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Longhorn Preview
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Apr 15, 2005 03:37 PM
from the i'm-ready-for-a-filet dept.
from the i'm-ready-for-a-filet dept.
prostoalex writes "News.com has up a preview of Microsoft's current build of Longhorn operating system, from Jim Allchin, Microsoft group vice president. The timing is not coincidental with Apple's Tiger release, as Allchin pointed out some advantages that Microsoft had over Apple's OS: 'High on the list of features are security enhancements, improved desktop searching and organizing, and better methods for laptops to roam from one network to another.'" Update: 04/15 21:24 GMT by Z : Thomashawk wrote in to provide links to less formal looks at the Allchin preview, one at his site, and one at Evan William's site.
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Amazing! (Score:4, Insightful)
High on the list of features are security enhancements
...
Ok, so, to bring Longhorn anywhere near the fundamental security that Mac OS X already intrinsically has [slashdot.org]?
To say nothing of the irony of this statement..."security enhancements"? Over what? Microsoft's previous already-dismal general track record in this area?
improved desktop searching and organizing
Which Apple is already shipping in Tiger [apple.com], and even Paul Thurrott acknowledges as "exceedingly cool" [winsupersite.com]?
Perhaps this line from the article says it all on this topic:
"In both look and form, the search mechanism is similar to the Spotlight feature in Apple Computer's Mac OS X Tiger, which goes on sale later this month."
and better methods for laptops to roam from one network to another.
...that I can already seamlessly do with Mac OS X's automatic detection of saved wireless network settings, rolling prioritized detection of available network interfaces, and quick switching of locations?
And it goes on like this, mostly as justifications for how Longhorn is really different from Tiger. (No. Really.) The most relevant excerpt is likely "[Longhorn] bears plenty of similarities to Tiger [...]"
Except that one is, you know, shipping this month.
To say nothing of the full-fledged UNIX and X11 environment I have with Mac OS X.
*Yawn*
Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
Preinstalled spyware, so you don't have to risk going out onto the internet to find your own.
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Re:Amazing! (Score:4, Funny)
Makes sense, given the biggest security hole in the entire system is the person using it.
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Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Amazing! (Score:4, Interesting)
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They're not 128x128 (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:4, Insightful)
Lack of education about alternatives and Microsoft FUD.
That would be just two reasons. I haven't even started with the predatory monopolistic practices.
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:4, Interesting)
Believe it or not, people educated about the alternatives *still* use XP.
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:5, Interesting)
First, even without a default shell, you can use either a hacked uxtheme.dll (free) or StyleXP (not so free) to replace the theme. Head over to customize.org to witness what you can *really* do with XP.
Second, explorer.exe isn't bad, but litestep is even better - makes it a lot more fun to use. google "litestep xp" to see what I mean.
Third, I don't personally enjoy using the start bar, so I use a freeware program I found someplace on the net to hide it (still accessable with the Windows button) and use a dock like yzdock. YzDock is free, quick, and fairly bug-free, but is no longer in development (as it was shut down by Apple). So much more convenient to group togther ten or so commonly-used programs, a restart/shutdown button, clock, mail checker, and weather report into an aesthetically-pleasing package. The result? No icons on desktop. Interesting theme that replaces the Tonka Truck default. Using Litestep makes your comp that much faster. Add in the other advantages of XP (more games, apps, cheaper hardware over Apple, wider peripheral support than Linux) and in my opinion you've got a winner.
The problem is that you have to pay for XP, which makes it more expensive than Linux, but it ultimately costs less than a comparable OS X box (hardware is cheaper, software is roughly the same). It also takes some time to set this up, but once you've done it a few times, it takes probably 10-15 minutes after a fresh install.
So no, this post and the parent is *not* a troll - I'm simply expressing an opinion. Microsoft has monopolistic tendencies, yes, but in terms of ease of use, I think that they release pretty good products. Viruses and malware? Comes with being the most popular OS - if everybody had Macs, the situation would be reversed.
Anyway, that's the joy of being in a free market; I get to pick the OS that I want to use, and others can use Linux or OS X if they feel that those products are better.
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you say that? It seems to me that you had to replace the entire UI to get something satisfactory.
Use what you like. If that's XP, great! Knock yourself out. But you haven't defended your contention that Microsoft makes easy-to-use products. By your argument, you have to go experiment with a bunch of third party hacks to get the OS to not suck.
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:4, Insightful)
That magazine was filled with so much FUD it was sick.
90% of the magazine was filled with ridiculous comparisons between PC & Mac. For instance, their retarded article comparing the Mac Mini to a Dell. The Mac is $499, and the Dell they used was $450. The first thing they did was discount the fact that the Dell came with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I think they took off about $93 for that. So really, they were were comparing a $500 computer to a $350 computer (less actually, the keyboard, mouse and monitor were going to cost more than $93 for the Mac Mini) and they of course went on to find that the Mac was a better computer.
I'm not saying that the Mac Mini isn't a good deal, or that it is not competitive. But, their method of comparison was so horribly skewed it was sick. But if I was a real 'Mac-ie' I wouldn't have looked at the logic, I would have just thought 'Macs are better, and now they are CHEAPER!'
Then of course I came to the 'games' section of the magazine. Oh my freakin' lord. What a load of crap they were spewing there. When they were saying that the Mac was the BEST gaming platform (It has Doom 3!!!) I knew they were completely off their rocker.
My wife (the Mac-ie in the family) didn't understand why I was yelling "this is a load of SHIT!" when I threw the magazine. She just wanted to look at the selection of iPod accessories they were highlighting...
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, you should invest in some anger management classes. Or maybe spend a relaxing weekend debugging your registry and flushing your system of spyware.
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:4, Insightful)
In the case of OSX part of the problem is that it is for only one platform and that platform is expensive compared to the cheap internet computers you can buy at Wal-Mart. As such Joe L-User only has real experience with the basics of Windows and they know that it "looks pretty" and "does what they need it to do", once you add in the fact that they hear that "Linux is hard to use" and you have word of mouth working against other OSes.
Long story short, Linux is always going to have problems getting major wide spread appeal as long entry level computers come loaded with Windows - if they were pre-loaded and pre-configured to run Linux in a desktop environment then odds are the word-of-mouth appeal of Linux would start to change and more people would start using it.
However, in the mean time people want "pretty" desktops that they can use to send baby pictures to Gramma with, and the hardware companies want Microsoft to come out with bloated OSes so that people have to upgrade their computer every two years.
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Re:I want animated program icons (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it was cute, now I know it was prophetic.
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Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Interesting)
Introducing Longhorn. [macminute.com]
Redmond, start your photocopiers. [macminute.com]
This should keep Redmond busy. [macminute.com]
Redmond, we have a problem. [macminute.com]
Not only was it cute, it was a big "We'll always be one step ahead" from Apple.
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Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you think it has taken Microsoft so long to come out with Longhorn. Microsoft had to wait for Apple and the Free Software community to come up with enough ideas worth stealing to make Longhorn worth its customers time.
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There are other differences... (Score:4, Insightful)
now before you dismiss this as a simple scoff, I am (attempting) to make a valid point here. What is the number one reason people stay away from Mac? I submit that it is price. Not price of the OS Tiger, but price of "The Comptuer" you have to buy. Imagine the ability to have something as solid, feature rich, and protected as Tiger, that you can run on a relatively powerful system you made from parts you bought off of newegg for $600. Personally, I believe that's worth waiting for.
Basically what I'm saying, I guess, is if Longhorn can be ALMOST as good as Tiger it will be:
1. A vast vast VAST improvement over the windows we currently have
and 2. Will be more appealing due to the cost factor.
I don't use it now, but I'd run OSX in a heartbeat if I could do it on a PC.
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Re:There are other differences... (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine? I've been using an OS like that for years on machines made from newegg parts --- it is called Linux (or GNU/Linux, whatever...). Certainly I'm hoping Tiger is finally a fully 64 bit version of OSX (as I'll be playing around with a G5 soon), but Linux has been working in 64 bits for years too.
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64 bit? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess my real question is, do you know something I don't (most people do), or are you just "hoping Tiger is finally a fully 64 bit version" because 64 is twice as much?
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Speed holes. (Score:4, Informative)
64-bit is not a panacea. 64-bit is useful where it is useful, but that's not everywhere. Just like you don't ride around in a U-Haul truck around 365 days a year because it has a lot of room, you don't need 64-bit support in, say, TextEdit or the window manager.
What are you going to do with 64-bit addressing in a simple text editor or the window manager? Nothing. Nothing at all.
I drive a Jeep. It's got four wheel drive. I'm not going around complaining about how all the roads immediately around me are paved -- they don't diminish my ability to use my four-wheel drive when appropriate. So it is with 64-bit processors. Not everything needs to be optimized for them. Some applications won't see any benefit, and some may even see a performance decrease (kind of like how tooling around town in 4Lo just because you can will leave you without a drivetrain).
Do anyone really want a 64-bit version of TextEdit just so you can say your OS is completely 64-bit optimized? Give me a break.
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Re:There are other differences... (Score:5, Informative)
What is the number one reason people stay away from Mac? I submit that it is price. Not price of the OS Tiger, but price of "The Comptuer" you have to buy. Imagine the ability to have something as solid, feature rich, and protected as Tiger, that you can run on a relatively powerful system you made from parts you bought off of newegg for $600. Personally, I believe that's worth waiting for.
The Mac Mini starts at $500 and it's a bit nicer than a home-brew $600 system would be, since it's very small, cool and quiet.
I do take your point that the $600 homebrew PC you mention would likely have a bit more oomph in the CPU and graphics card, however you should also bear in mind that Mac OS X is really quite efficient at many things, for example Apple really gets the most performance possible out of its carefully chosen components, so things like video editing are surprisingly good on "weak" PowerPC G4 cpus. I have done about 10 DVD projects on my powerbook which has significantly less raw compute and pixel-pushing power than a Mac Mini.
Depending on your actual needs, the Mac Mini could really meet your needs and budget well (I would recommend simply giving one a try in a shop, ideally running the applications you would want touse).
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Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think my laptop With XP SP2 does that already (in fact, it did just about all of that with SP1), so I'm guessing they're talking of improving the process even more. Certainly you can't say that your Macintosh does this absolutely perfectly every single time in every concievable situation? Just like with searching- I'm sure Spotlight isn't perfect, and the article even says that MS is going to add features that go beyond Spotlight. And it's pretty much a given that by 2007 Apple will have improved on Spotlight, too.
It's OK if the features of two different OSes overlap features, and it's OK if they don't all come out at the same time. The end goal for both systems is essentially the same, so we should expect some redundancy. Searching and finding wireless hotspots are two very common functions, and they don't have a whole lot of leeway in their functionality or interfaces. Everybody wants searching to be faster, to cover more fields, to interpret user input better, etc.
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Is it worth it? (Score:4, Insightful)
By the time Longhorn ships, according to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, PCs will have 4GHz to 6GHz processors, more than 2GB of memory, at least a terabyte of storage, and graphics accelerators three times more powerful than those offered by ATI and Nvidia today. He says that Longhorn is designed to take advantage of all this muscle, and nowhere is that more evident than in the rich, three-dimensional interface known as Aero.
Points to ponder:
1. People don't even want to move to SP2 [mithuro.com], do you think people will buy all this muscle for Longhorn?
2. What exactly is a 3D interface? Would we need to wear 3D goggles to use it?
3. Longhorn is built around three major advances--a new graphics and presentation engine known as Avalon, a new communications architecture known as Indigo, and a new file system known as WinFS that borrows from Microsoft's relational database technology. Avalon and Indigo are catchy names, but are we going to have loads of compatibility issues?
4. How much MORE is Longhorn going to cost? Is it going to be subscription based?
5. How many software patents are MS going to secure for this?
Is that a sexual euphemism? (Score:3, Funny)
Y'know, like "to fuck with", "to shag" etc?
I never can tell with MS, after all they have redefined the meaning of so many words and terms; innovation, secure, reliable, scalable etc etc.
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:3, Funny)
By the time Longhorn ships, according to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, PCs will have 4GHz to 6GHz processors, more than 2GB of memory, at least a terabyte of storage, and graphics accelerators three times more powerful than those offered by ATI and Nvidia today. He says that Longhorn is designed to take advantage of all this muscle, and nowhere is that more evident than in the rich, three-dimensional interface known as Aero.
We'll have much better computers than that by time Longhorn finally ships.
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:5, Insightful)
6. When we have all this muscle, do we really want it all to be spent on more complicated drop-shadows in the OS?
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Re:Is it worth it? (Score:4, Funny)
Apple - Apple is a hardware company so they want to sell boxes, not software, yet each release of OS X is faster than the previous one. Tiger is expected to continue this trend.
Microsoft is a software company so they want to sell software, not boxes, yet each release of Windows is far slower than the last one.
There's a reason why I can still use a 6 year old mac with the current OS.
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Re:Is it worth it? (Score:4, Funny)
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Right (Score:5, Funny)
And you'll see all this and more when it's released in 2007.
Honest.
The Longhorn advantage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Made me laugh: "...document icons are no longer a hint of the type of file, but rather a small picture of the file itself." Now there's a security enhancement. The user will have no clue as to what it will do when they double-click the icon...(not that they ever worried about it anyway).
"As with Windows XP Service Pack 2, security remains at the forefront of Microsoft's development efforts." Right. And it's been proven, after 5 years, how rock solid XP security is...
So, anyone want to bet on how many "critical" system compromising security issues will be found before Longhorn SP1 comes out?
Icon Security (Score:5, Funny)
I think that files with viruses in them show a little icon of you reintsalling the OS, as a portent of the future you might have by opening it. So I guess that's security related. By default it ships with an icon of Balmer doing the installation unless you have a USB camera hooked up, then it automatically detects an install and takes a snap while you're in hour two for best effect!
Who says Microsoft cant innovate.
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Heh (Score:3, Funny)
'Enhancements'? How can you 'enhance' no security to start with? 0 +0 = 0.
Re:Heh (Score:4, Funny)
How about 0+x = x ????
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Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Uhhh... Microsoft Security!
See? It's automatically funny, no matter what the context.
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Security... (Score:3, Funny)
Wow! I sure need that, since my OSX installs are all so virus-prone!
PCMagazine (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, come on (Score:3, Interesting)
But this part made me go whaaaa?:
Oh, no, thank you very much. First, I don't want those system resources wasted trying to figure out what the icon should look like every time I update or save the file, let along when I move stuff into and out of the folder. Individual icons for items? Sure! But why are we wasting all the extra time that could be used making the OS faster.
And I loved this part:
Oh, for joy. It's not enough just to find what I want, but I need to sort it by things like "date" and "creator" and "file type". Oh, wait - Spotlight will do that too!
The whole presentation sounds a lot like "Hm - another product is coming out now, we need to have a good reason for people to delay. Institute standard plan #2: Convince people that our stuff will be better 'When it's done', so don't buy that other stuff now!"
The question is, with Longhorn at least a year out, will it work any better this time?
In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)
It's the same story Microsoft has told for years.. "Yeah, those other guys might have some cool shit, but the stuff we're working on is WAY better. Don't buy their stuff, wait for our new thing to come out. It'll be available Real Soon Now."
Apple will be releasing Mac OS X Ocelot by the time Longhorn hits the market.
Who gives a fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've lost count of the number of articles, comparisons, and reviews of Longhorn I've come across in the last two years that tout some *advantage* over another OS (usually OS X).
What possible relevance does that have to me (or anyone else) right now considering no one will be able to buy copy for the next two years, if then? Meanwhile in the last two years OS X has served me very well, certainly better than a nonexistent OS could have.
At this point, continuing to sing Longhorn's praises to the consumer is about as logical as advertising the fact that Duke Nukem Forever will support the ability to fire 10 guns at once. If software companies never deliver the product, the feature set it has couldn't really be more irrelevant.
Advantages? (Score:3, Insightful)
-features are security enhancements
OS X, unix-based since 10.0: Got it already!
-improved desktop searching and organizing
Spotlight... got it!
better methods for laptops to roam from one network to another
Location Manager... Got it since OS 8!!
SOOOOO good!
Great Idea for a /. poll... (Score:3, Insightful)
Shades of Wang Freestyle (circa 1991) (Score:3, Interesting)
Wang was doing this circa 1991 on AT-class hardware.
I didn't think it was all that cool at the time and I don't think it's a particularly good idea now.
Good for Longhorn (Score:5, Insightful)
Longhorn is a big update for Microsoft, they're planning big changes, many of them multimedia. I like the 3D enviroment and Avalon graphics (Though I still want animated program icons
Re:Good for Longhorn (Score:4, Funny)
Don't we all, mate, don't we all
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Shades of Blues Brothers (Score:4, Funny)
"We got both kinds of search views. We sort by date OR time!"
The sad part is... (Score:5, Insightful)
People like my sister-in-law are the perfect audience for microsoft...she doesn't know anything different from windows at all, thinks that everything they do was their own original creation, and after cleaning her machine of netsky and some random spyware programs, shrugs again and asks if she lost anything. Doesn't care, isn't curious, does what she's told. The worst thing is that she's totally comfortable with this state of affairs because she figures that's the way things are, that's the way it'll be.
Aaarrrgghh!!
Wait... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft: "We don't have Longhorn ready yet, but Tiger, that OS from that other company, is shipping in 14 days if you want a 99% approximation of our OS that will ship in two years."
Apple: "Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger': Even Microsoft Says It's Good."
Isn't Rule Number One of advertising never to mention the "leading brand" by name? Sheesh, you'd think M$ would have learned by now.
p
Re:Processor speeds (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What did they eat...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Certainly the types of comments that I blogged about the dinner were not hard news, nor did I hold my article out to be hard news. If you wanted hard news, CNET reported on a similar demo with Allchin the day before. I even linked to it in my article.
In terms of op/ed, my blog post is still nothing that even remotely resembled op/ed.
Hunter Thompson broke the mold of journalism when back in the 60s he began to place himself in his stories. He wrote fantastic tales of drug induced frenzies, the Hells Angels, presidential politics and whatever else was on his mind while simultaneously placing every kind of bias and opinion imaginable in his writing.
When people read Thompson did they realize that his biases were in his stories? Of course. Does that mean that Thompson should not have been allowed to print his work? Of course not. In fact, some could argue that much of what Hunter wrote was oftentimes far more pertinent, relevant and important than either hard news or op/ed.
Shortly before his death, Thompson wrote, "Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President," and then I felt ashamed."
Was this hard news? No. Op/ed? Not even that. Was this completely biased personal opinion? Whatever it was, Thompson felt that he had something important to say.
Although many at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal might argue that news ought to be either hard news or op/ed and clearly labeled as such, I would suspect that many of these same individuals just might look at the work that Thompson did and somehow be ok with it - and even admire it - even as it clearly was a bastardization of perhaps everything that they were ever taught in journalism school from day one.
And in many ways blogging today is something similar. While the debate rages over whether bloggers are journalists and professionals fret over the lack of even the most basic standards that many bloggers do not appear to posses, bloggers are coming back with perhaps the same type of response Thompson may have given more than a few editors. Only this time the blogger is the one with the control.
While I do not hold myself out to be anywhere near the caliber of Thompson, one of my great all time heroes, I do feel that there is room in the world of journalism for hard news, op/ed and yes, openly biased writing where the blogger places him or her self as a participant in the news itself.
Was I thrilled to be having dinner with Allchin? Of course. I'm a huge Microsoft enthusiast. I have been an advocate of the digital home for many years and I think that Microsoft may represent our best chance possible of making the digital home of the future a reality.
Was I really enthused about Longhorn? Absolutely. From what I saw it was really was amazing. I spend hundreds of hours every year organizing digital media in front of all five of my Windows PCs. The technology that I saw will save me hundreds of hours of work going forward. This is really exciting to me at a personal level.
Could Apple or Linux provide me a similar e
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