In its first preview at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference last year, Windows XP successor Longhorn was shown running a 20-year-old copy of Visicalc. Ancient DOS software won’t be the lone occupant of the Longhorn compatibility box. Win32, the Web, and even WinForms — the .Net era’s first GUI framework — are all legacy APIs from Longhorn’s perspective. Their replacements, Microsoft says, will jointly deliver “the best of Windows and the best of the Web.”
The Long View on Longhorn
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
IBM made the collosal mistake of releasing OS/2, an OS which required all new systems to run, and expected everyone to go out and buy ‘286-based ATs which were still to slow to run OS/2 anyway. By expecting consumers and businesses to dump existing hardware for expensive new boxes that can barely run their new OS, Microsoft will be repeating history and opening the door for alternative OSs.
Hopefully
By expecting consumers and businesses to dump existing hardware for expensive new boxes that can barely run their new OS, Microsoft will be repeating history and opening the door for alternative OSs.
Not the same market; OS/2 was 15 years ago. Unfortunately, many people WILL use Longhorn…
Except that most people seem to get their OS when they buy the new hardware. Dells/HPs etc. will be preloaded with Longhorn.
but what is wrong with that?
The question is who will upgrade? If you or your organization is buying new equipment than you may get Longhorn, but I highly doubt most organizations will upgrade just for the sake of getting the new features. At that point Win2K professional and XP will be widely deployed on the desktop. Currently, user’s workstations can be locked down to reduce the trojan/virus/worm risk and software updates can be automatically pushed to the workstation via ActiveDirectory.
Once that infrastructure is working well in your organization what will be the impetus for the upgrade?
Not trolling…just wondering if Longhorn fills any real need for the corporate desktop.
just wondering if Longhorn fills any real need for the corporate desktop.
It will be easy for your company to have a nice animated logo on the desktop when you log in without consuming many resources.
Just think of where your powerpoint presentations are going with 3d enabled desktops
https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/
“yes, I have tried several in vain attempts to get thigns to work”
Guess you don’t see the irony in that. YOU couldn’t get it to work so it’s Linux’s problem even though millions of people do use it. The problem is not with Linux, it’s with people who are either incapable or unwilling to learn something new. People need to stop saying Linux isn’t ready for the desktop and start acknowledging they’re not ready for Linux.
You never saw the hype because in the linux world, the powers that be don’t have the time or the resources to “orquestrate” the zillions of PR stuff to generate a “hype”.
In the Linux you get what is real or nothing at all. There is no middle term!
And what is real must be good for sure
“Guess you don’t see the irony in that. YOU couldn’t get it to work so it’s Linux’s problem even though millions of people do use it. The problem is not with Linux, it’s with people who are either incapable or unwilling to learn something new. People need to stop saying Linux isn’t ready for the desktop and start acknowledging they’re not ready for Linux.”
That is the most nonsensical thing I have ever heard I think. I read this page regularly, I’m interested in alternative OSs, and I’m going into the IT field where Linux is becoming a force in the server space. To say, however, that Linux is ready for the desktop and that users are incompetent if they can’t get it to work is complete idiocy. Windows is the incumbent, and Linux has to prove significant value in order to get people to swallow the switching costs. That’s the BOTTOM LINE. Please, refrain from zealotry as this is a simple business and technology issue, not a religious war.
I have never had a problem installing linux on anything. From Dells to Gateways, Old dec servers to new HP proliant servers. Can’t say that about windows…
I would agree with Filch.. Unless you are willing to look past “windows is the computer” you will fail at your effort because its not windows. You will always find faults.
To each their own I say. Use windows, use linux, OSX or solaris if you want,, heck… use plan9 (funny how most are unix based, anyway). As long as you look past “the OS is the computer” you should be fine. Different paradigms require different thoughts.
It had nothing to do with Longhorn.. my bad.
Longhorn is okay.. from the pre-releases I’ve played with. They changed everything around again.. I guess to justify re-certification, oh boy (Sarcasm implied).. Some changes are good some are bad. I have a feeling though that the DRM stuff will not be allowed to turn off,, tying it to some kernel level service that will just make your computer endlessly loop through a shutdown.
They havent really implemented anything thoroughly yet, so using it to test in a corporate enviroment is a non-starter.
They also changed the SMB/CIFS protocol again,, it does spooty stuff but I wont go into that. get a copy and play with it.. Whether you want it or not, if you work with computers you are going to run into it,,, a lot!!
So, you make your meta folder that just searches the system for data and shows you the results (in a nutshell).
What happens when the meta-data on your document changes and suddenly it’s not in your meta folder anymore?
Can you say old fashioned searching?
When i talk to clients, they dont want to move to Longhorn, their entire infrastructure useually looks like this:
1) Windows XP Workstations, maybe the small handfull of Macs for some departements.
2) Exchange Server(s) – every organization has one practically.
3) Linux/FreeBSD file/web/print/backup server(s).
4) A few linux workstations for the admins to maintain internal automation scripts etc.
This works great, however the roll out cost of Longhorn will be massive, especially if they have to unplug their backend servers like Linux/FreeBSD because Microsoft changed the protocols again. Not that they cant afford Windows 2003 server, but because of the huge amount of internal scripts that automate _everything_. Useually the backup solution is NAS racks running NFS<->Samba frontend for the windows machines.
The costs of moveing to Longhorn, will be expensive because of the same reasons migrating to Linux is supposedly expensive, its different, needs retraining.
Now im not a Linux zealot, i sell my clients whatever fits their current infrastructure. But, the hardware in current use by the organizations, for day-to-day operations in the paper pushing divisions, they could often benefit from useing terminals instead, the LTSP project has come a long way. The cool thing about LTSP is that its all centralized, its extraordinarily cheap and easy to maintain.
Now ofcourse, Windows Terminals exist too, but Client Access Licenses is a huge burden, CALs for Terminals + Exchange, makes a huge dent in any IT budget. The retraining costs for the paper pushers to use OO.Org on a linux terminal versus the price of keeping up with technology they really dont need, is becomeing obvious.
*Some* desktops in businesses can be replaced, with good use of their existing hardware. Some cannot, because of lack of certain long-used-features (especially the accounting divisions often have some funky excel funktions). However, OpenGroupWare.Org + OO.Org + Evolution is a powerfull combination.
Whats holding clients of mine back? We’ll it aint the price, it aint the lack of support. Its the lack of confidence in this thing called Linux. Its still very new on the corporate desktop, but i suspect in 5 years when i look back at this posting, things will have changed, because the hype is there, and the quality of the products are too. Mind you, its not the endusers that has to fiddle with Linux, its the admins. So, they shall never mind that it might be a little more complex under the hood.
Now, on the home users desktop? We’ll see in 5 years, i use linux full time on my workstation, but its not for everyone. Yet.
Oh, yeah! The good old vc.com. That’s a very nice playing program using no special MSDOS sorcery that you would normally require for let’s say MSDOS games etc. Very unimpressive!
By expecting consumers and businesses to dump existing hardware for expensive new boxes that can barely run their new OS, Microsoft will be repeating history and opening the door for alternative OSs.
Except it won’t. Longhorn will run quite usably on machines you can buy right now.
Except it won’t. Longhorn will run quite usably on machines you can buy right now.
You fool no-one. I have tried all the Longhorn builds on various configurations of PCs. Longhorn runs like treacle… (molasses for all those Americans out there).
And don’t gimme the crap about it being debug code slowing things down, it isn’t.