Longhorn details appearing

[francis]

If Longhorn is going to triple the size of a Windows install, start saving those pennies! Pro and con details and comments (http://www.kayodeok.co.uk/weblog/200311/longhorn_light_of_day.html)

[David]

Originally posted by: francis
If Longhorn is going to triple the size of a Windows install, start saving those pennies!

On the other hand, by the time Longhorn actually appears we'll be measuring our hard disks in Terrabytes rather than Gigabytes and it'll probably look svelte.

[Tom]

You can buy a beta (or gamma or delta?) copy of Longhorn in KL for $1.

[David]

Note: This forum does not condone the use of illegal software. :D

[francis]

oh, you won't find this useful/interesting, then?! (http://special.reserve.co.uk/news/story.php?id=2934&af=ur041203)

[James Glasheen]

!! Your link was blocked by AXA's Web nonsense Frankie !!

oh, you won't find this useful/interesting, then?!

[francis]

No XP special edition as Longhorn jettisons features (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/09/longhorn_overboard/) in order to meet a ship date of early 2006.

[francis]

O'Reilly have published a first look at Longhorn (http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2004/05/18/longhorn.html) with some screen shots. I know it's a beta, but it's interesting that the distribution won't fit on a CD - you need a DVD drive to load it! Doesn't look great on the IE front, although there's still the rest of this year and all of next for them to put in basics like tabbed browsing.

Additionally, they've got a look at XP SP2 (http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2004/05/04/SP2RC1.html)

[francis]

Longhorn now delayed until 'the holiday season' 2006 (http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.windows28aug28,1,2357186.story?coll=bal-technology-headlines). Bypass compulsory login via bugmenot (http://www.bugmenot.com/view.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.baltimoresun.com)

[francis]

ActiveWin.com (http://www.activewin.com/longhorn/), a Longhorn information site. Some of the screen shots look horribly blue, although thankfullly not as bad as the hideous colours that MS inflicted on users with the latest version of Office. I read somewhere yesterday that MS ar apparently dropping the word 'My' from a lot of things in Longhorn - you'll no longer get My Computer, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc. These screen shots seem to contradict that statement, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what finally appears.

Interestingly, Apple have announced the next version of OSX, Leopard, is due at the end of 2006 or early 2007. About the time that Longhorn is due. Also, by which time Apple will have made the switch to Intel processors. Looks like things could start to hot up on the personal computer sales front.

[David]

Originally posted by francis@Jul 14 2005, 8:10 am
I read somewhere yesterday that MS ar apparently dropping the word 'My' from a lot of things in Longhorn - you'll no longer get My Computer, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc. These screen shots seem to contradict that statement, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what finally appears.
Not really, see this one (http://www.activewin.com/screenshots/longhorn3/Aero%20Glass%20-%20Start%20Menu.jpg).

[francis]

Interesting as this one (http://www.activewin.com/screenshots/longhorn/Image25.jpg) condradicts yours, which is why I said that we'd have to wait and see. Maybe the removal of 'My' is more recent than my screen shot but included in yours?

[David]

My hunch is that the "My" will be dropped. It is completely superfluous and is condescending to many. Perhaps "My" will be added to the Home edition but dropped from the Professional edition. Now, there's an incentive to buy one rather than the other!

[francis]

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww, the official, non development name for the next version of Windows is Windows Vista (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/jul05/07-22LHMA.mspx) :o

Tiger, Panther, Jaguar: now they're inpiring names for an OS. XP was pretty okay. But Vista?! Apparently it means something vaguely "clever" in Italian (http://www.paolomarcucci.com/default.aspx?p=648483E5-02A8-4712-B34E-5B75A12D1401&postid=F749B37B-CED8-407C-8699-CFA99DDF48E6)

[David]

Hmm, just one vowel wrong and you've got the perfect 1970's ready-meal.

Can't say I like it but I'm sure we'll all grow to love it:

"Have you got Vista yet?"
"Man, I can see for miles..."

[francis]

It's not a good name, but I guess we'll all get used to it. Here's the official homepage (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.mspx) (very little to see at the moment). I quite like the font that 'vista' is written in (mmmm, already mistyped it 'visa') - I wonder if it's one of the numerous new fonts that are bundled with it?

[francis]

Surely the official name for the next version of Windows doesn't stand for 'viruses, infections, spyware, trojans and adware'. An article on ZDNet about the reaction to the name (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,39020381,39210475,00.htm).

[francis]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand less than 24 hours since the limited circulation beta 1 of Vista is released, a cracked copy of it and IE7 is available to download (http://www.betanews.com/article/Windows_Vista_IE7_Betas_Leak_to_Web/1122567038). Quelle surprise.

Update: review of IE7's fixes (http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/07/28/ie7_css_upda/index.php). Looks like almost nothing has changed, although I'll be forever grateful for the PNG fix. Still, as one of the commenters said: at least for the time being there's less work for us developers. But, dammit, they could do more to fix those CSS bugs :angry: But maybe that's why as it's called a beta (http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_07.html#a000540)

The Vista naming meeting (http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/711.html)

[francis]

Alright! Now we're talking! List of bug fixes due in IE7 beta 2 (http://www.molly.com/2005/07/29/standard-me-and-ie/). That is seriously impressive, if they pull it all off. I spent the best part of 4 hours struggling with IE's double float bug over the past couple of days. Luckily, Position Is Everything (http://www.positioniseverything.net) had the answer. This is good news.

[francis]

Well, I suppose it'll make for a more secure OS (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4748257.stm), and it shouldn't really surprise me, but it is pretty relentless the way that MS get hammered by virus writers. It really makes me glad to be a Mac user, although the thought of security through obscurity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_by_obscurity) is always in the back of my mind, and it'll be interesing to see what happens when the Intel switch happens.

[francis]

Screenshots of Vista user interfaces (http://miksovsky.blogs.com/flowstate/2005/09/windows_vista_u.html). Not pretty, IMHO - especially the buttons.

According to Threadwatch (http://www.threadwatch.org/node/3869), Vista is going to have a Tiger-like dashboard.

[David]

Not pretty but those are just format examples. The information/questions is/are much clearer than the usual garbled stuff in most XP dialogue boxes. Often you have to search for the question before deciding which button to press. Looks as though that's now been sorted in Vista.

[francis]

Fantastic! It's not even out yet, but the first security patches are out. (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1911406,00.asp)