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Microsoft Demands Removal Of Longhorn Images

Posted by timothy on from the now-there's-a-marketing-move dept.

bonch writes "After the previously reported release of the Longhorn beta at this year's WinHEC, Neowin and other Windows sites are reporting that Microsoft is going around sending legal letters demanding removal of Longhorn Build 5048 screenshots. Paul Thurrott discusses it on his site, stating that Microsoft never told anyone beforehand not to post screenshots of the publicly available beta, and links to the new galleries he has up now. 'Enjoy it while it lasts.'"

4 of 540 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft is pointing fingers wrong way... by yagu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To me this pretty much looks like Microsoft ran the screenshots up the metaphoric flagpole and didn't like the salutes. Instead of spinning it as beta (which we in the IT community have come to understand, if not respect) and appropriately rough-edged, Microsoft apparently has decided to take the low road and is going to hold its breath until it turns blue (irony). Too bad, the images do suck, but I think Microsoft in its eagerness to prove "me too" for having a cool new OS stumbled mightily this time. Fortunately, having $50B petty cash makes recovery from these inconveniences convenient.

  2. I bet by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if the reviewers LIKED it, those screen shots could've stayed up...

    1. Re:I bet by badasscat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Might as well just use one of the many "theme" generators for XP to create a longhorn theme and call it identical.

      As soon as your copy of XP can keep two folders auto-sync'd over a network, then you give me a call. Longhorn can do that, and it's one of the big features I'm waiting for.

      Seriously, I can't believe how many people here are focusing on the visuals. Who the hell cares? It looks fine to me, just as XP does. I don't fire up an OS to look at all the pretty colors, I fire up an OS to run applications. Longhorn has a whole mess of security improvements that make it more like Linux (i.e. non-root accounts are actually somewhat functional, so people might actually want to use them), it has smart folders that automatically look for documents matching parameters you specify, it has the aforementioned network auto-sync feature that is sorely needed for anyone who owns multiple PC's (useful for things like backup, media centers, etc.).

      And those are just the features I'm personally excited about. Even without WinFS, this is a significant upgrade to Windows XP.

      Before you start thinking I'm some sort of MS shill, look up my history for the last Longhorn-related post I made, wherein I bitched about MS trying to sell us something other than the desktop metaphor. I'm actually happy MS is not trying to reinvent the UI wheel after seeing these screens. XP works perfectly well enough for me from a UI standpoint; it is just missing some obvious features that a modern OS really has to have in this day and age.

      People go nuts about a 0.1 incremental upgrade to the Mac OS, and are only too happy to pay $130 for it. Longhorn is a far more important and comprehensive upgrade than Tiger and all anyone can say about it is how much it sucks because it looks like Windows? Get over it. It is Windows - what the hell did you expect? If you buy your OS based on looks and you don't like the look of Longhorn, why do you even care anyway? I would think you'd already be using a different OS as it is.

  3. You are missing the point, dude. by LibertineR · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I have been a Windows user since Version 2.0. I have lived through every damn bug, every blue screen, every fucked installation, every bit of lost data and more.

    And as the years go by, my wife's Mac looks better and better, until I have finally decided to break down and get one myself. If aint about 'the pretty colors' as you put it, it is about PROGRESS.

    The kind of progress that we wanted when we went from Win 3.11 to Win 95. The kind of progress we expected when we went from Visual Basic to C#. Or better put, the kind of PROGRESS that we USED to get from Microsoft. Disclaimer: Yeah, I used to work for Microsoft, so fucking what?

    The point is; progress seems to be coming slower and slower, in the exact ways that Lucovski pointed out when he left the company. Personally, I am getting sick of hearing about shit, only to later hear that the one thing that would make me spend money beyond MSDN has just gotten ripped out.

    Many of us who make our living on Windows and other Microsoft products would like something more to talk about than just .NET. Unless you have had your wife laugh at you as you search for device drivers while she just FUCKING WORKS, knows exactly what I am talking about.

    In short, we are fucking fed up.

    You are right, it aint about 'pretty colors', it is about showing us that the company can still produce something BETTER than what we had before. If they cant do it in the GUI, why the fuck should we believe that they can do it in the file system?

    First impressions are a bitch, and these aint good ones. We've been looking at the same shit for two years now, and I dont see any progress anywhere, just ugly screens of boring shit.

    Apple's shit may not be all that much better, but they at the very least manage to put a nice ribbon on it, and act like the shit is special enough to want it.

    XP works; Win2K3 works damn well. But, if you are trying to show me something new, the very least you can do is take the time to make sure it aint similar to what we have already seen or at the very least not fucking ugly?