Longhorn in 2006 or later?

[scooter1]

I read somewhere that Longhorn isn't due until 2006 at the earliest. I'm curious as to why there is such a long time between it's release following XP. Are they doing a major redesign of Windows or did they realize we don't need to upgrade our OS every two years?

 

[firewall]

I thought the beta version was out......

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: scooter1
I read somewhere that Longhorn isn't due until 2006 at the earliest. I'm curious as to why there is such a long time between it's release following XP. Are they doing a major redesign of Windows or did they realize we don't need to upgrade our OS every two years?

It's a major redesign, with a completely new file system and interface, just to name two things.

 

[itswork]

There are bigger changes in this one than the previous OSs. The interface will be changed to a new 3-D look, I haven't seen it yet though. People might need to update their video cards down the road. The file system is being overhauled as well.

I have heard of a 2005 or possibly a 2006 release date but nothing firm. There has been leaked builds on the net but they are all Alphas so far. Next year a Beta should be released.

If you want more info do a quick search for Longhorn release date.

Hopefully MS is taking their time on this one to help prevent some bugs PRIOR to the release.

 

[drag]

Ya, well gones the day were MS can just release a new OS and people would freak out all over it. They are actually have to give a reason other then it BOSD less then the previous OS releases. Plus Apple and other companies have beaten them to the punch with stuff like 3-d desktops and databases orginizing your music, other media, and other types of files.

Plus they are having a hard time porting windows XP to 64 bit and have been more or less pushing back that OS's release on a regular basis. If they are having such a hard time getting one OS to work on 2 different platforms how easy is it going to be to make longhorn work well on AMD64, itanium, x86-32, and whatever Intel is going to be coming out with next?

And with linux people working overtime to upset MS in the business desktop sector it's crucial that they get longhorn done correctly. The way it's going is that Linux/IBM/Sun/Novell/Redhat/Suse etc worked to get the server market going their direction, which it is, and now will be moving into the corporate desktop arena in another year or so. Developing stuff like The java desktop + looking glass (be sure to check out demo) to make it atractive and beating MS when it comes to the amount of support OR pricing.


Longhorn realy needs to be someting wonderfull for MS. And that takes time.

 

[NightCrawler]

Originally posted by: drag
Ya, well gones the day were MS can just release a new OS and people would freak out all over it. They are actually have to give a reason other then it BOSD less then the previous OS releases. Plus Apple and other companies have beaten them to the punch with stuff like 3-d desktops and databases orginizing your music, other media, and other types of files.

Plus they are having a hard time porting windows XP to 64 bit and have been more or less pushing back that OS's release on a regular basis. If they are having such a hard time getting one OS to work on 2 different platforms how easy is it going to be to make longhorn work well on AMD64, itanium, x86-32, and whatever Intel is going to be coming out with next?

And with linux people working overtime to upset MS in the business desktop sector it's crucial that they get longhorn done correctly. The way it's going is that Linux/IBM/Sun/Novell/Redhat/Suse etc worked to get the server market going their direction, which it is, and now will be moving into the corporate desktop arena in another year or so. Developing stuff like The java desktop + looking glass (be sure to check out demo) to make it atractive and beating MS when it comes to the amount of support OR pricing.


Longhorn realy needs to be someting wonderfull for MS. And that takes time.

Looking Glass is pretty cool.

 

[eofeapr]

They'll probably release it too soon, and it'll probably suck,,, but will most likely phone home to weed out crackers..

Just my OP

 

[EeyoreX]

They'll probably release it too soon, and it'll probably suck

Spoken like a true MS basher for the sake of MS bashing... Too soon was Windows ME. Longhorn is likely going to be 4-5 years after XP. That's hardly "too soon" if you asked me. Not too soon to take advantage of all the new hardware and I, for one, am waiting for the new file system and interface.

but will most likely phone home to weed out crackers..

Going to make it hard for you to pirate your OS this time around? If you actually bought your copy of Windows, I apoligize. This statement has zero relevance to the question asked, and sounds to me like you are bitter about having to pay and activate the software. Not to mention, you have no evidence it will "phone home" anyhow (this would like be opposed on grounds of privacy issues and won't likely happen as privacy issues come more to the fore).

As was said, it should be basically a new OS built from the ground up, while all previous versions (from 95 and NT 4 on) have basically been retoolings of previous OSes. Windows XP is the combination of the two (95 and NT) codebases, which was a great thing, IMO.

\Dan

 

[Nothinman]

It's a major redesign, with a completely new file system and interface, just to name two things.

Last I heard WinFS was basically scrapped and turned into an application layer that sits onto of NTFS (but still called WinFS to add confusion).

If they are having such a hard time getting one OS to work on 2 different platforms how easy is it going to be to make longhorn work well on AMD64, itanium, x86-32, and whatever Intel is going to be coming out with next?

Once it's working on 2 again (remember NT 3.5 and 4 were released for MIPS, Alpha, x86 and PPC at the same time) it'll go smoother since all the major bugs will be hammered out.

As was said, it should be basically a new OS built from the ground up, while all previous versions (from 95 and NT 4 on) have basically been retoolings of previous OSes. Windows XP is the combination of the two (95 and NT) codebases, which was a great thing, IMO.

The UI may be new but the entire OS isn't being rewritten, that would waste millions of man hours of work that would need to be duplicated for compatibility anyway. Longhorn will be either NT 5.5 or 6. XP has no relationship to Win9X other than the compatibility layers, it's still just NT 5.1.

 

[drag]

Hell no it's not a entire new OS rewrite. That's practicly impossible nowadays.

The code reuse is extremely important. Without it your screwed.

A big part of good OS design is how well you make it portable. Can it be adapted to fit bunches of different roles? Or do you go for max speed on a single platform? Or something imbetween?

Now lots of people believe that MS chose to make big programs that are heavily optimized for x86. So they run fast and are easier for users to wrap their brains around. Versus stuff like traditional unix and the ideal linux were you want lots and lots of very small programs doing each task. This means that MS may benifit from good speed and relative ease of use now, but will face a monumental task to translate and rewrite all those little tweaks and hacks that fill up big programs.

Thats the major reason (I believe) that linux has a enterprise-ready Desktop/Server OS in AMD64 (SuSE's 9.0 pro for AMD-64). Not because the open source developement is so superior in making quick changes, but because the OS design allows much more flexability (in sacrifice to speed and ease-of-use).

But hopefully we will see a marked improvement in WinXP for AMD-64 over the x86 versions, mainly because I am tired of fixing my family's computer and big security issues are a pain in the *** for everybody, not just Windows users. The less problems the better for everybody.

 

[EeyoreX]

Well, even if it's not a complete new OS, it still seems to me like it is going to be significantly different "under the hood" than Windows XP is. Of course I am sure code has to be reused, but I bet there will be plenty that is rewritten or scrapped and replaced. It is still taking plenty of man hours to release this OS. With Microsoft's intiiatives toward a more secure codebase, they are (or at least claim to be) going over every line of code to ensure security. That alone should remove or alter a lot of the underlying "insecure" code. Once all this code is retooled, the OS, IMO anyhow, is basically new. This, of course, assumes Mr. Gates's assertions that Longhorn will be built following the "Trustworthy Computing Initiative" he layed out are correct.

\Dan

 

[Nothinman]

Well, even if it's not a complete new OS, it still seems to me like it is going to be significantly different "under the hood" than Windows XP is. Of course I am sure code has to be reused, but I bet there will be plenty that is rewritten or scrapped and replaced. It is still taking plenty of man hours to release this OS

Sure, but remember it took them like 5 years to release Windows 2000 after NT 4. There's no way they can wait that long this time.

With Microsoft's intiiatives toward a more secure codebase, they are (or at least claim to be) going over every line of code to ensure security.

Rereading the code doesn't ensure security, and a lot of things like RPC can't easily be fixed because it wasn't designed to be secure in the first place. And we all know they'll included code to keep everything backwards compatible (even if it's off by default people will enable it first off to talk to their other machines).

That alone should remove or alter a lot of the underlying "insecure" code.

But we have to take their word for it. For all we know they could be sitting in a lunch room having pizza screaming about how everyone thinks they're on this big security rampage when really they're just talking about how much they can disorientate people with the new UI this time.

Once all this code is retooled, the OS, IMO anyhow, is basically new.

Is Linux 2.6 new? The IDE layer was basically rewritten, the locking was made even more fine grained for better scalability on machines with more than 16 CPUs, the memory manager has been tweaked over and over, devfs has been deprecated so sysfs/udev can take over for those that use it, etc. And the best part is since Linux is open you can actually see what was redone, with MS you just have to nod and smile while they tell you what they say they did =)

 

[EeyoreX]

Well, even if it's not a complete new OS, it still seems to me like it is going to be significantly different "under the hood" than Windows XP is. Of course I am sure code has to be reused, but I bet there will be plenty that is rewritten or scrapped and replaced. It is still taking plenty of man hours to release this OS

Sure, but remember it took them like 5 years to release Windows 2000 after NT 4. There's no way they can wait that long this time.

Maybe my math is a little rusty, but if Longhorn is expected in 2006, that makes it 5 years between XP and it's release. I guess they can wait that long this time... Even if they had stuck with the original planned release in 2005, that's still 4 years.

With Microsoft's intiiatives toward a more secure codebase, they are (or at least claim to be) going over every line of code to ensure security.

Rereading the code doesn't ensure security, and a lot of things like RPC can't easily be fixed because it wasn't designed to be secure in the first place. And we all know they'll included code to keep everything backwards compatible (even if it's off by default people will enable it first off to talk to their other machines).

That alone should remove or alter a lot of the underlying "insecure" code.

But we have to take their word for it. For all we know they could be sitting in a lunch room having pizza screaming about how everyone thinks they're on this big security rampage when really they're just talking about how much they can disorientate people with the new UI this time.

I admit that we have to take Microsoft's word. I think I was just making the point that if they live up to their word, the code will not simply be "reread". It will be rewritten if needed. Therefor it's new code. Perhaps based on the old code, and I admitted that as well.

Once all this code is retooled, the OS, IMO anyhow, is basically new.

Is Linux 2.6 new? The IDE layer was basically rewritten, the locking was made even more fine grained for better scalability on machines with more than 16 CPUs, the memory manager has been tweaked over and over, devfs has been deprecated so sysfs/udev can take over for those that use it, etc. And the best part is since Linux is open you can actually see what was redone, with MS you just have to nod and smile while they tell you what they say they did =)

No, Linux 2.6 is not new. If it were new, it would be Linux 3.0. I (and I wager Microsoft) consider Longhorn to be, a new OS release, if anything NT 6. Not 5.5 or whatever. This is not an update for XP. AFAIK Microsoft considers Windows 2000 as NT 5 and Windows XP as 5.x (I may be wrong here). That would make it more of a "service release" or whatever. I feel there are too few differences between 2000 and XP to call XP a "new" OS, but it seems to me that Longhorn will not be a "service release", but a new version.

\Dan

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

As was said, it should be basically a new OS built from the ground up, while all previous versions (from 95 and NT 4 on) have basically been retoolings of previous OSes. Windows XP is the combination of the two (95 and NT) codebases, which was a great thing, IMO.

The UI may be new but the entire OS isn't being rewritten, that would waste millions of man hours of work that would need to be duplicated for compatibility anyway. Longhorn will be either NT 5.5 or 6. XP has no relationship to Win9X other than the compatibility layers, it's still just NT 5.1.

Isnt the latest available version NT6.0.4051 ?

A friend of mine gave me a copy of this build (A 60 day trial one), but i am reluctant to install it as I do not know if it is illegal or not.

Ive not asked him, he works for a developement company, so im not sure if it is legit or not.

he sent me a few screenshots of the new UI, its silver/black.

Looks very trendy and i have been very tempted to install it, but by no means do i want to be breaking the law.

Dan

 

[ntrights]

[/quote]

Isnt the latest available version NT6.0.4051 ?

[/quote]

Win2000 = NT5.0
WinXP = NT5.1
Win2003 = NT5.2
Longhorn = ??
*Windows64xp 2002= (NT5.126SP2.055b1)
*Windows64.NET 2003= (NT5.2379SP1.173b2)
*Windows64fx 2004= (NT6.0.4051LonghornM5)

*Updated: not from a MS source though..*

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: DannyBoy

Originally posted by: Nothinman

As was said, it should be basically a new OS built from the ground up, while all previous versions (from 95 and NT 4 on) have basically been retoolings of previous OSes. Windows XP is the combination of the two (95 and NT) codebases, which was a great thing, IMO.

The UI may be new but the entire OS isn't being rewritten, that would waste millions of man hours of work that would need to be duplicated for compatibility anyway. Longhorn will be either NT 5.5 or 6. XP has no relationship to Win9X other than the compatibility layers, it's still just NT 5.1.

Isnt the latest available version NT6.0.4051 ?

A friend of mine gave me a copy of this build (A 60 day trial one), but i am reluctant to install it as I do not know if it is illegal or not.

Ive not asked him, he works for a developement company, so im not sure if it is legit or not.

he sent me a few screenshots of the new UI, its silver/black.

Looks very trendy and i have been very tempted to install it, but by no means do i want to be breaking the law.

Dan

Im not familiar with that particular EULA, but chances are it's illegal, so if you wanna stay legal, stay away from that alpha.

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: DannyBoy

Originally posted by: Nothinman

As was said, it should be basically a new OS built from the ground up, while all previous versions (from 95 and NT 4 on) have basically been retoolings of previous OSes. Windows XP is the combination of the two (95 and NT) codebases, which was a great thing, IMO.

The UI may be new but the entire OS isn't being rewritten, that would waste millions of man hours of work that would need to be duplicated for compatibility anyway. Longhorn will be either NT 5.5 or 6. XP has no relationship to Win9X other than the compatibility layers, it's still just NT 5.1.

Isnt the latest available version NT6.0.4051 ?

A friend of mine gave me a copy of this build (A 60 day trial one), but i am reluctant to install it as I do not know if it is illegal or not.

Ive not asked him, he works for a developement company, so im not sure if it is legit or not.

he sent me a few screenshots of the new UI, its silver/black.

Looks very trendy and i have been very tempted to install it, but by no means do i want to be breaking the law.

Dan

Im not familiar with that particular EULA, but chances are it's illegal, so if you wanna stay legal, stay away from that alpha.

Anyone have any definate info on this?

Thx,
Dan

 

[Nothinman]

Maybe my math is a little rusty, but if Longhorn is expected in 2006, that makes it 5 years between XP and it's release. I guess they can wait that long this time... Even if they had stuck with the original planned release in 2005, that's still 4 years.

I guess you're right, and on top of that you have to remmeber how far their releases always get pushed back so it'll probably be 2007 or 2008 before it's out if they're aiming for 2006.

No, Linux 2.6 is not new. If it were new, it would be Linux 3.0

How do you know what Linus would consider enough changes to call it 3.0? So far you havn't even seen the changes in LongHorn and you think it'll be called something new. I think Linux 1.x was upped to 2.x when all the SMP stuff first made it in, I guess Linus thought that was a big enough reason.

This is not an update for XP.

But it is, just like Win2K was an update for NT 4. For all we know all they've done so far is rework explorer to look different and added the WinFS service, since those are the big things I keep seeing mentioned that maybe all they do for Longhorn, well and add some drivers for crypto hardware in the new 'secure' motherboards.

Im not familiar with that particular EULA, but chances are it's illegal, so if you wanna stay legal, stay away from that alpha. ... Anyone have any definate info on this?

If MS didn't give him or you the copy as part of their beta test program then it's illegal, there's not much to it.

 

[EeyoreX]

No, Linux 2.6 is not new. If it were new, it would be Linux 3.0

How do you know what Linus would consider enough changes to call it 3.0? So far you havn't even seen the changes in LongHorn and you think it'll be called something new. I think Linux 1.x was upped to 2.x when all the SMP stuff first made it in, I guess Linus thought that was a big enough reason.

I don't know what Linus, or any other devloper personally considers before giving something a "promotion" from 1.x to 2.x and so on. I just figure that developers go from 1.x to 2.x (and so on) when there are enough significant changes to warrant calling it a new version. Conversley, they go from 2.5 to 2.6 when changes are made but they are not enough to warrant jumping to the next version. Of course I don't know for sure if Longhorn will be a new version or not, It just seems to me it will be.

This is not an update for XP.

But it is, just like Win2K was an update for NT 4. For all we know all they've done so far is rework explorer to look different and added the WinFS service, since those are the big things I keep seeing mentioned that maybe all they do for Longhorn, well and add some drivers for crypto hardware in the new 'secure' motherboards.

I can't say if you are right here or I am. My feeling is that Microsoft will not consider this an update, but a new OS, much like Windows 95 was not an update for Windows 3.1/3.11. Again, I could very well be wrong, but it still seems Longhorn is going to be touted as a new OS, like Windows 95 was.

\Dan

 

[Socio]

Originally posted by: EeyoreX

Maybe my math is a little rusty, but if Longhorn is expected in 2006, that makes it 5 years between XP and it's release. I guess they can wait that long this time... Even if they had stuck with the original planned release in 2005, that's still 4 years.

Dan

I have been hearing as early as 2nd or 3rd quarter 2005 and not heard of any postponements but it is way to early for any kind of announcement like that yet.

 

[Nothinman]

My feeling is that Microsoft will not consider this an update, but a new OS, much like Windows 95 was not an update for Windows 3.1/3.11. Again, I could very well be wrong, but it still seems Longhorn is going to be touted as a new OS, like Windows 95 was.

Whether it's touted as one or not isn't the question, MS always pushes their latest thing like it's 100x better than the last, even XP vs 2000. And Win95 was a completely different OS from Win3.11 in many ways, more than 2000 and XP were than NT 4 but 2000 and XP both got pushed like they were the best thing since sliced bread. And now with the XP/year/version mangled naming schemes it'll even harder to tell what's what for 'normal' people. Win2003 is the server version of XP but XP is the latest client which is an update to 2000, who comes up with this stuff?

 

[stash]

And now with the XP/year/version mangled naming schemes it'll even harder to tell what's what for 'normal' people. Win2003 is the server version of XP but XP is the latest client which is an update to 2000, who comes up with this stuff?

I think when 'normal' people look at the price tags for XP and 2003, they will figure out which one they want.

Also, Win2003 is called Windows Server 2003. I know a lot of people miss that distinction, but again, if they are buying it legally, they will know the difference from the price. If they dont get it legally, well that's a different story--I dont think MS tailors its marketing to pirates.

 

[dguy6789]

My Uncle is the master Project manager or somethign like that for longhorn. I can tell you guys what he told me.

This os is going to be by FAR the biggest difference between 2 OSes MS has ever done. Longhorn will be ultimate. This is because the new filesystem it has and the way it uses data is really intelligent. it will be a thinking OS. The os will be 100% aware of what it is doing and what is happening within itself. You wont have directories anymore either. Say i wanted to look at pictures. it wont be sorted by types and such. I would tell the os what i want pictures of, and it would get me all the pictures that it has of that item. Longhorn also tries to bridge the internet and data on a computer as one. It tries to make you forget about where data is. If i tell it to find data on a pentium 4, it will search the computer and the internet seamlessly and show me the data it has collected.

This os will be awesome you guys. I could right about 5 pages more of info about it but im getting tired. I hope this gives you an idea of how it will be. oh and btw, my uncle let me go to a meeting with him, i saw the latest version of it in action, and believe me, it is AWESOME.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
My Uncle is the master Project manager or somethign like that for longhorn. I can tell you guys what he told me.

This os is going to be by FAR the biggest difference between 2 OSes MS has ever done. Longhorn will be ultimate. This is because the new filesystem it has and the way it uses data is really intelligent. it will be a thinking OS. The os will be 100% aware of what it is doing and what is happening within itself. You wont have directories anymore either. Say i wanted to look at pictures. it wont be sorted by types and such. I would tell the os what i want pictures of, and it would get me all the pictures that it has of that item. Longhorn also tries to bridge the internet and data on a computer as one. It tries to make you forget about where data is. If i tell it to find data on a pentium 4, it will search the computer and the internet seamlessly and show me the data it has collected.

This os will be awesome you guys. I could right about 5 pages more of info about it but im getting tired. I hope this gives you an idea of how it will be. oh and btw, my uncle let me go to a meeting with him, i saw the latest version of it in action, and believe me, it is AWESOME.

Assuming that's not just a load of BS(and the BS'ometer is off the charts), it sounds absolutely horrible.

 

[ntrights]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

My feeling is that Microsoft will not consider this an update, but a new OS, much like Windows 95 was not an update for Windows 3.1/3.11. Again, I could very well be wrong, but it still seems Longhorn is going to be touted as a new OS, like Windows 95 was.

Whether it's touted as one or not isn't the question, MS always pushes their latest thing like it's 100x better than the last, even XP vs 2000. And Win95 was a completely different OS from Win3.11 in many ways, more than 2000 and XP were than NT 4 but 2000 and XP both got pushed like they were the best thing since sliced bread. And now with the XP/year/version mangled naming schemes it'll even harder to tell what's what for 'normal' people. Win2003 is the server version of XP but XP is the latest client which is an update to 2000, who comes up with this stuff?

Agreed. Windows XP server would have been a better name then Windows 2003 server IMO