Ok I'll try and answer some of the questions about longhorn for you guys, as drag just suggested there is not a lot of very accurate information in the public realm yet so it's kind of hard to not speculate. On the other hand Microsoft is being very open about some of the new technologies (like WinFS) so that developers can begin preparing to make use of them in their ?new? applications (if they want to).
I'm going to try to respond to this stuff using only public information and whenever possible I'll provide links.
Longhorn is architecturally far different from older versions of Windows. The changes/new technologies revolve mostly around 3 key areas, Presentation (Avalon), Data (WinFS), and Communication (Indigo). I?ll touch really briefly on these areas before continuing.
Avalon:
Modernizes the imaging (screen) and printing platform. Avalon is a new rendering and composition ?technology.? I?m not going to go into too much detail but Microsoft is basically changing the way Windows presents the interface, if you want more information visit:
Avalon information on MSDN
WinFS:
WinFS is a new beast altogether, what Microsoft is doing with WinFS is essentially taking a version of their new SQL engine and putting it on top of NTFS. The idea being that there is data that is best stored as a file stream (such as a movie file) and there is information that is best stored as records in a database (such as a contact or a link). The concept of ?files? will change somewhat in the Longhorn realm as a ?file? can either be a database record or a database record and a corresponding NTFS file stream.
Since the ?files? will all be referenced in the WinFS database it makes it very easy to find files on your hard drive using explorer. With WinFS rather than knowing the path to a file you will only need to know an attribute of it and explorer will generate SQL queries that will find the ?files? for you based on the attribute(s) you specify (i.e. author, type, name, etc.).
Another big advantage to WinFS is that the database is extensible, so if a developer wants to add a new ?field? to the database to track a new piece of information about ?files? that their application will use they can.
WinFS is also a big part of the reason that current builds of Longhorn are so slow and resource intensive. I don?t know about the latest build but in past builds the WinFS engine could easily eat up more than 100MB of RAM.
For more information visit:
WinFS on MSDN
Indigo:
Indigo provides a framework for web services so that applications no longer need to have web connectivity built-in. I?m just going to leave Indigo at that because this post is already getting very long and I don?t feel like spending my whole morning writing so if you want more information visit:
Indigo on MSDN
There is a ton more information (mostly geared for developers) on the
MSDN Site
Um... Microsoft *does* have a huge team working on this. It takes this long to get a product out the door because it's a damned huge, damned complex product.
And it'll be 64-bit ready the day it ships, I'm sure.
Microsoft has an enormous team working on this and yes it?s a massive undertaking. Microsoft has massive organization-wide support for Longhorn because they realize that for them to continue to be the market leader they *must* deliver well on this product.
It will also be ready (and primarily geared) for the 64-bit architecture, current builds are mostly only 32 bit because not many developers have 64bit test beds yet. Also consider that the majority of the differences between the 32bit and 64bit versions are in the compiler?
What new functionality would call for such an increase in minimum specs? I mean, outside of looking different, what does WindowsXP do with all of that power that Win2K couldn't do?
As I stated before Longhorn is going to be quite a bit different than Windows XP. Windows XP was *mostly* just an update for Windows 2K (some new features, updated look, etc.). Windows Longhorn will be a serious change.
Keep in mind Moore?s law as well, by the time Longhorn is released the specs that were listed wont seem that absurd. Microsoft is going to try and make sure Longhorn runs on *old* hardware (the stuff we?re all running today) but it wont run as good and wont be able to take advantage of some of the features (i.e. Avalon?s DX9 driven interface).
Everything you do is tied directly to the OS. Like Explorer being PART of the OS instead of being just the browser, well so it would be the same for the music player, Office productivity tools (think of the actual "applications" being scripts/XUML/whatever that run 90% of the code from libraries already built in and loaded into memory to run the rest of the OS, of course your going to be charged seperately for Office liscences), video games, and anything else that MS can think of.
90% of the code for any application your going to be using is already loaded into RAM before you even start using the application. So then any third party apps not able to share code with with Window's system libraries are going to run like dog crap compared to "native" apps.
At least I think that's the direction that they are heading.
Why else would you want all that bloat running by default unless your going to use it? MS ain't that stupid.
They want tight integration. The actual C code that the programs use for performance is going to be hidden under layers and layers of API's or whatever and your going to need to use a highlevel sudo-scripting language to link them all together to build applications.
I could be wrong though, of course.
To some extent I?m sure that?s true. I?m not a developer so I cant be certain but many of the new platform changes will enable vendors to program applications that are simply running a Windows *function*. Of course only time will tell for sure
The OS is going to be designed to run on hardware thats mainstream at its release.
Yes absolutely. Keep in mind that something like 94% of Microsoft?s Windows client sales are through OEMs for new computers so that is going to be their primary target market. As I said before they will want it to run on older hardware, it just wont run as well?
As far as bigger things comming with longhorn, WinFS, a database based file system, looks very promising. I heard an MSFT developer saying something like an address book will no longer be accessable by only certain programs, it will be very easy to access it from any program (provided you have access rights - security). And the new fully hardware accelerated GUI will allow for MUCH more complex and dynamic UI's then we can currently get, aside from coding a proprietary 3D engine for a specific app.
Yup, that?s about right. Since things like contacts will be stored within WinFS (and not some application specific datafile like PST, OSD, etc.) it will be easy to enable any application access to the information.
I?m sure I didn?t hit everything and I?ve got to run (supposed to be at a meeting in 1 min.) post questions if you have them and I?ll try and answer what I can.
As always this information is provided ?as is?; considering the timeframe before Longhorn?s release it is also subject to change. I?m sure some of you have comments about what I?ve said so please ask about (or poke at) all you please. I?ll try and visit this thread again later today so I can respond.
-Erik
EDIT: Fixed Links
Facebook
Twitter