Posted on 10/27/2003 2:57:57 PM PST by rs79bm
Microsoft's first public unveiling of its next generation of Windows, code-named Longhorn, and WinFX programming model received a tepid response from thousands of developers gathered to see the future of Windows.
At Microsoft's annual Professional Developers Conference, Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said the Longhorn technical preview being released to software developers on Monday represents the first cut of the next generation of Windows.
Microsoft also debuted a new WinFX programming model and a new markup language for Windows, code-named XAML, which CRN first reported last May. The two are designed to make Longhorn development faster and easier for corporate developers, solution providers and application designers. The unified programming model, for instance, will unify Windows and Web applications in a single user interface--blurring the distinction between Windows and IE applications.
While one Microsoft executive emphasized the code was not "prototype," Gates told developers the feature set is not yet frozen. The Longhorn release, which Gates pitched as more significant than Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP Pro, is tentatively planned for release in 2005. "We're at the beginning of this process," said Gates. "This is going to be a very big release, the biggest since Windows 95."
Gates, who stepped down as CEO four years ago to lead the company's technology and development efforts, demonstrated for the first time early code of Longhorn's WinFS file system, a new presentation layer, code-named Avalon, and advanced communications subsystem, code-named Indigo.
Longhorn will put users back in the "driver's seat," Gates said, allowing them to visually manage thousands of documents, files, pictures, slides, contacts and music from a single interface and robust file system.
Gates presided over the first demonstration of the Longhorn WinFS file system and new search facility, which will fulfill his decade-old dream of allowing users to integrate their mixed document, e-mail data, slides, photo, video and graphical data in a single unified view.
"We haven't gone beyond the clipboard to structure the information, and we have to make the searching and replication [services better]," said Gates. "We've got to have richer views, content indexing and extensible schemas so you can classify things."
Two features, stacks and sidebar, scored points with a wary group of coders who have been more concerned recently with security holes in Windows than whiz-bang new features.
As part of the demo of WinFS, for example, Microsoft depicted an icon of a stack or pile of documents representing the integration of multiple data types and applications in a single stack. Using the new search facility, for instance, WinFS can scour through thousands of documents and reduce the results to 30 key user-defined items in seconds, executives said.
A visual sidebar integrated into the new Longhorn GUI, and displayed on the right side of the interface, offered a glimpse into the tight integration of .Net Web services with the OS, as well as buddy lists, photos, slide show, videos, personal calendars and information that will be possible in the next rev of the Windows as developers employ custom Avalon controls, executives noted.
The new Avalon and Indigo subsystems, Gates said, will combine to deliver advanced support for advanced Web services, realtime application sharing and enhanced peer-to-peer capabilities, speech recognition, phone integration and information agents.
Longhorn will also offer a Click Once feature that will allow developers to do installs and de-installs in a single click without reboots, and new migration facilities that will enable application migrations in the "minutes" range, both of which met with strong applause from developers.
Microsoft also plans to offer a built-in flight data recorder capability for Longhorn that will closely record all errors in the operating system and applications, and a vector-based composition engine in Avalon that will speed up and improve the quality of graphics display in Windows.
The first Longhorn beta is scheduled to ship in the second half of 2004, executives said.
While Microsoft promises a plethora of new security features in Windows, including the lock-safe Next Generation Secure Computing Base code, rock-solid APIs, a trust center, digital rights management and driver signing.
One attendee said he flew across the country and over the smoky skies of Los Angeles to learn more about the Yukon version of SQL but said he has other issues on his agenda. And the ongoing reliability issues and security crisis associated with Windows, he said, will represent a cloud for Microsoft's Longhorn plans until the problems are cleared up.
"I'm worried about security," said Guy Sanfilippo, director of information technology for American Federation of Musicians & Employers' Pension Fund, New York."You can develop an app using an API, but if there's a problem with the API, then it affects your application.
Microsoft's repeated mistake. Schedule to ship when it works, not a moment sooner. You can't predict when you'll work out all the bugs.
Almost as cool as MAC OSuX, eh?
Microsoft's repeated mistake. Schedule to ship when it works, not a moment sooner.
Ummmm...the objective of a beta IS to work out the bugs...
I bet it was tepid. Gates is telling his developers that you can wait until 2005 to get a buggier, more unstable, more expensive version of what Apple is offering now.
allowing users to integrate their mixed document, e-mail data, slides, photo, video and graphical data in a single unified view.
Sounds like OpenDoc. I don't think people really want to think about real-time integration every time they open a document. It's a distraction. Integration only matters when it comes to the final product.
Apple's market share is inexorably rising. If Longhorn is the spectacular flop I expect it to be, maybe someday Apple can give the PeeCee crowd a real alternative.
-ccm
Based on the last time they did a major new platform (Windows 95), I'm not going to be overly confident that they will shake out nearly enough bugs in the beta testing process.
Uh huh....what's Apple's market share up to now? Double digits yet? I expect you predicted XP to be a "spectacular flop" also. Don't bogart that joint, my friend....
How do you figure Win95 was a "major new platform"? All the 9x series were DOS with wraparound GUIs. The "new platform" series were all built on NT technology - Win2k and XP.
I don't care how much hardware is out there that the programmers have to account for. If you take three years between major releases you need to include drivers that work on common hardware, i.e., from all the major manufacturers. Maybe some of you software guys think that's totally unreasonable, but there you have it.
If the drivers aren't ready, I'll keep my money, Bill, thanks anyway....
My experience with XP has been the opposite. It recognized more hardware than any other OpSys I've installed. And , just to clarify - providing drivers is the Hardware manufacturers' responsibility, not Microsoft's.
I don't download music or videos.
I just refuse, on principle, to "advance" to a more restricted OS.
I am preparing to switch to the MAC, and will probably have a Linux setup for my remaining PC's
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