windows Forms client-side apps. On the other hand, XAML and browser-hosted applications represent an evolution of today's client-side programming model to work over the Web. Right now, existing client-side applications can rarely be deployed over the Web. If you want to embed a Windows Forms form into a browser page, you'll get a reduced feature set and have to tweak bits and pieces of your code. With Longhorn, the common application model will let you write one application and deploy it over the Web. However, the final application is Longhorn-specific--very different from a traditional Web application like ASP.NET.

Sigh. I remember when the web was based on open standards...

Re:The browser end-game

[Stu Charlton]

It really is about making programming information-based applications for Windows similar to programming for ASP.NET. This keeps Windows relevant in the enterprise against the onslaught of web applications, or so the theory goes. InfoPath is another stab at this.

So, from one perspective, it's just another stab at making ActiveX-like features available in a browser window, for intranet applications. It won't really fly over the internet proper (unless people in droves flock to it, which probably is unlikely given they didn't with ActiveX).

.NET crowd screwed again?

[GrayArea]

If you read the articles on Avalon and other UI bits, it looks like Windows Forms (the client UI API's in .NET) is being left behind in Longhorn. Leave it to Microsoft to pull the rug out from under an API that's just two years old. And don't forget to congratulate the Mono crowd for investing all that effort into duplicating a completely proprietary API that now looks destined to be dumped in a few years time.

Effect on Java and cross platform UI kits?

[GrayArea]

I wonder how this is going to affect the implementation of Java and cross platform UI toolkits (SWT, QT etc) on Windows. Once the primary Windows API's are on .NET instead of Win32 these folks will have to figure out how to integrate with the .NET runtime as closely as they use Win32 in C/C+. In the case of Java and .NET, you have two managed environments and parts of one is supposed to be implemented in terms of the other. It's going to be a mess straightening this one out...

Re:Observations - different tune of course

[TomV]

Longhorn is still vapourware.

That which has been physically released to 2000 conference delegates on DVD is not strictly vapourware.

When it is finally realized it will be designed not to be hackable.

Three years from now a significant number of current Slashdot readers will be programming or administrating Longhorn for a living.

M$ has more than enough front organisations to market its products without open source sites like slashdot supporting them.

But at any real 'front' organisation, you'd see very little open criticism or contempt for the product, so perhaps Slashdot is providing a valuable outlet for such views.

Why is Longhorn being reported on slashdot at all?

Because apart from its relevance to the working lives of a lot of slashdot readers whether they like or dislike Microsoft, it drives traffic and thus generates revenue. Just now, this story has 382 comments, 'Microsoft Voice Command Almost Here' has 235 after about 3 hours, 'Microsoft Officially Shows Longhorn, WinFX' has 659, 'More Looks At Far-Off 'Longhorn' has 540 and 'C# 2.0 Spec Released' has 621. While the Panther story and the Fossil fuels story got even more comments, these are pretty healthy page-view evidence.

No, not the mature veteran UNIX hackers!

[kahei]

Linux person: "Hmm... this technology is from Microsoft. I think I'll complain a bit, and then forget about it."

Real UNIX Hacker: "Why isn't this in C? Object orientated languages are inefficient and hateful. What the hell is a 'unicode'? What's a 'component' -- why doesn't it just use pipes? Programs that don't work in a pipe are broken. I will fight against this thing til all around me weep with sheer boredom."

So no, I like the site as it is :)

Who said anything about beta?

[spideyct]

"The bits aren't even to an alpha stage yet, but if you've got some time to play, please do. The more time you spend playing with Longhorn and the development platform, and the more feedback you send us, the better job we can do making sure that when Longhorn does ship, it kicks butt."

-Chris Sells
Microsoft

http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/understanding /c olumns/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnfoghorn/ html/foghorn10272003.asp

Didn't I...?

[yoshi_mon]

Just say that?

You were a lot more clear than me however. ;)

Re:Communication history (mod parent up)

[konmaskisin]

Nice idea and I guess most of the pieces are there though not as an "API" ...

BTW "Zoe" does part of this already for e-mail. Probably a few procmail scripts in conjunction with a lightweight local hostmail server can do it too ...

But integrating voice messages and IM (and FS history do Longhorn do this??) might be hard.

CacheFS sounds cool ...

Re:who cares?

[ergo98]

I'm sorry, but you're an idiot if you don't think .NET, WinFS, Avalon, and the rest of the Longhorn technologies aren't better than crappy old 2k.

Crappy old 2K? The insanity of that statement is that probably 95% of Windows 2000's advanced features aren't currently being used (as evidenced by the post), and Microsoft is upsetting the apple-cart yet again. It should be noted that with absolute certainty the vast majority of the core of Longhorn will be "crappy old 2k" (XP is Windows 2000 with a facelift -- a facelift that personally I think was a step in the wrong direction. Change for the sake of change).

Regarding the value of Longhorn, so far what I have seen is a lot of marketing bullshit (I've written for MSDN magazine, so I'm not speaking as a anti-Microsoftarian...quite contrary in fact, and I've been accused of being a Microsoft plant countless times on here): WinFS is the acceptance that most people don't use and don't care for Microsoft file search utilities (you know - the indexing service that is the outgrowth of "FindFast.exe", that app that we were perpetually trying to find and kill), so instead the file APIs themselves will route right through the search corpus system. Woot! Suck it! .NET is the same .NET that we have right now, but with some new exposed objects for the unbelievably dubious XAML model (Avalon. An idea that only works if what you're describing is unbelievably trivial, and those in the audience are too naive to think that a real world application might be a little more complex than hello world and some edit boxes).

As a Microsoft fan, I have seen nothing about Longhorn as of yet that strikes me as anything other than nonsensical ideas that should have never seen the light of day. Of course don't even ask me how I feel about .NET Remoting... (Oh, right, but it's a big improvement over "crappy old COM+", right?)

longhorn

[ireallylovelinux]

Longhorn makes me horny.

it's named after a bar

[Stu Charlton]

Windows XP was named "Whistler" after the Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort. "Longhorn" is named after the saloon at that resort... http://www.longhornsaloon.ca/

They're not silly. Is "Jaguar" or "Panther" silly? How about some of the codenames for Redhat releases?

Indigo

[Stu Charlton]

The real thing to pay attention to with Longhorn, is Indigo - the new transactions and communications framework. They're investing a lot of effort into keeping it simple and to keep all aspects orthogonal to one another.

Indigo is really the replacement for COM+, built on top of the web services stack (the WS-* specs). The WS-* specs aim to supplant CORBA as the dominant distributed computing paradigm by enabling any platform to integrate through the various XML protocols. This seems to be the only viable way forward to get true interop between the Windows and ABM (anyone but Microsoft) world.

Some rather interesting things Indigo is trying to do:
- make transactions pervasive in coding, even with volatile objects. Using a "lightweight transaction manager", an in-memory transaction on an ArrayList would take only a microsecond to begin and commit.

- embed the transaction manager in the kernel for durable transactions.

- Provide a set of declarative attributes for setting a service's reliability , transactions, and security, much more flexible and simple than

Re:Indigo

[Stu Charlton]

sorry..

Provide a set of declarative attributes for setting a service's reliability , transactions, and security, much more flexible and simple than EJB 2.x and COM+ do today.

Re:who cares?

[ducomputergeek]

You complain about a four year old operating system, you list off a bunch of complaints, and then you say you will ignore Longhorn, which fixes all those complaints. With Longhorn, you can even write your own XML-based installation scripts.

*Looks at Pentium Pro 200 file server with FreeBSD in corner, 282 days of uptime on FBSD 3.4*

*Looks in other corner, sees 2 quad 500Mhz ALPHA boxes running databases running True64 Unix from circa 1997*

*Looks between them at 10 former PIII 700Mhz boxes running OpenBSD...well okay those are only 6 months - 18 months old)

No compliants with 4 year old operating systems here...

Re:XAML or XUL?-Divided we conqueror.

[multi io]

That also means that the UI designer is decoupled from the programmers to a degree. Want to change the interface, make it better? Don't need to wake the programmer up. Linux could have had that instead of the traditional hardcoding that KDE and GNOME presently presents.

You know about Glade, don't you?

Re:Sidebar-Keeping score.

[Slime-dogg]

Not everything needs a point, much like your post. :p