It would appear that a little tinkering with Longhorn’s DLL files allows users to enable a few DWM effects. These include fancy drop shadows on windows, and nice longhorn style icons are noticable on the left of the title bars. Also, animation is visible when opening windows. Also, this review takes a look at what is new in the recently released Longhorn build which was given to WinHEC attendees. Update: Screenshots of Longhorn Build 4074. MSDN subscribers can now download an ISO of the build.
DWM Enabled in Longhorn; Exploring Windows Longhorn 4074
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Has this guy not heard of pressing print-screen to take a screenshot?
OS X is to the 90’s
(i.e. the decade it took each company to develop and move out the door the next gen OS. if longhorn has any backwards compatibility to XP and the 9x line, I will be ticked.
if longhorn has any backwards compatibility to XP and the 9x line, I will be ticked.
Of course it will. The Win32 API will still be reserved for ‘legacy’ apps.
Has this guy not heard of pressing print-screen to take a screenshot?
The effects ARE NOT printed when using print screen in Longhorn. The code for that hasn”t been implemented yet.
(source: the Neowin comments section)
Does anyone know if Microsoft has been working with the Stardock people at all? I always loved their software. It was just a shame that they couldn’t integrate it better with the OS. This wasn’t their fault—is was the fault of a system with closed-source internals.
Actually, I seem to recall reading something about that they have. The Stardock people were so good at hacking Windows they got hired by Microsoft… 🙂
No, I think it’s more like a cooperative relationship.
– Simon
“OS X is to the 90’s
(i.e. the decade it took each company to develop and move out the door the next gen OS. if longhorn has any backwards compatibility to XP and the 9x line, I will be ticked.”
As far as I know the registry is there to stay.
They need to fix that ugly windeco integration on explorer. Seriously, why waste all those pixels? It’s like killing kittens, it’s just that bad!
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/47139
good article
It’s dark! It’s bright! It wastes screen space! It’s… Jade!
I really hope I don’t have to look at that every day, starting in 2007 or so…
Where’s the subtlety?
Every screenshot I see of Longhorn has me repulsed by the amount of space that the side-dock wastes. I’m sure they’ll have all kinds of “applet” style widgets to run in there, but there’s nothing that could go there that would compell me to waste that much space on my desktop. I’ll stick with OS X, thanks.
I’m really liking the looks of things. Not to down with the side bar thing, but the rest looks nice. I wish this person made screenshots on a bigger screen at higher res. was nice to see the black start menu with no name and icon thing at the top. I change all the settings to make it small as i can and uncluttered as is, but nothing i can do about the name and icon stuff.
The video looked pretty slick the way the windows opened up. And the drop shadows where very nice.
I saw he had a floppy on his system. I hope there is no need to ever need a floppy on longhorn. Hopefully MS will fix the installer to alow loading of drivers from a cd, currently you must use a floppy. I have yet to see a way around it that didn’t suck more then hooking up a floppy.
Why is it that everytime a feature shows up in Windows, some Mac user has to point out the obvious fact that OS X has had this feature since blah blah blah? You’re comparing a svelt OS written from the ground up for very specific hardware against an OS that carries technological baggage dating back to the mid-1970’s and runs on thousands of different hardware vendors’ systems. How many operating systems did this before Windows came along?
Of course Windows will always be behind MacOS – it’s not about innovation and excellence in technology but instead it’s about doing excellent business. Obviously this company has made a ton of mistakes, but they’ve single-handedly (sorry Apple) made computing financially accessible to hundreds of millions of people and millions of businesses throughout the world. In the process, they were able to make alot of money for alot of happy shareholders.
Apple is definitely a business too – http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/78/jobs.html – and don’t you forget it!
…but they’ve single-handedly (sorry Apple) made computing financially accessible to hundreds of millions of people and millions of businesses throughout the world.
That’s just wrong.
How can you say Microsoft has lowered the cost of computing? It’s hardware prices that have fallen, not software.
OS that carries technological baggage dating back to the mid-1970’s and runs on thousands of different hardware vendors’ systems. How many operating systems did this before Windows came along?
Hunh??? the PC didn’t come out till the early 80s (August 1981) with DOS. Windows 1.0 was released in 1985. NT was released in 1994. NT,2000, XP and longhorn are not based on DOS but the NT kernel. It is 10 years of baggage, not 30 years, sorry
To answer your question, a variety of UNIX (SVR4 and BSDs) fit your description better.
Microsoft is bigger and has a lot more money for R&D than any other company in the world, there is no excuse for it to lag behind OS X. Microsoft hires some really smart people, thier interview process is very stringent.
How can you say Microsoft has lowered the cost of computing? It’s hardware prices that have fallen, not software.
All that cheap hardware needed an OS and MS provided the OS in the beginning.
Remember that by the time longhorn comes out, a 19inch monitor will likely be the norm. We are seeing most pc’s come with a 17inch one now.
Also we are more and more seeing monitors that look great at amazingly high resolutions. Think about how you used to use 640 x 480 10 years ago. Now 1600 x 1200 isn’t that big of a leap, and it will keep getting better.
Microsoft has also been making noise about new versions of windows having much better dpi.
In the end with bigger screen sizes, higher resolutions, more text on screen which is easier to read, and easier on the eyes. The side dock, shouldn’t be a big deal.
Just think, the windows xp startmenu looks huge in the default 800 x 600, on a 15inch monitor. So at work where I have a small screen, I revert to the Classic theme. At home with 1600 x 1200 on a 19inch monitor, the startmenu is not a big screen crowding monster, so I don’t mind it.
“I saw he had a floppy on his system. I hope there is no need to ever need a floppy on longhorn. Hopefully MS will fix the installer to alow loading of drivers from a cd, currently you must use a floppy. I have yet to see a way around it that didn’t suck more then hooking up a floppy.”
Using a floppy? The only time I have EVER used a floppy for installing something for XP (wheter it be a program, driver, or the OS itself) is when I recieved a floppy disc rather than a CD that contained what I needed.
“Using a floppy? The only time I have EVER used a floppy for installing something for XP (wheter it be a program, driver, or the OS itself) is when I recieved a floppy disc rather than a CD that contained what I needed.”
if you own a SATA drive and want to install winXP, one that does not come with SP1 and additional drivers on it. You will need one. Except for a few intel chipsets which have sata built in, other then that, a floppy will be needed. There still is needs for floppy aside from people giving you a floppy. Which that is still very common since the floppy is far from dead, but aside from that I would like to not need one. Unfortently no one has come up with a perfect replacement yet for the floppy. Nothing else is small, cheap, disposable (as in cheap), durrable (some disagree but i’ve abused the hell out of them and yet to kill them) and as universal as a floppy yet. So they are still heavily used. Realy for so many things you don’t need anything bigger though anymore just emailing the file works to. I’d like to see it go away, but as long as you interact with other people it still can interup ones life.
Interesting video! How come they didn’t do anything with the windows? They just showed them popping up. Big deal! Why didn’t they resize or drag them? I also would have loved for them to run a movie in the background, just to see if the performance is greatly affected.
How did I guess that a post like this would bring the Mac-Heads in. It seems like any little feature that appears in Windows, KDE or Gnome is immmediately copying OS X. As mentioned above, Windows is far more affordable than Mac OS X. Tt will run on every PC (alot cheaper than an a MAC).
The other day I read a post about a Windows Media Player 10 beta that had a rounded silver play button, immediately in come the Mac-Heads “OMG it’s copying iTunes!, stupid Microsoft can’t do anything”. Is a silverly blue colour patented to Apple or something?.
Be fair! Microsoft have alot more to deal with than Apple, namely b**st**ds who write viruses and make user’s life hell and hundreds of different hardware configurations so I am not surprised the interface appears to behind Apple’s. If OS X had the popularility that Windows had then more than likely it would suffer the same fate.
There are hundreds of products out there that do the same thing as each other, some better than others and if Microsoft want to add effects to there operating system then let them. Just because it has a shadow behind its Windows doesn’t mean they are trying to be like OS X. There are far more exciting technologies appearing in Longhorn that are innovative, however they will probably get sued again because people will see it as causing a monopoly.
Look at .NET, and XAML these are already being copied in the open-source community, but you don’t hear Windows users pulling tongues and going “Nah Nah Nah, Windows had that first”.
“…but you don’t hear Windows users pulling tongues and going “Nah Nah Nah, Windows had that first”. ”
Try and read some of the Apple threads here on OSNews and you’ll see many “Nah Nah Nah, Windows had that first” posts.
With that sidebar and the clock at the bottom, this is beginning to look more and more like the EPOC OS.
Indeed, they are succeeding in reaching a very efficient waste of screen space. System requirements: 640×480 screen (not recommended for less than 1920 x 1440 though)
How did I guess that a post like this would bring the Mac-Heads in.
As well as any Mac news is immediately flooded with PC fans who only have to say that Macs are more expensive, which isn’t really true anway, unless you ignore a lot of factors.
Windows is far more affordable than Mac OS X.
Maybe when it comes with the PC, but if you have to buy it additionally then they are very similar in price, especially since you need to compare MacOS X with WinXP Professional in terms of features. And never undereastimate the amount of software (epecially iTunes) that comes with a Mac!
Tt will run on every PC
“Microsoft is expected to recommend that the “average” Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.”
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1581842,00.asp
It’ll run on every PC? Maybe not…
(alot cheaper than an a MAC).
First of all, MAC is an acronym for “Media Access Control” among a few other things. The correct abreviation of “Macintosh” is “Mac”, not “MAC” because it isn’t an acronym.
Secondly, the raw price for a Mac might be higher when compared to a PC, especially when you take benchmarks into account.
But what this doesn’t include is that
a) you get lots of software with the Mac
b) Macs keep their value much longer, ie. you have a much better reselling price
c) benchmarks simply cannot measure work quality.
I’ve been using every single Windows revision since WfW 3.11, but I first started using Macs a few months ago, so Windows should be more familiar to me. I also have a direct comparision here at work, because I have an IBM Thinkpad with WinXP and my iBook with MacOS X. Guess which one gives me less problems and where I don’t have to search in the most unusual places for some settings? MacOS just is much more intuitively to use, despite that fact that I have been using it for a much shorter time than Windows.
Oh, and in terms of expensiveness, try finding a PC notebook with the features of an iBook (size and battery life) for the same price – happy hunting…
As for Longhorn:
Some of the GUI stuff seems to have improved. The seem to have toned down the colours from WinXP, which or so ugly for my taste that I configured XP so look like Win2k.
But they increased one of the problems of WinXP, use of screen space. Why do those window title bars have to be so huge? And the side bar has been mentioned several times already anway.
Sure, by the time Longhorn is released most people might have 19″ screens, but why should these feel as if you had a 15″ one?
Even MacOS X feels crowded on 1024×768, but Longhorn is much much worse in that respect.
I never did see a real need for WinXP, because the improvements compared to Win2k aren’t really worth the upgrade, but so far I see even less reason to switch to Longhorn.
Hi, anyone know where to get the wallpaper (that one from the screenshots) with green leaves.
It seems that with XP, they took a step backwards with the start menu that took up nearly half the screen. Sure the widgets look fancy, but the actual layout on the screen looks a tad clunky. The Desktop should try to stay out of the user’s way instead of hogging so much space. And now with this new side bar, there’s even less screen space.
The way things are now, KDE and GNOME are way ahead in terms of UI and look and feel. Also, what’s the point in needing all those extra hardware resources when it seems that Longhorn won’t really do much with it? IMHO, MS should take a leaf out of Apple’s, KDE’s, GNOME’s and everybody else’s books and try to make new software run faster on the same hardware. I mean, MS isn’t a hardware company, so why would they want so many users upgrading to new hardware? Apple is primarily hardware company but they still make OS X run more efficiently with every upgrade.
I’m downloading it now of MSDN, beware though because its a DVD image not a CD. MSDN seems really slow and busy today.
Re:Wallpaper
You can get the wallpaper on the neowin.com, site have a look in the longhorn forum, i can’t remember which post it was. I’m sure the wallpaper is in Fedora Core/Redhat (Or very very similar).
And I am sorry to say but I agree with tonywob, Macs are far more expensive if you want an equivalant specification, I had a friend who bought a Powerbook for £2100 only to regret it 1 month later when he saw what PC or laptop he could of got for that price instead. To make matters worse on top of the £2100 he paid for the laptop he had to fork out extra money for a decent office suite (MS OFFICE) and an upgrade to Panther.
I used to want to own a Mac but changed my mind because of the stupid price you would pay, and in this country (UK) it is hard to come by any decent games or software for it, there are few specialist Mac shops scattered around. I would not be happy with a low-end Mac (mainly because I like my games) and can’t work without all of the Windows software I have come used to.
And would people stop moaning about how ugly it looks, its only an Alpha for god-sake, if anyone takes the time to read the announcments on MSDN they would read that the current look is a temporary theme which will be eventually replaced by Aero. Yes XP is to colourful in my opinion and the sidebar is a waste of space but that would not be a issue on a higher res monitor.
A few rebuttals:
Microsoft has absolutely decreased the cost of computing. They aggressively created a low-cost PC clone market for DOS and Windows systems by *not* being a hardware company. The platform, way back when, was also the lowest cost platform for ISVs to port their wares.
No – UNIX systems haven’t offered this level of backward compatibility or hardware support. They may carry “some” baggage, but they are definitely not available on as much hardware as Windows. GNU and Linux systems have challenged Microsoft by bringing this to *nix systems fairly recently.
I won’t argue that Microsoft has had shady business practices and that they’ve employed vendor lock-in tactics. I don’t agree with any of that crap – but it doesn’t change the FACT that they have (a) run a successful business and (b) lowered the cost of computing. Remove Microsoft from the equation and you would have had Apple and IBM of the 1980s.
Now do you want to take about proprietary monopolistic lock-in?
Macs are far more expensive if you want an equivalant specification, I had a friend who bought a Powerbook for £2100
I have to agree that PowerBooks are very expensive, which is the reason why I bought an iBook, also conumer Macs seem to have more additional software.
But the question is: Equivalent in what way?
Most people say that the PowerMac G5 is expensive, and it is, but if you want to build a 64-bit dual-CPU PC it isn’t really cheaper. And show me a 12″ PC notebook with a battery life of over 5 hours for the price of an iBook.
only to regret it 1 month later when he saw what PC or laptop he could of got for that price instead.
And that was not only more powerful but also had a comparable battery life and came with applications compareable to the iLife suite?
I think one of the problems is that more and more people start using laptops actually as desktops, where it doesn’t really count how long the battery lasts. But if you want a real portable computer especially the iBooks show their strengths.
To make matters worse on top of the £2100 he paid for the laptop he had to fork out extra money for a decent office suite (MS OFFICE)
And he would have gotten that for free with a PC laptop?
and an upgrade to Panther.
First of all, I don’t understand what all the fuss with having to pay for Panther is about. Although Panther is just a point release, so is WinXP, ie. Panther is to Jaguar what WinXP is to Win2k. And I don’t think that an upgrade from Win2k to WinXP is much cheaper.
And secondly, I bought my PowerMac G5 with MacOS 10.2.7 shortly before Panther was released. Because of that I got Panther for 30 Euros. I don’t think that Microsoft would have given me such an offer.
Microsoft has absolutely decreased the cost of computing. They aggressively created a low-cost PC clone market for DOS and Windows systems by *not* being a hardware company. The platform, way back when, was also the lowest cost platform for ISVs to port their wares.
If by “decreased the cost of computing” you mean ran on commodity hardware that was decreasing in cost while simultaneously making the operating system more expensive, then sure. I won’t argue that Apple has helped keep hardware prices for their platform artificially high while Microsoft has been happy to embrace cheap and ubiquitious hardware. But to give them credit for lowering the cost of computing? Methinks thou dost give them too much credit.
The fact of the matter is, 20 years ago the OS was a negligible cost in terms of overall system cost. These days, especially in value PCs, it can be a deciding factor. The only component in that time to go UP in price is the operating system. Everything else has gone down in price.
Microsoft has absolutely decreased the cost of computing. They aggressively created a low-cost PC clone market for DOS and Windows systems by *not* being a hardware company. The platform, way back when, was also the lowest cost platform for ISVs to port their wares.
No, that was IBMs doing. Microsoft was just at the right place at the right time and they milked it to the hilt. I think lowering the cost of computing was more a function of intel’s reducing the price of cpus and taiwanese manufacturers the price of motherboards that lead to the lowercost of computing. Micorosft software still costs the same, OEMs like Dell absorb the cost and get special deals which retail consumers will never be able to get. Also Microsoft did illegal things to make every PC sold without an OS to still include the cost of a windows license. How is that lowering the cost of computing.
No – UNIX systems haven’t offered this level of backward compatibility or hardware support.
You claimed an OS that was carrying baggage from the mid 1970s and ran on multiple hardware. UNIX fits that description better, because as I pointed out a) Windows today carries baggage from only 10 years ago b) PC’s were not around in 1970s. Hardware support is not something microsoft adds to windows it is what manufacturers add to windows so thier hardware will work with PCs, which is a business descision.
None of the reasons you gave have anything to do with why Microsoft with it’s 50 billion in cash is less innovative than companies much, much smaller than it. I agree that microsoft has run a successful business, but every thing else you say is no true.
after looking at the screenshots i decided to try myself,
here are some of the install and post install, big screenies (1600×1200), and some of them show the drop shadow ‘effects’ described on other sites. This release seems much more fluid than previously released alpha versions, definetly worth looking at.
http://anyweb.kicks-ass.net/lh4074/
cheers
anyweb
Neowin calls the DWM a Neowin exclusive? Well, it isn’t…
Read on… http://www.forumgeeks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=484
No, that was IBMs doing. Microsoft was just at the right place at the right time and they milked it to the hilt. I think lowering the cost of computing was more a function of intel’s reducing the price of cpus and taiwanese manufacturers the price of motherboards that lead to the lowercost of computing. Micorosft software still costs the same, OEMs like Dell absorb the cost and get special deals which retail consumers will never be able to get. Also Microsoft did illegal things to make every PC sold without an OS to still include the cost of a windows license. How is that lowering the cost of computing.
You think the price of CPUs and the introduction of Taiwanese parts was because of IBM? I believe that Microsoft is the one that broke ranks with IBM (remember Microsoft created PC-DOS for IBM) and created MS-DOS (note that this competed directly with IBM PC-DOS ). Microsoft made MS-DOS available to any company that could implement the 8086 architecture. I believe that Compaq was first – could be wrong – and then followed by a flood of clone makers. Of course IBM was responsible for creating the PC – but the point was that Microsoft made the market more accessible by creating competion for IBM and hence the price of the PC dropped like a rock. IBM and Apple computers were ridiculously overpriced and the clone makers (now referred to as the PC makers) proved that with the help of Microsoft. No one else “happened to be there” with a compatible and inexpensive OS – so they get credit. As for the illegal stuff – I can’t believe that the bulk of computer sales were based on this. However, I agree that it was wrong and it’s a dark chapter in their history. It doesn’t really mean anything in this context however.
You claimed an OS that was carrying baggage from the mid 1970s and ran on multiple hardware. UNIX fits that description better, because as I pointed out a) Windows today carries baggage from only 10 years ago b) PC’s were not around in 1970s. Hardware support is not something microsoft adds to windows it is what manufacturers add to windows so thier hardware will work with PCs, which is a business descision.
DOS has been around since 1980 and Windows XP runs DOS apps – you’re right that this is not the 1970s. UNIX carries some baggage from the 70s – not much really since most UNIX vendors’ implementations were fairly proprietary and have become increasingly so. No – UNIX still does not run on nearly the variety of vendors systems that Windows does. I never said anything about processor architectures. As for hardware support, let’s get it straight right here and now. Microsoft’s genious is that they’ve pitted OEMs against each other. They don’t give a crap if you don’t create drivers for Windows because SOMEONE ELSE WILL. This is a business model – and an absolutely brilliant one.
one of the reasons you gave have anything to do with why Microsoft with it’s 50 billion in cash is less innovative than companies much, much smaller than it. I agree that microsoft has run a successful business, but every thing else you say is no true.
What does 50 billion cash mean if there’s no incentive to push technology faster than it can be accepted? Why increase costs when profits are just fine the way they are? Microsoft built their business by creating opportunity for ISVs, OEMs, and consultants. When things get stale, they release a new version of their OS or office suite. This not only refreshes the opportunity space (and BTW – it’s a huge shot in the arm for the entire sector, not just Microsofts’ partners) but it further enhances the value of Microsoft shares. Technical innovation is for companies like Apple who can pass the buck to a few select chumps who are willing to foot the bill for Mac OS X field tests. Business innovation is for companies like Microsoft who have figured out how to pass the buck to everyone else.