Is Longhorn still a "must have" upgrade in 2006?

Consider the following:

1. WinFS is gone
2. Avalon and Indigo will be made available in current Windows versions.

What compelling feature makes Longhorn a "must have"?  Try to put yourself in the shoes of someone much less technical then yourself (for me, that would be my parents).  And do not mention better security.  I should not have to buy a new OS to fix security bugs in the current version.

The only stuff we've heard related to Longhorn really has been stuff aimed at developers. Developers will still get every bit of Longhorn, just in different timeframes (no, WinFS isn't gone).

We haven't yet seen what Longhorn means to users, admins or companies. That'll come once we have a beta next year.

Obviously Developer features won't matter to your parents.

And, really, why shouldn't you have to buy a new OS for improved security? Really.

That's like saying you shouldn't have to buy a new car for increased safety. Safety and security improve over the years, and it's a heck of a lot easier to retrofit a car with side impact beams than it'd be to lock down an OS.

hehe.. Longhorn, or Windows sixP, will come with the "Killer Features" of a built-in Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware package and a Web Browser that can read RSS news feeds....


..how sweet is that? Not!

Kevin

jkwuc89 wrote:

Consider the following:

1. WinFS is gone
2. Avalon and Indigo will be made available in current Windows versions.

What compelling feature makes Longhorn a "must have"?  Try to put yourself in the shoes of someone much less technical then yourself (for me, that would be my parents).  And do not mention better security.  I should not have to buy a new OS to fix security bugs in the current version.

As if security was not enough...

How about that nifty photo manager... That has a good possibility of showing up. And the better looking screens of the composting engine Windows will uses with Longhorn (Aero - Avalon is there but not Aero?).

Ney MS guys, I am just guessing... I know you are all still working, but any other cool "end-user" things I missed that are already public?

I get a strong impression from Joe Beda's post that Avalon will work a heck of a lot better on Longhorn than it will on XP or Server 2003. You'll also still be getting the new Aero shell, although we've only had glimpses of that so far (look under "Longhorn Movies").

The new Transacted NTFS features on this poster (if still present after the cut of WinFS) should make it easier for third-party developers to protect application data, preventing corruption or data loss on a system crash or power failure, and even ensuring consistency between changes made to files on different volumes. It's a very low-level feature, but one which has a useful impact. WinFS was to be built on top of this, which I think is why it wasn't going to be available on earlier Windows versions.

The Win32 API won't be left behind; I've been documenting some of the changes to the Win32 API in Longhorn, based on the SDK for the WinHEC build (4074). It's on hold for the moment while I work out my current project and until I write a tool which sorts out the differing styles of argument decoration - the WS03 SDK uses IN but the LHSDK uses __in, for example, which causes a huge number of false positives in the diff tool.

This thread is actually a good place to start digging for information:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=19798

As near as I can figure out, "Avalon" on Windows XP means that you will be able to run Longhorn apps, and the application's window will be able to have Avalony goodness, BUT:

1) Avalon will not be on the desktop (i.e. an individual app window will look like Longhorn, but the other app windows and the Start Menu, etc. will still look like Windows XP)

2) Because XP won't support the Longhorn Display Driver Model (LDDM), Avalon on XP will have to render through DirectX or (shudder) GDI, which means it's probably going to be slower and not look as cool.  Also, DX is kind of single-threaded, so that might cause some limitations (like only being able to run one Longhorn app at a time under XP?  who knows...)

So, in short, to get a cool desktop, and the ability to do Aero stuff with ALL your apps, you'll still need Longhorn.

I caveat all of the above by stating these are MY guesses from attempts to interpret what's been said in that thread...

More speculation, but...

* New version of IE/OE (RSS support)

* New version of WMM, burn to DVD/VCD

* Much improved support for a host of new devices such as HD-DVD

* the off-shoot OSes (MCE, Tablet) all rolled together

 

Well, let's not forget that the OS won't be the only updated items when Longhorn is released. By that time, there will be new hardware to handle all the enhanced UI of Avalon, etc. So, if done *correctly* and users (such as your parents) see the difference between how application 'x' worx on XP using Avalon, vs how that same app worx on Longhorn (i.e., they take a trip to some retail establishment, and see a product demo), the wheels could churn in the direction of 'PURCHASE!!!'

Except for those buying hardware now, those having had XP since it was 'new' might be thinking of buying a new computer, since it's been a few years since they did.

This won't be the component-upgrade crowd.

What makes Longhorn a must buy is the new features.  Avaon may be ported to Windows XP but the new driver model and other functions cannot be backported because they are to wel integrated into the Kernel.  Even tho WinFS will not be available at that time .  Im sure that Longhorn will be a true upgrade and not a Windows ME type upgrade

jkwuc89 wrote:

Consider the following:

1. WinFS is gone
2. Avalon and Indigo will be made available in current Windows versions.

What compelling feature makes Longhorn a "must have"?  Try to put yourself in the shoes of someone much less technical then yourself (for me, that would be my parents).  And do not mention better security.  I should not have to buy a new OS to fix security bugs in the current version.

Longhorn's GUI will be driven by hardware acceleration taking work away from the CPU (which Intel probably isn't happy about).

I recall reading that the Core Windows Team gave up on modularization of the operating system and started over so I'm not sure if this means that the text abstraction layer was canned or not but if it wasn't expect more stability.

Longhorn is supposed to have a hardware abstraction layer or something to that effect that allows you to basically take a hard drive from one computer and put it into another computer without problems.

I was reading about something called shield technology which is supposed to be less painful for corporations to install than patches.

And much more. I'm still very excited about upgrading to Longhorn even though 2 years ago I expected to have been able to do so two months ago.

I will install the beta the moment it is available.

eagle wrote:

I will install the beta the moment it is available.

Can you install software in your computer? Wow, I thought your dad does that for you.