Windows Longhorn

What Bill did next...

You’ve read the rumours — now get the real deal on “Longhorn”, the successor to Windows XP.


After a year of wild speculation, Longhorn is finally out of the corral.
This article is featured in APC January 2004 Back issues
SubscribeAfter a year of wild speculation, fuelled by leaked alpha code and a gaggle of gossiping Web sites, Longhorn is finally out of the corral. Microsoft lifted the covers off the successor to Windows XP at its annual Professional Developer’s Conference, held in late October 2003 under a smoky Los Angeles haze from the fires blazing in nearby San Bernadino. APC was there to bring you this scoop on the software that will probably become Windows 2006, and which will almost certainly be your next OS.

Longhorn is in the early “alpha” stages of its lifecycle, with the finished OS still a glimmer on the horizon. Pundits are now forecasting it’ll arrive in the second half of 2006, a slippage of some two years from Microsoft’s earliest pencilled-in predictions. But, from what we’ve seen, Longhorn should be worth the long wait.

This time last year we gave you a first look at Longhorn with our preview of the Milestone 3 alpha build (APC, January 2003), detailing the interface concepts and the underlying technologies that will shape the OS.

This update is based on the special PDC Edition (alpha build 4051), which came neatly packaged in a little black book labelled simply “The Goods”, which was released into the clutching claws of some 7,500 code-cutters at the conference. Microsoft has subsequently made the PDC build available to subscribers of its MSDN development network.

For software in such an early stage of gestation, this high-profile exposure is unheard of. Like most vendors, Microsoft traditionally plays a closely-guarded hand until the first beta release, at which point it starts cranking up the pre-release hype. But the Longhorn marketing machine is already on overdrive. The OS is being been handed out like chocolates on the Cadbury factory tour. It also has its own official Web site which in turn provides links to an extensive set of Weblogs maintained by a community of developers, users and advocates.

It’s a clever strategy: eliminate the impact and spread of random leaks by issuing sanctified builds on a coordinated schedule; get the programming community in the Longhorn loop so it can start coding the software that will help sell the OS; and use the new features and capabilities introduced in each milestone build to keep consumer interest bubbling away.

The PDC Edition is a perfect example of this tactic. It lacks several key features, such as the effects-laden interface with which Microsoft hopes to out-glam Apple. The party line is that its bells and whistles were excised to prevent competitors (especially the Jolt-fuelled Linux camp) from quickly aping the code and beating Microsoft to the ball.

We think it was more that these bedazzling bits of eye-candy weren’t ready for prime time, and expect them to surface with the beta 1 release due in late 2004. Even then, rest assured that the interface can and will change. Longhorn is very much a work in progress.



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