Windows Longhorn Beta for June Release

An Anonymous Reader writes "According to CNET, the Windows Longhorn Beta 1 is supposedly set for release this June. The Register has commentary on the delays the new OS has faced." From the article: "Longhorn was originally supposed to ship in 2004. In May, this year release was pushed back to 2005. This week Longhorn's availability has been delayed even further, with Microsoft execs declining to say when exactly the operating system might ship, eWeek reports."

Comments

Credibility

[fembots]

So what makes this June Release by one Microsoft executive more believable than other announcements?

Re:Credibility

[Swamii]

So what makes this June Release by one Microsoft executive more believable than other announcements?

The 4 month beta deadline, maybe? All previous announcements have been almost a year ahead of time.

Re:Credibility

[Gr8Apes]

I believe they'll probably release something - the time line's too short to miss it by 4 years as they've done previously. Besides, they don't want the actual release of Tiger to have the limelight by itself, now, do they?

Heck, Cairo was announced, what? 14 years ago? Longhorn was the new Cairo, now delayed to Blackcomb, as "Cairo" wasn't getting any more press. After all, "we're writing about Cairo again?

Re:Credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the rate Longhorn is shedding features, I don't see why it can't ship on time.

Simply put, the shipping date approaches zero as the number of new features approaches zero.

Re:Credibility

[Tackhead]

> Heck, Cairo was announced, what? 14 years ago? Longhorn was the new Cairo, now delayed to Blackcomb, as "Cairo" wasn't getting any more press. After all, "we're writing about Cairo again?

Database-driven filesystems are sorta like nuclear fusion.

Marketing time to release is a constant in the range of 10-15 units of time. Actual time to release is the same -- but you use the next higher unit.

That is, WinFS has been 6-12 months away for about 15 years, and fusion power has been about 5-10 years away for at least the past 5 decades.

Re:Credibility

[Monkelectric]

Cairo never existed... it was a scare tactic to get people to skip upgrading to novels new netware product. I believe they have pretty much admitted this?

Re:Credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

No, sustainable marketable Fusion is and has always been 25 to 30 years away from the day you first seriously dedicate your resources and time to it, since the 1970s. The ITER is only a stepping stone to saleable fusion and should reduce that to 10 to 15 years away once it is constructed and experience gained.
We know Fusion can work, but politicians are not committed to the longterm economy.

WinFS on the other hand is a marketting thing and not a science. Its arrival is as late as possible to slow the pace of innovation but not too late to lose control of the monopolistic market.

Re:Credibility

[cortana]

Hey, that also works for Debian! Sarge has been ~1 month away for... 12 months. :(

Re:Credibility

[alpha_foobar]

yeah, but sarge has a testing release which has been out for about 12 months... works fine for me... longhorn on the other hand is announcing a beta version in four months?? though i have seen it running... looked pretty... they are probably just waiting for mainstream computers to be powerfull enough to run their algorithms.

Re:Credibility

[Monkelectric]

There's a GREAT SNL skit from the late 80's I want to say with the phil hartman cast... There's a town meeting describing that the towns economy is based on finding "magic fish" that grant wishes. The townspeople are coplainig that the fish are getting harder and harder to find, and the ones that do the quality of them is rotten. If I remember correctly, someone says, "I caught a magic fish the other day, and I asked him for a golden rocketship with diamond windows to take me to the moon! You know what that fish said? He started talking to me about weight ratios and how gold wasn't any good to build a space ship with! SO I bashed his head in on a rock!!"

Anyways, at the end of the thing Phil Hartman stands up at the meeting and says, "I think we need to transition to a non magic fish based economy." It's one of the best SNL skits ever (and Im the first one to admit SNL sucks).

Also, I think the magic fish draws a nice parallel to our currently *debt* financed economy (national debt, CC debt, SS debt, medicare debt, etc). But its mostly just for fun :)

Re:Credibility

[Electroly]

Find if you're running dos edit on it. Sucks if you want it to do some real work.

Actually, it doesn't support 16-bit DOS applications. :)

The future of Windows

[__aaitqo8496]

"We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia."
"Longhorn will be released next year. It has always been planned to be released next year."

Much like the war in Orwell's 1984, Windows will never be complete. It's been a long time since the last major overhaul. Maybe they need to just make Windows a perpetual upgrade. Each release will have a major component update.

Windows XP: Unified Home/Pro editions
Longhorn: Avalon & Indigo
Blackcomb: WinFS

Now that Windows is `for the most part` on a standardized framework (.NET), they should be able to just release updates based on this framework, whether it be for current major release or retroactively. If you need some component installed, just make sure it's prereq's are there. Oh wait - this sounds a lot like Linux.

Yes? No? Who the hell cares?

Re:The future of Windows

[Swamii]

If you need some component installed, just make sure it's prereq's are there. Oh wait - this sounds a lot like Linux.

We tried that. It was called DLL Hell.

Re:The future of Windows

[irokitt]

Your thought was the same as mine. Windows machines get a lot of diverse, funky software thrown on them.

I'll withhold judgement on Longhorn until I get to play with it. Maybe the changes will be worth the money to upgrade, maybe not. Maybe the graphics will look cheesy (a la XP) and maybe not. Either way, my Slackware box will fill the balance. I think an open mind is a good thing here.

That said, I can foresee (via the Slashdot palantir) a lot of people looking at their screens and wonering if all years of hype and buildup really just produced this. Think Doom 3 here: Yeah, it was entertaining, but it wasn't worth all the years of salivating and my $50.

Re:The future of Windows

[Swamii]

Despite it being modded as funny, my original post was meant to be taken seriously. Using versioned components on Windows has already been attempted and failed quite miserably, something Microsoft has aimed to change with .NET's global assembly cache.

Irokitt, I like your thinking. You have a suprisingly opened mind, which is something truely refreshing here on Slashdot. I have to agree that with all the hype built up over several years, will it truely be worth it? As a developer coming from a programming standpoint, I've already tried out the Avalon and WinFX APIs, and for me it is worth it. The real question is will it be worth it for the end users and will security finally be a first class feature rather than a footnote. I certainly hope it will on both counts.

Re:The future of Windows

[Leo McGarry]

Oh, for Pete's ...dude, seriously. Can't we get through one damn story without somebody making an Orwell analogy? Especially one as lame-ass as this one?

We could solve all the world's energy problems if we could just hook Orwell's corpse up to a generator to capture all the rotational energy that's currently being wasted on postmortem outrage.

Re:The future of Windows

[Leo McGarry]

It's the frequency with which it's being quoted, and the inappropriateness of the quotes. Think. What did the aforementioned comment have to do with Orwell or with 1984? Nothing at all. It was just a drive-by allusion.

No, 1984 is not "one of the most important books ever written," unless you expand your list to include tens of thousands of books. It's just that it's a book that's widely assigned to high-school students. It's pop-culture wisdom, a mile wide and an inch deep. It's the beginning of insight, not the end. C.f. Rand, Ayn, for another example of the same phenomenon.

Too many people point to 1984 as an illustration of the insidiousness of totalitarianism, when what they completely miss is the fact that 1984 is a book about the insidious of totalitarianism. It takes the insidiousness of totalitarianism as a given. The book doesn't contain a discussion about whether the slope is slippery or not; it just assumes that the slope is slippery and tells a story based on that premise.

To put a point on it, 1984 begs the whole question. Which is fine for a novel. Problem comes when people think of it as more than a novel.

Somebody who reads 1984 and thinks that he then has something insightful to say about language or society is like somebody who reads Beat to Quarters and thinks that he then can sail a tall ship around Cape Horn.

Re:The future of Windows

[westlake]

going from XP to LongHorn Beta, you can be certain that your existing hardware will seem much slower than before

You were expecting a beta release to be fine-tuned for performance?

Re:The future of Windows

[ajs]

You seem to be making several orthoganal points. Some of them I even agree with, but to tie them together I think you'll need a bit more glue.

First off the correct (IMHO) bits:

Somebody who reads 1984 and thinks that he then has something insightful to say about language or society is like somebody who reads Beat to Quarters and thinks that he then can sail a tall ship around Cape Horn.

Well, of course. I'm not sure that you're making a non-obvious point here, but ok. Of course, someone might read 1984 and then have something insightful to say about language or society... but that's no more or less likely than reading it and having something insightful to say about 20th century authors.

No, 1984 is not "one of the most important books ever written," unless you expand your list to include tens of thousands of books

Obviously you are just as correct as the grandparent who claimed the opposite. This is purely a matter of opinion, unless you're going to assign a quantitative definition to "most important books".

Too many people point to 1984 as an illustration of the insidiousness of totalitarianism

Here you lose me. It's not that this might not be a valid statement, but you place it in the center of a response to a post which makes no such claim. Thus, this can only be catagorized as a strawman.

However, to take up the challenge, I'll argue that 1984 is not an illustration of the insidiousness of totalitarianism, but rather a illustration of the abstract nature of totalitarianism and the ability for the average member of such a society to lie to themselves about the choices they are making.

Of course, we see this sort of book all the time, just not always about politics. Books about women who persist in abusive relationships, criminals who look in the mirror and see a hero, and any number of other common themes are all expressions of this. 1984 simply happens to be one example of this sub-genre where the average reader tends to "get it".

Does 1984 beg the question of the insidiousness of totalitarianism? I don't think so. It shows us what the author thinks people are capable of, lets the readers own sense of the human condition demonstrate its truth. Most of us on reading 1984 come away a bit frightened. Not all of us realize why, but years after reading it, I realized that it was because nothing in the book was terribly difficult to imagine. People DO behave this way, and it's important for us to come to terms with that.

Now, you can say that 1984 isn't important, but here's why I think it was: it opened up a dialog that we had with each other. Many other books have been written since -- some scholarly, some novels like 1984 -- but all further exploring this theme. Certainly philosophers had beat the idea of man's inhumanity to man around for a long time, but Orwell brought a language in which to frame the discussion to the common man, and in this I think we can rightly say that he was an important and influential author.

By way of exmample, Asimov and Feynman didn't write the General and Specifc theories of relativity, but each of them produced clear, understandable and engaging information for people outside of the field that gave us the tools to intelligently disucss these complicated matters. This, in many ways, is just as important a step as introducing the concept to the scientific community.

So, I'll put 1984 somewhere on that list of yours, but I suspect that I'm placing it quite a lot higher than you are.

Re:The future of Windows

[Waffle Iron]

Do you really think those regimes fell because of 1984?

No. Instead, I think that it very likely prevented at least some non-totalitarian states from moving in that direction.

Countries don't just slip into totalitarianism

Sure they do. A leader with dictatorial tendencies gets voted into office, then starts changing the laws to increase his powers and decrease checks and balances. It has happened dozens of times, including Germany in the 1930s.

June....

[1010011010]

... to beat "Tiger" to the punch.

Re:June....

[jdwest]

or simply to steal thunder, press, mindshare.

Re:June....

[bonch]

Not that it will matter. Longhorn won't even be shipping with WinFS, while Tiger already has Spotlight. Let Microsoft release a "developer beta." Apple is still going to get all the positive press.

hmm

[FinestLittleSpace]

I like the 'different ways of distributing throughout large corps' thing... in the way that it's basically code for "we're going to try another convoluted way of stopping corporate editions from being pirated. COUGH"

Hello?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's Longhorn? Bill Gates name for his...?

Re:Hello?

[savagedome]

Wrong. That's micro soft.

Re:Hello?

[Sophrosyne]

...favorite butt-plug.
In actuality it is the name of a bar in British Columbia.
XP, aka Whistler, is the name of a mountain, as is Blackcomb... the bar longhorn is in the middle of the two.
Product Cycle:
XP (Whistler)
Longhorn
Blackcomb

Timed to steal Tiger's thunder?

[Anonymous Coward]

Methinks Microsoft is out to keep the next version of OS X, which is believed to be shipping at around the same time, from getting too much press.

...please don't

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone makes a Duke Nukem joke, I'm going to shoot myself.

Re:...please don't

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone makes a Duke Nukem joke, I'm going to shoot myself.

I hear Longhorn will be required for Duke Nukem Forever.

Oh, you said that to DISCOURAGE DNF jokes? My bad.

screenshots

[Coneasfast]

we all love screenshots

Rumor has it...

[Tuxedo Jack]

That Longhorn will ship with the full retail version of Duke Nukem Forever.

Proof.

[inertia187]

Here's proof they intended a 2004 release. Well, maybe it's fake. I found it in 2002.

It's not their fault, OK?

[farmhick]

They are trying their best to get that new desktop environment integrated. You know, the Duke Nuk'em Forever Desk'top. It blows viruses away, melts system freezes, and liberates both Gen Failure and Gen P. Fault from the communist zombie insurgent terrorists.

Is there any wonder that it is taking longer than expected?

Open Source Innovation

[InsomniaCity]

The point is, these pushbacks have given open source the chance to make major innovation, and there isn't long left to take this major opportunity.

My gut feeling is that Longhorn will knock the socks off whatever is out there at the time, unless developers really plan ahead, and come up with innovative features etc.

Some would say the pendulum is swinging towards Open Source on the desktop at the moment, but I worry that Longhorn could stop that in its tracks.

XP

[mboverload]

XP seems fine to me. All my utilities, programs, and games are in working order and I have never had a problem with security. Why exactly should I udgrade? The only reason I stay on Windows is for the games, and unless Micosoft has some magic optimizations it pulls out of its ass, I dont see a new operation system on here anytime soon.

Re:XP

[ADRA]

I say the same thing, but for Windows 2000. I have yet to find a show stopper at home to upgrade to XP. I don't see myself leaving 2000 on my desktop unless its to Linux (Which is already on file server/laptop).

Re:XP

[deadhammer]

The question of course: were the XP machine and the Longhorn machine identical? Same memory, processor, video card, etc.?

Re:XP

[bonch]

It's an interesting problem for Microsoft. There was a reason to switch to OS X over the classic MacOS, but the transition from Windows XP/2000 to Longhorn will seem entirely superfluous. Most of the changes will be under the hood, like the new .NET foundation which will also add performance overhead.

The interface, called "Aero Glass" (I don't supposed that means it will have shiny highlights on the tops of the widgets, does it? Been there, done that), is supposed to be full 3D-accelerated DirectX visuals. The problem is that a lot of old PCs won't even be able to run it and will end up using the lower visual tier of Longhorn, which is supposed to look more like today's Windows, which again makes you wonder what would be the advantage in upgrading.

Microsoft waited too long. Windows XP has saturated and stabilized in the market, and everyone has grown quite comfortable with it despite major security issues. As for .NET, how many major developers are actually going to write managed code? Adobe's not going to rewrite Photoshop. Macromedia's not going to rewrite Dreamweaver. id isn't going to be releasing .NET games any time soon. So Microsoft will have to keep supporting Win32 indefinitely anyway. .NET will take charge in the market that Visual Basic currently does, because that's what C# is geared toward.

The only real thing I was looking forward to in Longhorn was Avalon and WinFS. WinFS won't ship with Longhorn and Apple has already beaten it to the punch with Spotlight, and Avalon and Indigo will be released as backports for both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. In addition, the .NET runtime also already ships for Windows XP.

What exactly does Longhorn offer other than a 3D accelerated interface and a big information bar on the side (I guess it's Microsoft's answer to the Dock or something)? I've been following Longhorn for a while, and its advantages have slowly diminished, and now I'm honestly much less interested.

Re:XP

[jalefkowit]

I say the same thing, but for Windows 2000. I have yet to find a show stopper at home to upgrade to XP.

Me neither -- I'm still running Win2K at home quite happily too. However, it's worth noting that Microsoft has at least one potential "show stopper" in the works for us: according to Microsoft's Windows lifecycle roadmap, "mainstream support" for Windows 2000 Professional will be discontinued on June 30 of this year. After that date only "extended support" will be available (through 2010).

What's the distinction? According to the lifecycle FAQ, here's what those terms mean:

• Mainstream support includes all the support options and programs that customers receive today, such as no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support that is charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims, and hotfix support...
• Extended support includes all paid support options and security-related hotfix support that is provided at no charge. Hotfix support that is not security-related requires a separate extended hotfix support contract to be purchased within 90 days after mainstream support ends.

From a practical home-user perspective, this means that you won't be seeing any more Service Packs or updates for Win2K Pro, unless they are to fix a specific security issue. So it'll be interesting to see whether things like new versions of DirectX continue to be provided for 2000 after this summer or not. Anyone out there with more experience on how Microsoft EOL's products who can shed light on what the prospects for things like that are?

"Pay no attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to that spyware and virus free (so far), shipping operating system that you can buy today! Look over here, at this great stuff we'll be selling Real Soon Now!"

Hopefully Tiger will appear sooner than currently expected, to prevent this.

Re:Shorthorn?

[nuclear305]

I do agree. I'm tired of seeing less-than-spectacular releases in the Windows line. WinME? That was pointless.

How about Longhorn being the "browserless OS?" If they hold true to that it means we'll probably be even more vulnerable to IE exploits--like hijacking our desktop background instead of just our browser homepage.

I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't redesign their product to focus on 3 things: the kernel, the GUI, and the rest of the apps they ship with Windows.

The one thing I love about Linux is the fact that the kernel is almost always stable. It rarely crashes. (with the exception of the use of alpha-release drivers or bad system memory) Yes, X may sprout some problems eventually but it doesn't take the whole system down.

The other thing they need to do is stop integrating software into the OS. I can't stress this enough. I don't want to have to worry about my entire OS being vulnerable because IE has been integrated into every possible aspect of my GUI. Keep it simple, keep it segmented in modules.

If they could ship an OS that had a rock-solid kernel, with a nice GUI shipped with it, and a few apps (IE, OE, etc) shipped as extras on the cd/dvd then I think they would finally have a worthy product on their hands.

Re:Slightly off topic, but...

[ChatHuant]

Does the phrase "longhorn" have anything to do with the University of Texas at Austin (who's mascot is the Longhorn)

It's the name of a saloon in Whistler (a ski resort in Canada), positioned between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. Both Whistler and Blackcomb have also been used as code names for various versions of Windows.

It's pronounced "Longhaul"

[QuantumG]

When the world wakes up and sees that Microsoft is asking them to upgrade yet-again they will either 1) jump at the chance or 2) ask what was wrong with XP. I think we need to be there to tell them.

Re:It's pronounced "Longhaul"

[Richard_at_work]

When XP came out, I dont recall any announcement from Microsoft about having to upgrade?! Infact, I recall that the vast majority of 'upgrading' to XP just happened during the normal course of buying a new system as and when required - Win2k or 98 didnt suddenly stop working (did 98 ever start working?). Longhorn will be the same, natural upgrade with new hardware for normal users, those that follow the 'cutting edge' will be buying OS upgrades, and everyone will get on with life.

Re:It's pronounced "Longhaul"

[Bill Dog]

What are you talking about, they offer "great new features" the first Tuesday of every month! ;-)

I wonder...

[michaeldot]

Does Microsoft actually care about Mac OS X at all, whether as a competitive threat or even a comparative yardstick?

At a recent university talk, Gates claimed that the only OSes that would be around in 10 years would be Windows and Linux. Now that could simply be a snub to Jobs, or it could indicate that he doesn't even consider Mac to be on the radar anymore. With less than 2% marketshare, Mac OS X is pretty much inconsequential in both the predominantly Windows consumer market, or Windows/Linux enterprise market.

The ironic thing is, that if Mac OS X *were* to be around in 10 years, Microsoft would likely to be making far more money off it than if it disappeared. Why? The high gross margins (80+%) from Office mean that Microsoft often makes more money from a Mac bought with Office than Apple does (the gross margin on a Mac is 20+%).

With only Linux as an alternative OS, Microsoft would likely make nothing, unless Microsoft plans to start selling software for Linux...

Personally I think Microsoft does actually pay attention to Apple and uses them as a sort of free R&D lab. However, publicly, Gates seems to deny they're relevant now, and not at all in the future.

Interesting...

Re:I wonder...

[Leo McGarry]

With less than 2% marketshare, Mac OS X is pretty much inconsequential

Check your figures again, please. There's no definition of "market share," either percent-of-sales-per-unit-time or percent-of-total-installed-base, for which that statement could be true. IDC consistently puts Apple around 4%, with an installed base set to exceed 40 million units during the first half of this year. (There are rumors that IDC's next projection is going to uptick sharply on the strength of the Mac mini.)

When you're talking about a market valued in the tens of billions, the difference between "less than 2%" and the actual figure of four percent is huge.

the register story is old

[uujjj]

Did anyone notice that the Register story is dated September 2003? Explains how it is talking about "May this year"

Yippee!!!!!!

[zmollusc]

I am as poor as a church mouse whose wife has run off with another mouse, taking all the cheese with her. I am looking forward to Longhorn because then lots of people will upgrade their kit and i get to inherit some newer stuff.
My most recent hand-me-downs were from guys updating graphics cards for doom3 and HL2.

Tiger's punch was last year...

[timealterer]

A June beta release from Microsoft may or may not beat Apple's June final release, but Tiger's punch was the beta DVDs that went to all Worldwide Developers' Conference attendees LAST summer.

Blizzard vs. Microsoft

[snuf23]

How come when a game company like Blizzard says "it will be released when it's ready" everyone applauds their restraint, yet when Windows release dates are up in the air everyone slams Microsoft?

Oh, maybe it's because Windows still won't be ready when it's shipped...

Re:Blizzard vs. Microsoft

[arkhan_jg]

Because microsoft don't say 'it'll be out when it's ready'. They give date after after date, breaking them each time.

And people who've bought the three year subscription 'upgrades free' licences feel like mugs because they listened to microsoft PR and got nothing out of it.

The NEW Malabu Stacy... NOW WITH A HAT!

[fireman sam]

Is this exactly not what happened in the episode of the Simpsons episode where Lisa creates a doll called "Lisa Lionheart" only to be knocked out at the last minute with the "New" Malabu Stacy, which was the old Malabu Stacy, but with a hat.

I guess Microsoft's sales of Malabu Stacys (Windows) is slowing. I guess it is time for them to release a new version "NOW WITH A HAT"

"(Burns) Hello Smithers, you're quite good at turning me on" - Smithers' computer

"(Gates) Hello Steve, you're quite good at turning *Windows NT GPF*" - Steve Balmer's computer

Uh?

[modifried]

Did anyone look at the date of the article? Even in the /. snippet it shows that 2005 is not written in present tense.

Microsoft delays Longhorn. Again
By John Leyden
Published Tuesday 2nd September 2003 10:55 GMT

Re:APT?

[Glowing Fish]

Microsoft is also ripping off Debian's release schedule! ::: rimshot :::

Hello.jpg? Try Giver.

[Seoulstriker]

Not so micro. Or soft. He might be the new "giver".

* shudder *

Beating Apple to the punch

[Infonaut]

It says a lot about the current state of the Apple/Microsoft relationship that Microsoft would be concerned about beating Apple to the punch. Before OS X in general and Panther specifically, not many people outside of the Mac sphere of interest gave the MacOS much attention. Now you read articles about MacOS in IT magazines, on Slashdot, and even in the mainstream press quite frequently.

I'm sure Microsoft isn't going to say a word about Tiger, but my guess is they're no longer considering Apple the 98-lb. weakling as they once did.

Replacement for SWF, and its implications for Mono

[seatscanner]

Mono's implementation of System.Windows.Forms is very very close to a usable state. I'm really thrilled to see the development taking place around Mono. I think Mono's S.W.F.-initiative is more likely to bring Windows applications to Linux than Wine.

This makes me wonder regarding the status for System.Windows.Forms in Longhorn. Is System.Windows.Forms still the recommended GUI-framework in Longhorn? Is the release of its replacement post-poned?

Misleading Summary

[Morgahastu]

The article linked to, and quoted, was published in September of 2003. There is no new delay to speak of.

Can't wait. :-)

[AlgUSF]

I bet this will be the most open and secure operating system ever.

In other news...

[generationxyu]

Half Life 2 is due out this... Oh. Wait...

Disingenuous quoting of el Reg

[Tim C]

That article is from September 2003, yet the way it's quoted in the summary makes it sound like Longhorn has been delayed again this week, which is not the case.

No Credibility. I have the Alpha.

[GFLPraxis]

If you guys could see the current state of the Longhorn Alpha...
It's not near ready for Beta yet...

Re:Release Dates

[phillymjs]

Microsoft has many times in the past cut very important functionality all in the name of making release dates. This time they appear fairly serious about overhauling their development model and aren't allowing time to be a major factor.

Right, that's why they've dropped WinFS from the feature list. Again. What is this, the third Windows version that was supposed to have it?

~Philly

The biggest allure of Longhorn

[Free_Trial_Thinking]

The thing I thought was most revolutionary about longhorn was the database type file system. I think more and more people are seeing the advantages of tags over folders. You'd think someone could build a database style, tagged filesystem in some sort of linux deal. How hard would it be?

You miss the point

[rewt66]

The point isn't users. The point is developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers...

/me winces at the sudden karma-dectomy...

Anyway, the point of Longhorn is, with Indigo and Avalon, to make it easier to develop cool new stuff. Then more cool new stuff gets written for Windows, and so more people buy Windows.

Want to pre-empt Longhorn? Make some slick open-source developer tools for XML-based user interfaces (can't remember the X-acronym at the moment - XUL or XAML or some such) and web services. Win over the developers. Let them develop the cool new stuff on Linux.

The users will follow if the new stuff is cool enough. At least, that's been Microsoft's game plan for a long time now, and it's worked pretty well for them...

Re:Nothing to pull people away from the web

[mingot]

There is no technology in Longhorn that will convince people to start developing windows-only applications.

Does there need to be? Seems like the majority of commercial software vendors already only develop for windows. Of course it's not going to convince the current exceptions (Adobe, Oracle, IBM) but then nothing short of a gun to the heads of the CEO's of those companies COULD convince them.

As it is, I look at all of the people who have written applications to .NET who are shooting themselves given the rise of Apple, Linux, and other non-Microsoft platforms (cell phones, etc.).

Why? Excepting Linux and OSX there pretty much are no other operating systems that have any signifigant user base. Linux users are not exactly known for rushing out to pay for software. And I don't think there are enough people using apple computers to keep ISVs up at night wishing they had went cross platform, either.

Some combination of Java and/or the Web is the way to go for the forseeable future.

I can certainly see benifit in going towards the web, just because of the ease of rolling out changes across an enterprise (update the server, everyone is updated). The cross platform there is just a (nice) side effect, though.

Just to let you know, though, as soon as OSX or Linux have the market share to make it profitable to develop for them is the day I start developing software for them.

Microsoft OS every 4 years

[Harassed]

As chance would have it I was actually at Microsoft's UK campus today and one interesting piece of information that was mentioned was Microsoft's long-term OS strategy which is to release a new full OS refresh every 4 years with a "feature upgrade" every 2 years between releases.

This means that Windows Server 2003 is due a "feature upgrade" this year (XP had one last year in the form of SP2), with the XP replacement due in 2006 and Longhorn server in 2007. WinFS is likely to be included in a "feature upgrade" to Longhorn sometime in 2009.

Both Avalon and Indigo are likely to be available for current Windows platforms (2k3 and XP) although WinFS is, as widely publicised already, not going to be available even for the release of Longhorn.http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/unders tanding/pillars/default.aspx

Therefore, the chances of WinFS being available for 2000, XP or Windows Server 2003 is unlikely particularly in light of the fact XP mainstream support is due to end next December (2006) and Windows 2000 support actually officially ends in June this year! (see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh; %5Bln%5D;LifeWin

The main reason for the WinFS delays, they stated was that they made the decision that its features would also benefit several other key products such as SQLServer and Exchange and the integration with these products/developer teams was worth the delay.

Re:The next two years, will be the last chance to

[maztuhblastah]

Once Longhorn comes out, Microsoft will again be so far ahead, it won't be easy, or even possible, for enthusiasts to catch up.

Hi Mr. Troll...have some food:


1. The entire OS will be accessible through a set of managed APIs. This makes coding 10 times easier and faster, and raises productivity to unprecedented levels. This also makes buffer overflows and some other security issues a thing of the past.

Good idea...let's call them shared libraries. They can handle all the functions that a modern program will need. We'll put them in a central location, like a "lib" folder, and then release their header files in a "devel" (short for developer) package. This means that any program writer will be able to see exactly what functions he needs to use. We'll also put all our trust in the security of one developer, and forget security as our responsibility.

2. New, resolution independent, vector based, GPU-enabled UI engine.... What's KDE/Gnome users gonna do? That's right, try to discern tiny non-scalable icons on these displays.

That's right...those damn communists will have to develop SVG Icons to compete.

3. Completely new UI, including some significant paradigm changes.

Because we all know that a new UI is far more important than stability, performance, security, ease of use, scalability, compatibility, ease of development, and speed of patch releases...right? Then again, maybe changing to a 3d environment will make it easier for new users, after all, computers haven't been using 2d interfaces for the last 20-some years, right?

Your webapps will actually run sandboxed .NET code on your machine.

Just like, oh, I don't know...Java? Wait... Kind of like applets, but the entire webapp will be built out of them.... oh...I get it, just like a whole Java application. Got it. Silly me, I thought Java was only for applets...
Just think about the possibilities there.Wait! I've heard this before... the possibility is ActiveX...seamless integration of pr0n toolbars^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H client and server, huh?

web service protocol that's supported by the majority of computers in the world (when most people upgrade).
Standard...oh yeah, like TCP/IP, SSL, SSH, Telnet, UDP, and all those other standards...(too many to list)

The most important thing is, all of this will be available to Windows users out of the box, without any tweaking/recompiling/downloading dependencies
Yeah...clicking the icon for Synaptic was getting to be a pain in the ass. I also got pretty tired of having several gigs worth of...well, all the programs I need...included on the installation disks.
Developers will be able to rely on this stuff when building next-gen apps and be reasonably sure that if a user runs Longhorn, the app will run there.
Yeah, let's see how many DLL's we can cram into the system32 folder, eh? Until DLL's are gone (ahem...notafuckingchanceinhell...ahem), there will still be DLL hell.


It's time to stop copying Windows XP, folks.
Are you out of your fucking mind? MS copied Fisher-Price, not vice versa...
It's time to start copying Longhorn.
You know, you're right...let's copy a product that has to have a final specifications sheet, or even a concrete release date. Even better, let's copy our own innovations.

Now that the troll's full, I may as well poke it a bit:

That was by far one of the most uneducated, poorly cocnceived fanboy responses that I have ever read. Even people like Dvorak and Thurrot take more time to look at the status quo before proclaiming innovation.

Cheers,

-maztuh

Preview of Longhorn

[amichalo]

A Preview of Longhorn is available here.

A rather thorough documentation of the future featureset is available
here.

Re:The next two years, will be the last chance to

[I_redwolf]

1. The entire OS will be accessible through a set of managed APIs. This makes coding 10 times easier and faster, and raises productivity to unprecedented levels. This also makes buffer overflows and some other security issues a thing of the past.

"Managed APIs". I can see where this is going already.

2. New, resolution independent, vector based, GPU-enabled UI engine. Two years from Longhorn release people will be buying 200+ DPI displays because things look a lot better on them. What's KDE/Gnome users gonna do? That's right, try to discern tiny non-scalable icons on these displays.

Gnome/KDE already support SVG. So gnome/kde have scalable fonts/icons.. right now, today. Not only that but work is already being done in this respect http://cairographics.org/introduction.

3. Completely new UI, including some significant paradigm changes.

PARA DIG EM! Yeah.. when I wanna be wowed by UI i'll use Enlightenement or OSX. Suprisingly nothing from Microsoft has ever impressed me in that department. I mean, the screenshots I've seen of gnome/kde/enlightenment/osx/xfce. Microsoft needs to hire new UI designers.. I mean, seriously.

4. Seamless integration of client and server side (that's what XAML is all about, IMHO). Your webapps will actually run sandboxed .NET code on your machine. Kind of like applets, but the entire webapp will be built out of them. Just think about the possibilities there.

Mozilla and XML. Thats what Mozilla is all about. Your webapps will actually run regular ole XML on your machine. Kind of like google mail, but the entire webapp will be built out of them. I'm living in the present by the way.. Just incase you were wondering.

5. Reliable Web Services - Indigo, web services that don't suck. More importantly, web service protocol that's supported by the majority of computers in the world (when most people upgrade). And you can bet your ass they will upgrade, just like a couple of years after W95 was released almost everyone ran W95.

Reliable Web Services? Web service protocol? So whats that called? HTMP? is that going to be ontop of HTTP? Making it more reliable and supported worldwide (after everyone switches from HTTP). Bet my ass i'll upgrade for a protocol, just like when I upgraded for ftp!

It's time to stop copying Windows XP, folks. It's time to start copying Longhorn. Gnome devs have already realised that.

What you say?! Stop copying XP and start copying Longhorn?! Why my lad, you can't copy what doesn't exist.

Seriously though, I hate Microsoft and if they had anything genuinely original coming out in Longhorn i'd probably be interested. Especially if it's good technology. To date, i'm hearing about stuff people have either already implemented or wrote about. Things that have been discussed by numerous people over the years. The innovation isn't happening at Microsoft, it's happening elsewhere. It's not even an attractive company to work for nowadays and i'd be hard pressed to say they've ever invented anything original.

I mean, if I wanted to do original shit i'd have to go to work for anyone other than Microsoft.

Copy OS X, not Longhorn

[Nice2Cats]

I don't know if you've sat down in front of an Apple lately, but all of the supposedly cool stuff about Longhorn you describe would seem to me to be already out there in Panther, if not Tiger at the latest. Therefore, your statement:

It's time to stop copying Windows XP, folks. It's time to start copying Longhorn. Gnome devs have already realised that.

should be modified to It's time to stop copying Windows XP, folks. It's time to start copying OS X. Unfortunately, nobody from KDE or Gnome seems to realize this.

For one thing, somebody has to figure out a way to start doing graphics on the GPU with vanilla X11 pretty soon -- Tiger is going to make everything else look like mud this year already, and when Windows figures out that trick in 2006 or 2007 or whenever, BSD and Linux will just about be the only ugly kids left on the block. This might not matter for servers etc, but on the desktop, looks count.

Re:The next two years, will be the last chance to

[naden]

1. The entire OS will be accessible through a set of managed APIs. This makes coding 10 times easier and faster, and raises productivity to unprecedented levels. This also makes buffer overflows and some other security issues a thing of the past.

I call bullshit. 10 times easier to develop/faster - I think not. And managed APIs whilst they may reduce the incidents of buffer overflows will not automagically solve your security problems. The fact is .Net is great, but not that great.

2. New, resolution independent, vector based, GPU-enabled UI engine. Two years from Longhorn release people will be buying 200+ DPI displays because things look a lot better on them. What's KDE/Gnome users gonna do? That's right, try to discern tiny non-scalable icons on these displays.

And who are going to be buying these new 200+ DPI machines ? I surely doubt the ordinary user is going to find a need to view their word documents in super high quality. So do explain what is going to be the driver of these displays ?

3. Completely new UI, including some significant paradigm changes.

Completely new ? And what lose the ability of their installed base to jump right in and use the system. What about the significant investments in training done by companies ? The fact is Longhorn will be 95% identical to Windows XP simply because it has to be. If it isn't and businesses have to invest serious money in retraining staff, then why not retrain them in how to use Linux/OpenOffice ?

4. Seamless integration of client and server side (that's what XAML is all about, IMHO). Your webapps will actually run sandboxed .NET code on your machine. Kind of like applets, but the entire webapp will be built out of them. Just think about the possibilities there.

Whilst your thinking about the possibilities, some of us are actually implementing it. Java/Flash are already heavily used and Google is only just showing that JS/DHTML can be used to do amazing stuff. And they all work cross-platform.

The fact is developers can't target XAML so long as they have they have a significant number of end users that are running Windows 95/98/Linux/Mac/Firefox etc etc.

5. Reliable Web Services - Indigo, web services that don't suck. More importantly, web service protocol that's supported by the majority of computers in the world (when most people upgrade). And you can bet your ass they will upgrade, just like a couple of years after W95 was released almost everyone ran W95.

Web Services like CORBA is a developer's technology. Most end users won't know what web services is and why it is useful. You've been drinking the Microsoft kool-aid if you think end users are going to upgrade because of it. And Web Services works just as well on other platforms as well you know. Some even require little to no programming.

The most important thing is, all of this will be available to Windows users out of the box, without any tweaking/recompiling/downloading dependencies. That's where the real strength of this all is. Developers will be able to rely on this stuff when building next-gen apps and be reasonably sure that if a user runs Longhorn, the app will run there.

Bzzt. Except that when Longhorn comes out your going to have a even more fragmented Windows market (95/98/XP/Longhorn). Which means that as a developer you want to use the technology that will target the most number of platforms i.e. Win32. This is a huge problem for Microsoft and is why more Longhorn technologes are being backported to XP.

It's time to stop copying Windows XP, folks. It's time to start copying Longhorn. Gnome devs have already realised that.

WRONG. It is time for Linux to start making itself more and more interoperable with Windows XP. To the point where businesses will sidegrad

OS X makes Windows look bad

[Nice2Cats]

Does Microsoft actually care about Mac OS X at all, whether as a competitive threat or even a comparative yardstick?

I would certainly think so, because OS X shows people what can be done with computers -- it shows them that viruses, trojans, and other malware aren't acts of God, but a preventable result of bad technology; that computers don't have to crash; that drag'n drop can do so much more; that Plug and Play can be more than an empty marketing slogan; and finally that computers can actually look cool. In short, Apple makes Windows machines look bad by comparison, and with the iPod and Mac mini actually penetrating the mainstream, this can't be good for Microsoft.

Futhermore, I think your comment

With less than 2% marketshare, Mac OS X is pretty much inconsequential in both the predominantly Windows consumer market, or Windows/Linux enterprise market.

shows a widespread but flawed view of the computer world: Market share is all that matters. In fact, look at Porsche: Pissy market share, but great cars and -- more important -- great financial performance of the company. Apple's stock is doing just fine, thank you, while Microsoft's is starting to underperform to the point where they are now paying dividend. Comparing Microsoft to Apple makes just as little sense as comparing GM to Porsche and then saying that Porsche is hopeless because they don't have a large percentage of the mass-market.

In fact, at least up to the Mac mini, that was exactly the point.

Re:OS X makes Windows look bad

[dr.badass]

Saw this coming. It's impossible to bring up Apple's market share without at least one fanboy reminding us all of the beloved car analogy.

Good design is good design.

Software, hardware, cars, typefaces, guns, knives, tools, chairs, buildings, bridges, watches -- you name it.

Apple just happens to be the only personal computer maker with a significant investment in good design. Of course they will draw comparisons to makers in other industries with similar investments in good design.

Getting back to market share, the OP is pretty much right. Market share is only important in regards to competition. A company with 90% of a market can still tank. Selling the absolute most units is not the only path to success -- there is more than one way to run a business. A company with 3% of the market can still be profitable, which is the only real sign of success.

In fact, it should be obvious that most companies, in most industries, don't have very large shares of their respective markets. There wouldn't be very many companies if there were.

(You may wonder why companies with good design tend to not have large market shares. It's not because of price, which most people leap at the chance to criticize. Price is subject to supply and demand. It's because most people have bad taste. If you don't think that most people have bad taste, please explain the following: reality television, Britney Spears, Wal-Mart, Taco Bell, Jerry Springer, fanny packs, George W. Bush, AOL, and most of human culture since the dawn of time.)

Re:The next two years, will be the last chance to

[sunami]

there's nothing going on with XP except for service packs/bugfixes
Uhhh, isn't that all that ever goes on with any development after its release?

On the rest, I completely agree, expect that I disagree on some parts.

The vector based display is GREAT. This has been happening in games for a long time, I was wondering how long it would take to evolve onto the desktop environment.

As of currently, though, everything else has not been implemeted in any of the alpha releases, so I can't comment on whether or not those work or suck. Esentially, the Alpha Longhorn release is XP with a different color scheme, and slightly different log-in screen. Also, the "security center" has returned to it's W2K form, where there are several options to select from, rather than simply giving the task manager.

As for the W95 part, that was true for a small amount of time. Shortly after, when W98 became good, W98 SE became a very popular OS. Microsoft has since done a lot to upgrade W2K, which is what I currently use. Of course, it helps that most mal-ware is targeted at XP, and not W2K.

Re:Replacement for SWF, and its implications for M

[JesseT]

This makes me wonder regarding the status for System.Windows.Forms in Longhorn. Is System.Windows.Forms still the recommended GUI-framework in Longhorn? Is the release of its replacement post-poned? System.Windows.Forms and GDI+ (System.Drawing) are still fully supported in Longhorn, and right now are the recommended way to begin transitioning your applications towards Longhorn. However, Longhorn has an entirely knew API known as WinFX, which is a superset of the .NET Framework. The new GUI is a vector-based 2D and 3D compositing system known as Avalon. Avalon is built on top of DirectX. Avalon, DirectX, and GDI+ are known collectively as the Windows Graphics Foundation or WGF. Avalon has a much larger scope over System.Windows.Forms, and if you would like take a glimpse at all of the new stuff (the new namespaces added under System.Windows), then check out the WinFX API Reference. WinFX is a quite a big step up from traditional Win32 programming. Mono has stated on their roadmap that it is too early to tell if they will support the technologies in Longhorn, but chances are, they eventually will. Avalon seems to be more hardware and platform agnostic than System.Windows.Forms. Things like HWNDs are now hidden behind a polymorphic class interface, and that's just the beginning. You really need to check it out to understand how it works. Anyway, stuff like that should make it easier to port to things like Mac OS X, Linux, *BSD, and so on.

Re:The next two years, will be the last chance to

[ookaze]

Once Longhorn comes out, Microsoft will again be so far ahead, it won't be easy, or even possible, for enthusiasts to catch up. Right now they're essentially standing still. They've put all their efforts into LH, there's nothing going on with XP except for service packs/bugfixes. Now is the perfect time to release a really polished Linux desktop that would be simple to setup and use.

I hope MS will be far ahead of WinXP with LH, because the polished Linux desktops were released in 2001 (the time I switched, as WinXP had become unusable when compared to a Gnome or KDE desktop), and are gradually improving ever since.

When Longhorn comes out, Microsoft, and folks who develop for Windows, will surge ahead REALLY fast.
Here's why:
1. The entire OS will be accessible through a set of managed APIs. This makes coding 10 times easier and faster, and raises productivity to unprecedented levels. This also makes buffer overflows and some other security issues a thing of the past.

No clue wishful thinking. I'm not impressed. The Windows architecture is flawed already. No amount of code can fix it. Redesigning Windows (for multiuser and for the internet) would be far better.

2. New, resolution independent, vector based, GPU-enabled UI engine. Two years from Longhorn release people will be buying 200+ DPI displays because things look a lot better on them. What's KDE/Gnome users gonna do? That's right, try to discern tiny non-scalable icons on these displays.

Actually, I started using beautiful scalable (SVG) icons and fonts at worst in 2002 on my Gnome desktop ... You and LongHorn are pretty late I must say.
So, on my 100 dpi 22" monitor (in 1600x1200), the desktop is pretty sharp and the icons and fonts are like they should be, even if I change resolution. I bet it will be the same with 200+ dpi monitors.

3. Completely new UI, including some significant paradigm changes.

Do you mean MS actually invented something ? That will not be a ripoff of Mac OS X, Linux or other desktops ? Now I'm impressed.
I've seen nothing of the kind till now, but I suppose it is secret.

4. Seamless integration of client and server side (that's what XAML is all about, IMHO). Your webapps will actually run sandboxed .NET code on your machine. Kind of like applets, but the entire webapp will be built out of them. Just think about the possibilities there.

I'm a user, I have no need for your webapps. And client and server should not be integrated either, that is nonsense. The server should run the app, not me, so I do not need anything sandboxed. I think of the possibilities for a lot of virus yes.

5. Reliable Web Services - Indigo, web services that don't suck. More importantly, web service protocol that's supported by the majority of computers in the world (when most people upgrade). And you can bet your ass they will upgrade, just like a couple of years after W95 was released almost everyone ran W95.

I fail to understand how you can talk about "web service protocol". What is that, isn't it HTTP ? It is an open protocol, like they all should be on the internet. The internet is not MSN you know, that is a world for everyone, not just for Windows users.

The most important thing is, all of this will be available to Windows users out of the box, without any tweaking/recompiling/downloading dependencies. That's where the real strength of this all is. Developers will be able to rely on this stuff when building next-gen apps and be reasonably sure that if a user runs Longhorn, the app will run there.

Your description looks like what is already present in Windows now : ActiveX, Direct X, ...
I see no improvement. Will it all be open ? That would be an improvement.

It's time to stop copying Windows XP, folks. It's time to start copying Longhorn. Gnome devs have already realised that.

Who is copying Windows XP or