Here is a chat log of Microsoft/Neowin/Stardock chat regarding PDC and Longhorn. On the last day of the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference, Stardock’s Brad Wardell, Jed and Jana from Microsoft and Creamhackered from Neowin hosted a Neowin.net live chat to answer questions and provide information on Longhorn, the next version of Windows due out in 2006. The chat is very interesting and should help more people understand –in plain english– what Longhorn has to offer. Elsewhere, ExtremeTech posted a preview of Longhorn with screenshots. Update: Another preview.
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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So basically they are counting on evenyone having 26 inch screens “hence the sidebar won’t be intrusive at all”. Wonder if you will even be able to get rid of it…
“[ 9:18pm ] [Brad Wardell] Or imagine being able to tap into all the features of Direct3D right from a script.”
“[ 9:35pm ] [Jed from Microsoft]if you have a digital picture, today you make three copies and store it in different folders for different uses. (Friends folder, My folder, Sports Folder). Now you can link that one file to the three different categories without having to make copies of it”
And all this time I’ve been using symlinks….
And to give you an idea of the intelligence of the people asking the questions in the “Q&A” I leave you this choice bit:
“[ 9:16pm ] [Dessimat0r> yeah, but surely you will lose vector detail, the more a vector image is enlarged?”
“””[ 9:16pm ] [Dessimat0r> yeah, but surely you will lose vector detail, the more a vector image is enlarged?”””
If I expand an image so that it is larger than the screen then I lose detail to the edges. If I expand it far enough I simply get the impression of a flat screen shaped polygon…all detail is lost.
Seriously though, that comment MUST have been a joke.
“So basically they are counting on evenyone having 26 inch screens “hence the sidebar won’t be intrusive at all”. Wonder if you will even be able to get rid of it… ”
Yeah, I’ve been wondering about those 26 inch laptop displays. The whole argument doesn’t hold water, I agree it’s just a bad UI design.
Mr Wardell likes to hyperbole a fair bit. 5 Terabyte drives in 3 years? 4000×3000 LCD’s? I think not. It’s taken me 8 years to move from 800×600 to 1280×1024 resolution. What he says will eventually happen, but not in 2006.
Looking at this WinFs makes me wonder.
Can Microsoft make this OS with (i don’t know)
200 million lines of code stable and quite
Is it best to have the start menu directly
render by the gfx card ?
Will the WinFS be worth the extra ram used ?
Will we be happy with the OS taking 5GB of space
What will happen if there is another virus like
SQL-slammer with every longhorn PC getting infected ?
I’m looking forward to a beta or RC1.
Personally i think this DB system can be useful
with lots of file in lots of folders.
You can see what the registry may be replaced with.
Please pay some rouge hackers to try to break the OS
before it has gone gold. Don’t shut out other companies
because it makes it hard for all.
Get rid of WPA and make the CD’s DVD’s copy protected
You don’t have to trust us be it would be nice
And last but not least. Fully document your API’s.
Its no good having longhorn with no programs
that can use the new stuff
I know my spelling and grammer are not good
and unfortunately dose not change with time and
effort. These are just my views and do not contain
It’s very quickly coming to light that LongHorn will be the ultimate OS for serious end-users. Those who want to get REAL work done will use LongHorn ! There will be no rival to this MS OS whatsoever by any of the usual haters like linux, os-X, or any other minor useless fringe os.
Microsoft is an innovator, hence therefore pushing the boundaries of normal computing. Yes, the displays will be that size in the future and maybe faster than you think. With the recent price breaks on LCD screens, they are soon becoming a viable alternative to the old CRT monitors. With change comes new challenges and I am certain MS is going to meet these head on with the new operating system. One has to remember that most of the innovation comes from MS in one way or another.
Also, the need to protect software from being copied and distributed illegally needs to be addressed to. Software copyright laws need to be formed and abided by; it is the right thing to do. Respect the developer and organization that created the software and pay the license fee for using it. No different than someone who invents a new product, he or she wants to be compensated for the item being sold or distributed. One has to remember if the code belonged to one of the individuals and it was stolen and released on the internet, how it would feel to have all your hard work go down the drain, ‘without’ compensation.
Thus, Longhorn will be a milestone operating system. The bar is being raised and it is time to get on the train to the future or remain in the past with ancient technology
Because MicroSoft has control of 90+% of all desktops through it’s hard work and effort. They have shown time and time again that their products are the ones that people want to use and need to use to be productive. No other Os is remotely near any level of user-friendly-ness or intuitive desgin layout like Windows and the future OS of mankind, LongHorn. The features and innovation going into LongHorn will blow away all these useless os’s who constantly try to play catch up with the greatest company on this side of the Milky way.
I don’t want to start the VS yet because it becomes
boring to read. But MacOS X 10.4 might have these
features. MacOS 10.3 already have the fancy windows
FX. Windows NT 4.00 SP6 has the NTFS with out the DB.
The IBM OS/400 has the most advanced DB FS (all though
I used to be amazed how 512MB used to keep over an hour
to back up and the Libs and Members was not what i was
Competition is a good thing !!!
“One has to remember that most of the innovation comes from MS in one way or another.”
Wrong. Most innovations go through MS, not from it.
“Software copyright laws need to be formed and abided by; it is the right thing to do.”
No it isn’t. It is absolutely immoral to abide by the current copyright law. It is stealing billions of dollers from the people of the United States. And what do you mean by “formed”? Are you saying we need 1000+ year copyrights?
What do you lot think about it ?
subj says it all. Nevertheless, it definately should help creating more portable Windows applications.
WinFS? I think it’s a great idea, but it’s hardly alone. I’m sure you’ve seen the previous articles about GNOME Storage have you not? Great things to be sure.
“Mr Wardell likes to hyperbole a fair bit. 5 Terabyte drives in 3 years? 4000×3000 LCD’s? I think not. It’s taken me 8 years to move from 800×600 to 1280×1024 resolution. What he says will eventually happen, but not in 2006.”
I suppose it’s true then that you are unable to do “REAL work” with your current OS.
Wow, sounds like an excellent gaming platform. If only it didn’t have all the DRM, spyware, adware to go along with it.
Did read about DB articals but. What do you
think about it being introduced to windows ?
Microsoft Windows has brought the desktop to the level it is today. With the technology that is being implemented into Longhorn it will allow more advance end user applications. Right now with the current legal issues over software being illegally used and copyright’s being violated it is best to secure this at the operating system level. Like I stated before it is the right and just thing to do. If one developed software and has a patent on it, therefore it is theirs and they have the rights to it. Thus, this would allow the creator of the software the ability to do with it has he/she pleases. I believe software copyrights will enable more competition and help create more ‘alternatives’ instead of stifling competition.
One has to remember, that we are not talking about reinventing the wheel, but merely modifying it. There are thousands of patents on products we use everyday, thus proving that it does the opposite, by challenging one to create a better way of doing things. As far as Windows Longhorn goes, to answer the question to protect the end user from litigation and potential liability, the technology needs to be implemented.
Also, the need to protect software from being copied and distributed illegally needs to be addressed to.
This is what I think will give Linux the advantage over both OSX and Windows.
Please address this need with a vengence.
Yes we all know what Microsoft has to say but would you please add something new?
WinFS and desktop with direct3D support are definetely useful.
The MS implementation may be buggy in the near future. But they are heading for the correct directions.
1. WinFS and Gnome storage are trying to solve the same problem: knowledge management of users’ digital content.
2. There are bunch of cheap and powerful video card today, but we are still suffering from bad hardware support of GDI and XFree86.
Hope open source projects can catch up.
“Hope open source projects can catch up.”
There is no catching up to do yet… Perhaps in two years… On the GNOME storage front I have seen more from them then Microsoft.
On the accelerated GUI front… I have no idea where we will be… There are already projects like Fresco that have been working on this since way before WinFX was announcnced..
It always seems like MS is on the right track, until they release something…
Microsoft is an innovator, hence therefore pushing the boundaries of normal computing
I think it’s quite sad that MS thinks everyone wants to throw their computers away every couple of years because they can’t run any software by MS anymore.
Yeah it’s easy for Joe Geek have a super monitor and a terabyte disk but what about people who just need a computer to send email and write documents, it’s ridiculous to be pushed to buy such a super machine for that just because MS makes such a stupidly heavy OS. Not to mention schools, NGOs and other institutions who don’t swim on money.
I think its a good idea. And I like to see Microsoft experimenting like this. Maybe it will work, maybe it will flop. Its their money.
The concept is good, but I don’t seem to have any problems managing half a terabyte of data with my current filesystems. Perhaps this would improve access to statistics the filemanagers regularly display, but those filemanagers could also cache those statistics in a user mode database to achieve the same level of performance. WinFS might, however, lead to lost performance or increased instability and/or insecurity in the system if they don’t do it the right way the first time. They only get one shot at this.
Its kinda like integrating the display drivers into the kernel. How did that affect NT? I think the results are obvious, hindsight is always 20/20, etc.
> This is definitely a case of someone drinking too much of MS flavored koolaid!
Stardock is a spent force. It has been going downhill ever since founder Pug ConDoin and leading developer Nakor left to form their new start-up at bittersea.com .
Thank You. I’m here all week.
The very basis of NGSCB is forced incompatibility. It will be forbidden by law (because the keys will be copyrighted, and they won’t give em out), so this will prevent any document created in a secure application from being opened in ANY other app.
It is the very opposite of competition. After NGSCB only microsoft can be compatible with other people’s applications. Great minds at work @ redmond.
It’s very quickly coming to light that LongHorn will be the ultimate OS for serious end-users. Those who want to get REAL work done will use LongHorn ! There will be no rival to this MS OS whatsoever by any of the usual haters like linux, os-X, or any other minor useless fringe os.
You have got to be joking, right? Seriously, you’re joking? There is nothing at all I have seen to imply Longhorn will be “the ultimate OS for serious end-users”. How do you even make up such crazy tripe?
WinFS seems interesting, I’ll give it that much. I don’t know how much difference it will make for the average user, but it seems nice in theory. As for Aero? In the end it’s mostly decorative. And I don’t doubt that within 3 years Gnome, OS X, and KDE will have progressed by light-years as well. The real competition between Windows and Linux on the desktop will be just beginning, and far from over.
I’m not saying Longhorn won’t be good, I hope it will. But you, my friend, need to lay off the crack. You’re post made me laugh, and for your sake I hope it was intended to.
The one thing I think about when reading about this is that anybody can do that right now, the only thing is that the apps may not look native (unless you want them to).
It is like when creating a UI for a game menu, and running the game in window mode.
The other thing about XAML being like XUL (which if I remember correctly news sites were saying that MS was afraid of netscape making the browser the UI of the OS, blah blah).
What if someone created a program that took the Mozilla’s XUL UI and forwarded it to Direct3D, imagine Mozilla being rendered by your graphics card. People with slow computers but fast graphics cards could take advantage of that.
That problem Eugenia keeps on complaining about in the Mozilla menus, would be gone.
I think it’s terribly interesting. If you’ll permit the inaccuracies of the following, I’d be obliged. We were working in essentially a one dimensional array (stdio) then we had R2 with the gui and then we are talking about creating an R3 representation of the existing R2 desktop . plus the filesystem– be easy to imagine pushing, pulling and globing ‘boxes’ together to search and assimilate information. [ 9:47pm ] [Brad Wardell] It won’t be 3D in the sense of Halflife shucks too bad, seems like you almost had it.
Innovator? There’s absolutely *nothing* new here. Everything they’re adding to Longhorn has been done before.
And 26 inch screen? You *gotta* be kidding. I see very few people using 17 inch screens, and 17 screens have been around for a while, and they aren’t expensive. Now, 26 inch? There’s no way people will be using this in 2006. No way.
Windows Longhorn + WinFS + XAML + IE = Microsoft Internet
What is bittersea.com? There is no host at that url.
Nifty.. one slight problem though. They arn’t talking about that at all. They are mearly talking about using less CPU for shadows and having all sorts of eye candy on a 2D desktop.
I believe software copyrights will enable more competition and help create more ‘alternatives’ instead of stifling competition.
What are you talking about? Software is already protected by copyright. It’s already a crime to illegally copy software.
But it’s good to see you defend alternatives and condemn the stifling of competition – the kind of stifling that MS has been doing for years!
3D UI + 3D Labtop = Wierd?
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60736,00.html?tw=wn_bizhe…
The comment that concerned me the most was that developers would write web pages in XAML. That is something that could be problematic. Especially if MS has some patent somewhere on it. With 95% of the desktop market we could see web pages being written in XAML and the W3C becoming irrelevant and MS being the standards body of the web.
Okay I know that most MS computers will be 98, 200 and XP, but some trick to make the XAML pages work on those computers could be a nightmare for all non MS platforms.
I think Anonumous XAML post should scare people.
Deak R.: Microsoft Windows has brought the desktop to the level it is today.
Uuuummm, surely you meant Apple instead of Microsoft? Everyone knows that Apple is the real innovator when it comes to the desktop.
I bet that 90% of MS zealots have only ever used one OS in their lives. And no, occasionally using another OS at school or university does not count. “Use” means having it (properly) installed on your own machine. Only when you have used both OS’s can you say with any credibility that OS A is better than OS B.
And no, I am not a Mac user.
“But it’s good to see you defend alternatives and condemn the stifling of competition – the kind of stifling that MS has been doing for years”
How can a public company that is run by a board of directors that are responsible to shareholders not stifle competition? If they encouraged or were indifferent to thier competition they would be aiding the very companies that are competing for marketshare with them. This would decrease thier marketshare, cutting revenues and profits. You do realize that this would open the board of directors to a class action lawsuit by the shareholders.
I think either you are naive about business practices or are avdocating for a basic change in the economic system of the USA, more than you are avodocating a change in one corporation.
In 2000 HD sizes were around 5 to 10 gigabytes.
In 2003 HD sizes are exceeding 150 Gigabites. That’s a change of around 20X.
In 2006 HD sizes, following the same pattern they hvae for the past 2 decades, will likely be around 3 Terrabytes.
In 2003, according to WinCustomize web loags, 85% of all users are running 1024×768 or higher.
In 2003, about 15% of users who visit WinCustomize.com are running 1600×1200 or higher.
It doesn’t take 3000×2000 to make the current XP display technology fall apart. Even at 1900×1400 or so it starts to become hard to use, especially on an LCD.
By 2006, let’s say it’s only 2400 x 1800 or something like that, it’ll still require a radical change in display technology.
Apple already anticipated this long ago and OS X is already ready.
BTW, if you aren’t a Windows user, XAML should make you afraid. Very afraid. It makes me afraid too.
“How can a public company that is run by a board of directors that are responsible to shareholders not stifle competition?”
When that company crosses the line into Antitrust and is repeatedly brought up on charges for it, then the shareholders have something new to worry about, don’t they?
Direct3D support doesn’t mean 3D UI.
Direct3D includes the technology once called direct draw, which is the main graphic accelerate technology.
Well, already I’m disappointed.
Direct3D for imaging…nice for them to consolidate the API, nice for them to raise the bar up to Apple. (I know Apple doesn’t draw its UI in OpenGL, but they do use the 3D compositing model).
XAML, sounds like a native XUL. XUL is important because it is integrated into a cross-platform application. XML is important because of its cross-platform compatability.
XAML is neither, and doesn’t seem to solve any problem. (at a glance).
If they’re close to anything, they may be close to the NIBs of Apple/NeXT, but perhaps “human readable”.
As for making a web page look like a native application, yea, sure, save for the latency, the stateless nature of the app, and the difficulty embedding data enabled behavior and such that really distinguishes a native from a web app, then, umm..sure, whatever you say.
WinFS – WinFS is not an FS. Oh. Then…what exactly does that FS stand for? “Fer Sure”? “For Shame”? “Feng Shui?” WinFS appears to be a module layer that lets you register your applications files with the system, in order to expose the internal document structure. That’s all fine and dandy, but I was hoping for something more. I wanted to be able to leverage WinFS for the sake of my application, not have to leverage my application for the sake of WinFS. Call me lazy, but I wanted IT to do all of the work. When WinFS does all the work, then it can be made more extensible for the User who can contrive vast sick ways of using my application than I ever even considered. But, if I have to develop that interface myself, then that limits what the user can do.
Of course, there’s arguments that you shouldn’t be saving “files” anyway, and just expose “Object” instead…but we won’t go there now.
WinFX, this is only for developers, users will never see it, so its necessary but not something to crow about in the glossy lit on the back of the Dell box. “NEW With WinFX!!” “Wow! What’s the Daddy??”
The remote connectivity parts I simply have no opinion on. They may be just wonderful, but they’re not in my perview.
Finally, it’s two years away…that’s such a long time. Apple will have another release by then, plus be half way to their second.
I see consolidation and catch up here, but no real leadership. Too bad. Where’s that 6.5 Billion of research dollars at?
Finally, what is the benefit of an X000xY000 LCD if all of your icons are still 1/2″ high, and your text is still in a 12pt (1/6th”) font?