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A look at Longhorn

Time: 10:43 EST/15:43 GMT | News Source: *Linked Within Post* | Posted By: Chris Hedlund

Graphics sizzle and search features grow, but few productivity enhancements

The most recent build of Longhorn – Microsoft's next version of Windows – has some impressive visual touches, including the kinds of translucent objects found in Apple's OS X, and more powerful ways of finding files. But it doesn't yet exhibit any breakthroughs in productivity, or promised features such as security improvements and smarter connections to handheld devices. We tested the 64bit version of the latest code released to developers and have viewed demonstrations of a subsequent build. The first beta of the operating system is due for release this summer.

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Displaying Comments 1 through 6 of 6

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#1 By 1896 (151.24.145.138) at Friday, June 24, 2005 01:03:55 PM

The OS has not even reached Beta 1 yet and usually features are added or modified till beta 2 so I think that all these comments about the lack of this and that are at least premature.

#2 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at Saturday, June 25, 2005 04:27:08 PM

#2, Quux, Dudes like this wouldn't know what a GPO was if it smacked them in the head....

Much less the new shell....etc...or any thing else......

They are just misguided pundits, snipes or both.

#3 By 8556 (12.217.175.226) at Saturday, June 25, 2005 11:06:56 PM

#2 I would like to see the next Windows run as snappy as Windows 2000 does, compared to Windows XP on the same hardware. W2k can be blistering fast. XP, even tweaked, can bog down even with 1-GB of fast RAM.

#4 By 61 (65.32.175.192) at Sunday, June 26, 2005 02:17:53 AM

bob: runs swell on my machine with only 512mb.

#5 By 531 (66.171.174.158) at Sunday, June 26, 2005 03:54:27 PM

Fine - I'll jump in.
to #7:

First of all, you mean "incomprehensible".
Secondly, you're missing pretty much the entire picture - it must be nice living in your reality. OSX wouldn't cause any sort of an "atom explosion" on the OS market if they released it for a larger hardware base for a plethora of different reasons.

First is UX (user experience). You may feel that OSX has a better UX story than Windows, but try telling that to the millions of people who use Windows every day. You put them in front of a Mac and they're lost. Companies that use Windows PCs today aren't going to switch to OSX because they're not going to retrain all their users. If they did, the net productivity loss during "re-learning" would be astounding. No company would incur that loss.

Second is the lack of application support. Companies aren't going to rewrite their POS or LOB applications for OSX, and Win32 apps don't run on OSX. And don't pull out VirtualPC as an excuse here. Companies aren't going to shell out the cash for OSX, the retraining, the deployment costs, the purchase of the new applications, and then spend more money of virtualization software to run Windows. Without applications support, OSX is a toy.

Third - and probably the most simple - is that, in general, people aren't going to go run out and buy OSX for home-use if they use Windows at work. People tend to like to stick with what they know - especially if it works for them. If they've got Windows at work, it's pretty unlikely that they're going to do something to their home environment that would make it more difficult to interoperate with their work environment.

#6 By 531 (66.171.174.158) at Sunday, June 26, 2005 10:01:25 PM

Yes, I have used OSX, and I find it to be a mess - it doesn't make any sense, and I've spoke to many people who agree with me. Your mileage may vary. Windows makes much more sense to me. If you want to argue otherwise, find me some research papers that tackle the idea of moving from Windows to MacOS.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when it comes to application support. Virtual PC does not translate Win32 commands to PowerPC. It emulates the x86 architecture, which has nothing to do with Win32. Any x86 operating system can - theoretically - run in the emulated environment, not just Windows.

Programs that use the Win32 API won't benefit at all from the fact that MacOS is running on x86 hardware. It's not about the hardware - it's about the API. If the API isn't there, they're not going to run. Just like they don't run now.

"... all the necessary programs [are] available."

Good god, man. Get a clue. When is the last time you've seen a native Point-of-sale or Line-of-business application written for both Win32 and MacOS? Never. Who gives a rat's behind if OSX has a word processor? If the application that allows a company to do it's work isn't going to run on OSX, guess what they're not going to do -- run OSX.

Dude, you seriously need to get a clue. It's not even worth talking to someone as clueless as you are. Enjoy your reality... I'm sure it's quite a ride in there.

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