Longhorn - new details emerge!

[NetRyder]

Paul Thurrott has some new information and screenshots from the latest internal build.

Info:
http://winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_preview_2005.asp
Scroll down to the "Longhorn Investments" section for the good stuff.

Screenshots:
* The Longhorn Explorer features a left-most pane of Lists and AutoLists, a breadcrumb navigation bar, instant filtering with an integrated Search box, and quick file preview at the bottom of the window.
http://winsupersite.com/images/showcase/lh_explorer_demo_01.jpg

* Fast Search results let you sort by custom metadata ("Reference" in this example).
http://winsupersite.com/images/showcase/lh_fast_search_demo_01.jpg

* Stacks let you dynamically group documents and files so you can view the same data in multiple ways.
http://winsupersite.com/images/showcase/lh_stacks_demo_01.jpg

 

[Kush]

thanks net for the info.

 

[Kush]

wow, its goin mac on us too much, but i like it

 

[Geffy]

hope you can still theme it, else my desktop will either turn into a mac, or will remain on XP

 

[NetRyder]

I'm sure someone will find a uxtheme-like hack once it's released.

 

[muzikool]

Paul always does an outstanding job with Longhorn info. I'm looking forward to more discussion of the new technologies that will be present in the OS. It's been so long since XP was released that it's hard not to have very high expectations for what Longhorn is going to offer.

I agree with NetRyder that customizing the GUI shouldn't be a problem, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

 

[SPeedY_B]

Please tell me that I'm not alone in thinking that looks absolutely vile?! Nice features, but the barf-o-rific GUI has to go

 

[the_music_man]

:::::crosses fingers and hopes that there's no errors and blue screens in longhorn:::::::::

 

[SPeedY_B]

There were no blue screens in XP, so I can't see them re-adding them to longhorn

Errors, well, yes. No comment

 

[muzikool]

Please tell me that I'm not alone in thinking that looks absolutely vile?! Nice features, but the barf-o-rific GUI has to go

I agree, it's not too impressive. Maybe the animations will make up for it.

 

[NetRyder]

The UI can evolve quite a bit before it goes gold (and I would expect it to). Remember that Whistler looked nothing like XP RTM until almost the very end.

There were no blue screens in XP, so I can't see them re-adding them to longhorn

Good point. Most of the blue screens (if any) in XP are usually caused by shoddy third-party device drivers. With a more stringent driver model in LH, it can only get better.

 

[SPeedY_B]

I was disappointed (and glad) with XP's final look. Whistler looked ace, then they went and replaced it with something else... but that something was cool too, heh.

 

[Tittles]

I cant wait...i didnt see a mention about LH 64bit. Will that most likely be going out with regular ol LH?

 

[NetRyder]

I actually preferred the Whistler look, to be honest. I use the Watercolor theme (that's based off the Whistler style) even now from time to time. Luna looks fine on high-resolution displays, but the taskbar and titlebars are a little too thick at 1024x768, in my opinion. Of course, that can easily be tweaked too, but I'm just talking about the out-of-the-box experience.

I cant wait...i didnt see a mention about LH 64bit. Will that most likely be going out with regular ol LH?

Yes, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are definitely coming.

 

[j79zlr]

My problem with Longhorn is the minimum requirements.

Microsoft is expected to recommend that the "average" Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1581842,00.asp

So I will have to drop probably $300 for the OS and another $1000-$1500 for a new PC. I knew there was a reason that I made the desktop switch to Gentoo a while ago.

 

[SPeedY_B]

There's no way they can project the specs this far in advance. It's being developed on current technology after all (admittedly, probably very high-end current tech).

I'm sure we have a thread somewhere discussing those specs.

 

[zeke_mo]

My problem with Longhorn is the minimum requirements.

Microsoft is expected to recommend that the "average" Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1581842,00.asp

So I will have to drop probably $300 for the OS and another $1000-$1500 for a new PC. I knew there was a reason that I made the desktop switch to Gentoo a while ago.

Those do seem a bit high. What was the top end cpu when xp came out? 1.x Ghz? and the min spec for xp was 500Mhz or something like that. I would base my guess off of something like that. top end in the next year will propbably be 4.x(maybe) for intel. so im sure longhorn will fall into the 2.+Ghz range. As far as gfx go, Im sure it will have to be 128MB+ cards. I dont know, maybe LH will have grown faster than xp did. This is just my guess work. I dont know much about how an OS runs, so all of this is just me BS'in

 

[NetRyder]

There are conflicting system req's everywhere. Nobody will know for sure until it comes directly from the folks in Redmond.

See the last paragraph on the page I linked to, for example. The recommended system req's are much lower than the one's posted on Microsoft-Watch.

Desktop CPU: 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with HyperThreading Technology 530 (or higher) or 3 GHz Intel Xeon processor with 2 MB L2 cache, or AMD Athlon 64, Sempron, or Opteron 100, 200, or 800 processor, single or dual-core versions.

Mobile CPU: 1.86 GHz Intel Pentium M processor 750 (or higher), or AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology, Mobile Sempron, or Mobile Athlon 64 processor.

RAM: 512 MB of RAM or more, all platforms.

These "recommended" specs (Paul claims they're from MSFT...who knows?) are not at all unreasonable. Large numbers of people have such systems even today, and LH isn't due until late next year.

 

[NetRyder]

As far as gfx go, Im sure it will have to be 128MB+ cards. I dont know, maybe LH will have grown faster than xp did. This is just my guess work.

128MB of VRAM will certainly not be a requirement to run the OS.

The presentation subsystem in LH is going to be multi-tiered. The top-most tier will need a good graphics card that's DX9-compliant and supported by the new driver model (LDDM). This will be the fancy tier, with all the animations, shadows, alpha-blending (and whatever else is planned) turned on. There will be other tiers below that with less demanding requirements. The lowest tier will quite possibly be a XP-like UI (think of it as the "Windows Classic" of LH). It's a similar concept to the "Best Performance" vs. "Best Appearance" settings in XP, but with much more marked differences between the different tiers.

 

[j79zlr]

3GHz minimum is still pretty ridiculous. Judging from previous MS minimum requirements, e.g. 500MHz, 128MB of RAM for XP, and for those who have used a 500MHz w/ 128MB of RAM with XP, you know it doesn't run "well", I am reading into that as a minimum of a P4 4GHz, or AMD 64 4000+, and 2GB of RAM.

You shouldn't need a super computer just to run an ugly GUI, if the OS itself requires that much power imagine what it needs to run games?