Longhorn Beta Begins

gcnaddict writes "Microsoft has officially sent invitations to their best beta testers and to WinHEC participants for their Windows Code Name Longhorn beta program. They also unveiled a new Beta Client which promises to be better than the current beta management systems, and will replace other means of beta distribution, including WindowsBeta and BetaPlace all in one fell swoop. While the new, highly anticipated operating system is not up for download, Beta 1 is expected to be up for grabs later this month. Unfortunately, it seems that the preliminary invitation codes are unique per user. Microsoft is expected to allow the public to apply for the beta program later this summer, and as usual, Longhorn will be a part of the Community Technology Preview program."

Comments

Everything Enabled?

[opello]

Have they disabled a lot of stuff like they have in the 'rc' releases of longhorn? Or is all the 'glits' tossed in (visual effects and the like)?

Re:Everything Enabled?

[toddestan]

Note to mods: this joke doesn't work if you don't mod this up funny ;-)

I love these games! I'll take a +5 Interesting please.

Re:Everything Enabled?

[TodPunk]

HA! Just Interesting. How strange is it that this little off-topic thread has become an instant karma boost for all involved?

let me explain something about longhorn...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

here in brasil (and maybe other latin countries like italy too) is said that a man cheated by his wife or girlfriend has "horns". so what makes microsoft think that i'll want "long horns" ???

Re:let me explain something about longhorn...

[Jester99]

It's named after a bar.

XP was code-named "Whistler," a large ski mountain north of Redmond. The next version of Windows was therefore suposed to be codenamed "Blackcomb" -- the other mountain in the ski area. Except that Blackcomb's feature list got so long, they realized it'd take them five or more years to pull it all off, so they decided to split the more neccessary features into a release that'd come out sooner than Blackcomb. The obvious choice of name for this release is called Longhorn -- the bar that sits between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. :)

So when you think Windows, think beer!

Re:Why will I want to upgrade?

[Krankheit]

Well, my grandmother is fine with Windows 98 and Firefox, but she isn't a developer. I personally run Debian Linux on my desktop Macs and PCs, and laptops, with the OpenBSD to firewall, and FreeBSD and NetBSD on servers. But as a developer, I am interested in the latest version of Windows and Mac OS X because I may want to develop for it. Right now my applications I have written use Xlib directly, so it will be difficult to port, but nonetheless, when I do start porting, I will want to have Longhorn as a target to develop for, because that is what is going to go with all the new Dells.

Most secure?

[Anonymous Coward]

It says that W/Longhorn will be "the most secure version of Windows ever." Didn't they say that about W/XP?

Questions for those with access to the beta

[earthbound kid]

Did they fix the "Shut do..." menu? Did they get rid of the 16-color icons sprinkled into the last version? Are they still putting the menu bar under the location bar, but above the toolbar for no discernible reason? Does the UI still suck?

I know the last alpha or whatever that people had screenshots of was supposed to be for testing driver or whatever, but holy crap, it was a total UI train wreck. Just ugly, with styles mashed together at random, for no reason.

So, has it been fixed? Or will that be in Longhorn SP2?

Re:Why will I want to upgrade?

[Krankheit]

Microsoft hopes people will be forced to upgrade to Longhorn to use my software. But I plan to make sure my software runs on Windows NT 4.0/Windows 95 and up. I would only install Longhorn to work out incompatibilities with changes in Longhorn.

Re:Why will I want to upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

why do people buy new cars when their old one isnt broken?

Various Reasons, to keep up with their neighbors, better fuel mileage, more comfort, have a second car so both the husband and wife can go to work.

why did you buy a dvd player when your vcr still worked fine?

Simple, Video Cassettes wear out and DVDs don't and DVDs are much higher quality, not to mention easier to backup to another DVD.

With computers, all most people need is a $350 computer from Dell for light internet access, listening to music, for Word Processing and finances.

Re:Send them back.

[satoshi1]

Then they'd bad-mouth it and say how awesome their Ubuntu machine is.

Um. Yup. That's what'd I do. And I'm not even a Linux zealot ^_^

Re:A very incomplete list off the top of my head

[Wade Tregaskis]

"One video showed two Notepads rotating around while still completely usable at the same time a video played in Media Player. Old apps will be compatible."

MacOS X 10.2, August 23, 2002.

http://www.atzenbeck.de/research/wildWindows/
http://homepage.cs.latrobe.edu.au/wjtregaskis/Rota ted%20Windows.sitx

Re:Sweet!

[ciroknight]

Did anyone else think that Microsoft's new Beta distribution system will use BitTorrent?? Saves them lots on bandwidth costs, and it's been proven to work (Blizzard's WoW betas for example). Possible? Likely?