Microsoft's Longhorn

[Les Kern]

What ridiculous system requirements for an OPERATING SYSTEM!!!!

Actually I think it's about as forward-thinking as I have ever seen MS. By 2006 (or later as is always the case) it's likely that those machines will be available. Is Apple looking that far ahead? Maybe not, as X, as it ages and still give a powerful Mac coniptions because of the graphics, will just get faster and faster.

 

[Photorun]

crack smoking

That's what people who think Longhorn looks good are doing obviously, it's the usual lackluster ho-hum M$'s "engineers" make... yawn, please people, get an aesthetic clue.

Now the 3D Sun video, THAT'S amazing! That gives OS X a run for it's money, but Longhorn, if that's attractive then people need glasses, it comes in a distant third behind OS X and Sun's potential new OS.

 

[mkrishnan]

OMG, if that's what the UI looks like, I might as well become a toddler. Those icons are gargantuan! I wish MS would come up with it's own ideas at this point, it feels like every time the Mac does something it's amazing, but someone does a revision of it, and the fame is stolen. All well, GL apple, make Tiger count!

Is it just me or does it seem like every new MS interface lets you use less and less of the screen for what you're actually doing and has more and more ancillary space? If those sneak peek photos are accurate, esp. the one with the freakishly huge clock, then there's not much space left to do work in.

Maybe if some of your apps' controls went into that right hand space, it would be okay. Like the palletes in MS Office.X or Photoshop.

But this same thing kinda irritated my about the move from the "classic" to the "web-enabled" Windows folders, and the stupid left-hand search bar in MSIE, and Windows Media Center.

You can always edit these features back down into a useable interface, but I just don't quite get how you're intended to use the as-is interface...

Sorry for the rant.

 

[arqsagi]

microsoft keep trying

It will be so difficult to do something as great as Panther today, but they will have few 2 or 3 years more, maybe for that time Tiger will be an old operating system.

Well interesting is that microsoft keep promoting the Athens PC, a HP prototype that is "the computer of the future" with widescreen and videoconferencing camera and bluetooth phone, the latest one you can see it here:

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/winhec2004_22.jpg

It is one of the worst all in one design I have ever seen, even the gateway is a little better than this one, having all those buttons and docks in that big wide base is hard to acomodate in many desks.

Well there is a reason behind this design, its a Pc, so keep it ugly and in cheap materials and ugly colors (hate that light blue metalic of Hp for a computer)

 

[sinisterdesign]

coming soon to a theater near you...

"LONGHORN: The Sidebar That Ate My Desktop"

or​

"Windows 2010: A Hard Drive Space Odyssey"

evidently, a really high screen resolution is going to be a requirement, too, so you can fit all these friggin bars & tabs on the screen.

those are some crazy sys reqs, but by the time it hits the shelves, i don't think they will be as high or sound as crazy.

and to everyone that thinks 1TB of hard drive space is for the OS install, you're waaaaaay off. it's for all the patches that you'll have to download (on the bright side, most people will have broadband by then!)

 

[Xnet]

Here are more images of the AVALON UI

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/pdc2003_aero_keynote.asp

and a small video in .wmv

http://www.winsupersite.com/files/pdc2003_avalon_transparency.wmv

 

[gekko513]

wow, actually im quite excited to use longhorn. of course those requirements are bogus...kind of nice to see the future of what MS has...im all for it.

Yeah ... Win XP in black. I can't wait

 

[ks23]

are expected to be a 4-6GHz PC with 2GB of RAM and one terabyte of storage.

I LOVE THIS COMPANY :LOL:

 

[mgargan1]

so, if those are the specs for the OS, i wonder what the specs for the top of the line computer game will be? Hmm... maybe require you to have a machine that has a dual monitor? Makes coffee for you? I mean what next? Althought i do agree with what most people are saying, by 2007 the specs wont be too too egregous (is that spelled correctly?) However, if the new OS comes out in 2005; those specs will be completely off, 2006; it'll be high for most people, 2007; it'll still be high but not too uncommon.

Also, think about the education market. I highly doubt that a lot of schools are going to pay to upgrade their machines only to use windows longhorn, or maybe called Window FX? that's what companies are using now, i dunno what it'll be in the future.

 

[iBook]

I remember some prior discussion about Longhorn and how it would necessitate the purchase of new computers to support. Even if half the system requirements described here are correct, MS users will need to buy new hardware.

Isn't this Apple's windfall opportunity? What's the usual adoption rate among Wintel-based PCs for the latest OS?

I'm not one of those people who thinks Apple needs to turn the tables on MS and have 90% + marketshare - neither am I one who thinks it's possible. I would like to see Apple have wider marketshare simply for the longevity of the company and the greater availability of third-party software and accessories.

C'mon Apple. Get the advertising together, get the G5 over 3 Ghz and sharpen your pencil to take those orders!

 

[1macker1]

Just because something is in the pipe, doesn't mean it will see daylight. Who cares what Jonas and Merom have coming, those specs will not be for the average consumer PC. Anything is possible, but it's not gonna happen.

Then you don't pay attention at all to what's in the pipe for various companies. Even though the target date has slid, Jonas and Merom could easily prove to be dual-core x86 processors that run from 4-6ghz, and they won't even be the poweruser chips. They're inteded for home use.

Right now, we have 250GB 3" HDs. That was pretty amazing two years ago, when 120GB was the upper limit. Double again over the next two years, and that gives you 500GB, then tack on a RAID controller - 1 TB.

Think before you start with the MS defense. This is easily possible over the next two years, just at current advancement speeds, and especially if Intel abandons the P7-core and moves on with the Tejas and Dothan/Jonas/Merom cores.

I defend whom I choose. Thank you very much.

 

[adamfilip]

It will be so difficult to do something as great as Panther today, but they will have few 2 or 3 years more, maybe for that time Tiger will be an old operating system.

Well interesting is that microsoft keep promoting the Athens PC, a HP prototype that is "the computer of the future" with widescreen and videoconferencing camera and bluetooth phone, the latest one you can see it here:

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/winhec2004_22.jpg

It is one of the worst all in one design I have ever seen, even the gateway is a little better than this one, having all those buttons and docks in that big wide base is hard to acomodate in many desks.

Well there is a reason behind this design, its a Pc, so keep it ugly and in cheap materials and ugly colors (hate that light blue metalic of Hp for a computer)

Personally i dont mind the "Athens" PC i do like the intergrated PDA port.
i really like the screen and the longhorn interface on that screen doesnt take up too much room.

but im hoping for something great from Tiger

 

[SiliconAddict]

This is the kind of thing I would like to see apple do. Give us an idea!! What though process is going on at Apple. They don't need to reveal everything but at the very least tease us a bit.

 

[icon4x]

It is one of the worst all in one design I have ever seen, even the gateway is a little better than this one, having all those buttons and docks in that big wide base is hard to acomodate in many desks.

Well there is a reason behind this design, its a Pc, so keep it ugly and in cheap materials and ugly colors (hate that light blue metalic of Hp for a computer)

It will be hard for an all in one PC to beat the style of today's iMac.

 

[thatwendigo]

Secondly the CPU requirements I don't believe for a second. Why? Because I've run prebeta of Longhorn on my 800Mhz/512MB RAM/40GB laptop and while hardly fast it DOES run.

I disagree, because of one thing and one thing alone. Microsoft wants to push Trusted Computing, which will probably eat disk and clock cycles both, but will only really be a hog if they let it bloat. However, it's in their best interests to do so if it means that they can force people to upgrade to newer boards/systems that have the hardware implementation embedded. At that point, they've got you and you're locked into whatever upgrade scheme they come up with, whatever they want to do, because the system will be doing a much more active version of what XP does no - calling home.

As broadband spreads and digital content becomes more prevalent, Microsoft wants to own it just as bad as they wanted to own the internet back in the mid nineties. Leveraging their platform and their standards as the only choice is the game, and it's one that hardware manufacturers are going to love... Why wouldn't they? It's guaranteed sales. It's minting money, because Joe Average will buy a computer so that his kids can do things he thinks they need for school, so that he can watch movies, and so on, ad nauseum.

Welcome to the future. Would you like a little lube first?

IS IT OFFICIAL?!?!? 2007?!?! OMG!!! Apple has such a chance here to recapture a segment of the market its not even funny!!!

This is why I trumpet OS X and Linux-on-Desktop, running on PowerPC. Any sane user will want out of the hellstorm that will be permissions and DRM on Longhorn. IBM, AMD, Toshiba, Sony, Freescale, and Apple are all jockeying on PowerPC at the moment, with the newcomers just getting their toes wet at the moment.

Pretty soon, IBM will offer PowerPC desktop machines. They have the manufacturing capability, but they just need the user interface for an enterprise market and home users.

 

[idkew]

Right now, we have 250GB 3" HDs. That was pretty amazing two years ago, when 120GB was the upper limit. Double again over the next two years, and that gives you 500GB, then tack on a RAID controller - 1 TB.

there you go. "RAID now required. No one makes a HD large enough to fit out bloatware on a single drive"

 

[jvaska]

yeah, yeah, yeah...whatever...

who really cares what an interface 'looks' like as long as we can get stuff done...i still prefer the interface in OS9 to OSX but that's just me. i'm as productive now as i was then and i don't really believe they could do anything to make me work faster. it's such a bunch of hooey.

ms needs to address security issues...why in the heck has not a worldwide class action lawsuit been filed against them for creating bad software? i use my pc about 0.0001 percent of the time (yes, once or twice a year) and i still spend more time fixing other people's pc's than fixing my mac...

anyways, a mac is a mac is a mac is a mac is not a pc...i'll keep using my mac thank you...v

 

[Dippo]

Oh I LOVE all this Eye Candy....

It almost makes up for the complete utter lack of a USER INTERFACE!!!

Why doesn't Microslug try making something people can use instead of pouring sugar down our throats???

 

[uzombie]

Backwards?

Hmmm. This OS seems to be perfect for easter. Did anybody else notice what longhorn wants us to do to our contacts in this screenshot ?

M.

Wait. I mean, I work left to right. So the most important feature to me is the access of left down right. Why put the trash at top left?

Wasn't the Mac OS model the "best" gui for its time? (Apple menu, simple navigation, trash at lower right).

This Longhorn is Long in the teeth for efficiency from its looks.

As for requirements, I think M$ is just pusshing (sp intentional) for hardware delay. Once we see a P4 or Itanium (or other 6 ghz cpu) handling the processing, the software should be ready.

2008.

As for 2 Gig RAM, we see it today in G5 and FX64 machines. And with LaCie BiG disk, a terabyte or two is currently $3000. Three years ago, you had to get twenty 100Gig drives in an array. That was about $7000.

I wonder what kinda heat an Intel 6ghz CPu will put out? Make it my home furnace...and the blower feeds the house ducts...

 

[thatwendigo]

Just because something is in the pipe, doesn't mean it will see daylight. Who cares what Jonas and Merom have coming, those specs will not be for the average consumer PC. Anything is possible, but it's not gonna happen.

I defend whom I choose. Thank you very much.

Did you even read my post?

Dothan/Jonas/Merom are intended as consumer processors, because the P4 (P7 architecture, in general) is way, way too hot. Dothan is a single-core 90nm Centrino, Jonas a dual-core version of the same processor, and Merom a modified version of Jonas. All of them are intended for laptops and general consumer use.

Intel has said, in their roadmap, that the P4 is going to slide towards niche-markets and be replaced in average usage.

 

[1macker1]

I think the specs are wrong because this would run Dell out of business. They wouldn't be able to sell PC's for 400 bucks going by those specs. But who knows how the market will have change by 2007.

 

[Krrill]

You do see how big of a screen that the UI is being displayed on right.

I was never talking about the "actual size" I was talking about the relativity on the screen... If you actually look at how much space they're taking up, it's sad.

 

[The Red Wolf]

A Terabyte?

A minimum space requirement of one Terabyte in order to work? Does M$ know how big that is? Average size for OS-X 1-2 GB. It takes a Terabyte, two years from now to even run Longhorn? Wow, doubt you can get a PC with a couple of terabytes for $499 ($599 with rebate). And if it takes a terabyte for M$ to make an operating system that "looks" like OS-X. Good for them.

 

[1macker1]

Too hot? As we look toward the future, they will invent better cooling methods.

Did you even read my post?

Dothan/Jonas/Merom are intended as consumer processors, because the P4 (P7 architecture, in general) is way, way too hot. Dothan is a single-core 90nm Centrino, Jonas a dual-core version of the same processor, and Merom a modified version of Jonas. All of them are intended for laptops and general consumer use.

Intel has said, in their roadmap, that the P4 is going to slide towards niche-markets and be replaced in average usage.

 

[Windowlicker]

ROFLMAO (and believe me I don't write "roflmao" too often)! 4-6GHz, 2Gb RAM, 1Tb of storage!! nice one microsoft.. let's see.. I can install Panther on a rev a iMac -- and I can do it now, not after a year.

MS seems to think people are willing to buy completely new computers. the sad thing is that it's very probable that people will buy them. oh well, the software itself will be so expensive that you don't have to add too much to it to get a new setup bundled with longhorn.