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ActiveWin.com: New Microsoft Longhorn Build 4008 Screenshots

Time: 14:31 EST/19:31 GMT | News Source: ActiveWin.com | Posted By: Robert Stein

We have posted thirty four Microsoft Longhorn Build 4008 screenshots. These screenshots show the installation process, my documents, desktop, internet explorer, error messages, taskbars, etc. Check it out!

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Displaying Comments 1 through 29 of 29

This is an archived static copy of ActiveWin.com.

#1 By 37 (66.82.20.150) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 02:54:32 PM

<snip>

This post was edited by Brian_MS_MVP on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 at 16:19.

#2 By 6859 (206.156.242.36) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 03:02:15 PM

Looks like a nice theme they have going. Also like the idea that "Longhorn" will replace both XP Home and XP Pro so there will only be one XP version and that version will be all you need.

#3 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 03:06:36 PM

Brian - AFAIK "Yukon" hasn't made into "Longhorn" yet, so there really isn't much to report about WinFS yet.

Cthulhu - I was just thinking about two editions of "Longhorn" like we have today with Windows XP. Why do you think they'll only make one?

#4 By 37 (66.82.20.150) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 03:13:27 PM

You can set the sidebar to autohide, resize and turn it off. Even relocate it if you like.

#5 By 7390 (63.211.44.114) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 03:34:46 PM

Cthulhu, why do you think that there will only be one version when

/screenshots/longhorn/Image18.jpg

Clearly says Longhorn XP professional, why make that distinction if there isn't going to be a home edition?

And to be honest those screen shots are not impressive. I call them Windows XP Aqua. I am ready for something new already, something radical. I don't know why MS just doesn't release a radical UI for those of us that are experimental and say "here use it at your own risk", and I don't meant mean a different color theme.

#6 By 1989 (216.145.191.193) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 03:36:32 PM

Bob, I am still wondering what the 'winfs.exe' service does exactly and why it can easily use 100 MB of ram? Is it just a search service???

#7 By 1989 (216.145.191.193) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 03:38:42 PM

Red Hook, I agree. The bar isn't very useful. More like a big quicklaunch bar that takes up screen real estate.

#8 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 03:55:49 PM

British, I haven't installed it, so I haven't a clue. In a pre release state though, I doesn't suprise me that a system service could use that much RAM. I remember the early betas of .NET Framework 1.0. The ASP.NET worker process could use insane amounts of memory. Between it and VisualStudio .NET a 1G RAM wasn't difficult.

#9 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 04:01:26 PM

Anyone notice the 2006 date in the "About Windows" dialog (in the upper-right corner)?

#10 By 1989 (216.145.191.193) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 04:49:09 PM

sphbecker, if the user interface hasn't changed much since Windows 95, why would 2 or 3 more years make a difference? Maybe Microsoft is just going in the wrong direction with user interface for some people's taste. I would prefer no themes or "pretty stuff" (on the professional version) and just functionality. If I want pretty I will buy a Mac or the "home" version (if there is one.)

I don't think Longhorn's purpose is to change the interface much. I think it is mainly for the underlying file system change. They have throw in a little visual change in there just for eye candy.

This post was edited by Lord British on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 at 16:53.

#11 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 04:52:44 PM

Lord British--point understood: "If I want pretty I will buy a Mac." But it reminds me of Grandpa Simpson: "My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I like it!"

#12 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 05:30:02 PM

beck, slight correction, you mean "Visual Styles" not themes. There is a huge difference.

#13 By 1989 (216.145.191.193) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 05:37:07 PM

sphbecker, I wasn't wishing that they get rid of it in the professional version, just default it to a standard "visual style" or theme or whatever they are that I turn off :) I didn't mind the gradient title bars in Win2k but the gradient and border on the menu highlight in Longhorn is starting to get to be a bit much. I thought the quick launch bar was great in windows 98 but they turn it off by default in XP and the new bar is too much. I don't know how they should change the UI but it should be more functional than nice to look at. If it is both, then we both win.

#14 By 6859 (206.156.242.36) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 06:01:03 PM

Here's why I think they'll have only one...

/screenshots/longhorn/Image30.jpg

See that part about limiting your kiddies internet time? Why would that appear in the Pro version if they wanted to sell the Home version with that functionality? It doesn't make sense to me for them to do that when they could just say "there is only one Longhorn version" and make everyone pay the same price. No more $100 difference in cost (everyone pays the higher price.) If Image30 were in the Home version, I'd agree, but it's in the Pro version, and it uses that specific language making me think that Longhorn is the "end all and be all" for the XP-like OS.

Plus it just makes plain ol' sense to have one code version to worry about supporting...

But that's my opinion, at any rate.

This post was edited by Cthulhu on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 at 18:03.

#15 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 06:53:33 PM

cth, hmm, i hadn't thought of that. It was my understanding that home was a subset of Pro, so if home has it, pro has it too. If that logic is correct, that would seem to deflate your reasoning. I suppose we'll have to wait a bit and see what happens.

#16 By 7390 (63.211.44.114) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 07:32:11 PM

#24 and 25 on the flip side why have parental control in the business version?

Also regarding the UI I am not saying to do away with the current version but my god can't someone at MS put out a more radical "option". Some of us are tired of the Win95 look (and no we don't want new themes). I can't believe that MS can't provide an add-in/visual pack/image engine for those us that want something else.

This Win95 visual style can't be the end can it? Where is MS research when you need them? probably making a new version of "clear type"

#17 By 2459 (24.170.151.19) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 07:45:02 PM

Yes. The higher levels of the NT line have always been supersets of the lower levels.
Just as the Pro version of XP has Games, Movie Maker, Simple Networking, etc., plus features not included in XP Home, Longhorn Pro can have Parental Controls. The codebase is still common with the exception of the added extras for the Pro and Server versions.

#18 By 2459 (24.170.151.19) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 07:53:39 PM

RedHook, this is still Alpha. You won't see big UI changes until late beta. Many of the components aren't in place yet.

#19 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 08:41:55 PM

I forget who mentioned it -- PT, NeoWin, whoever -- but isn't there going to be an add/remove area specifically for Tablet PC, Media Center, etc... PCs in the OS...? Don't know how they plan to charge for the "pieces" But that's what I had heard.

#20 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 08:43:46 PM

"Where is MS research when you need them? probably making a new version of "clear type""

Considering 85+% of this OS isn't cleartyped, I'd hope so. I sure hope they remove the "rainbow effect." I can't look at cleartype for more than five seconds without geting a headache.

#21 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 09:10:04 PM

"Finally, do any of you idiots know what cleartype is? it is a font rendering feature that doubles the width of pixels to make them easier to view on TFT screens. THIS FEATURE SHOULD NOT BE USED ON CRT MONITORS AS IT DOES NOTHING TO IMPROVE FONT QUALITY! read it and repeat it. The whole port of cleatype is improving readability on TFT screens which can be linked to the development of the original idea of the tablet PC."

Yes, we do. Who cares if it's only for LCDs? It's complete crap anyway, it's not limited to just LCDs, it is in fact touted as a generalized font-smoothing technology, it is used (no matter what type of display you use) to smooth fonts sometimes but most of the NOT because it does suck, sub-pixel rendering is a joke anyway--I see the colors! They blend and phase and distract... What a wonderful idea--the fonts are slightly smoother but a rainbow of color is emanating from every bit of text... Whipppeee!

#22 By 7760 (12.155.143.50) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 09:10:49 PM

With the amount of cynicism in here, you'd think that this were a Mac forum. If it looks like XP with a new skin, well... it is. That's how nearly every OS starts out. To not understand that is to miss the point of alpha builds. Microsoft is testing ideas and the final build will likely end up being quite different.

#23 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 10:07:40 PM

Guys... this is NOTHING like what the final will be. Relax.

#24 By 143 (65.221.158.228) at Wednesday, March 05, 2003 10:31:20 PM

Will Longhorn "final release" be able to run 9x, NT, x86 programs?

#25 By 7390 (63.211.44.114) at Thursday, March 06, 2003 12:40:39 AM

I also have clear type turned on and I like, everything is so crisp and clear (no pun intended).

When I mentioned clear type (#26) I meant it in a joking manner as the sum total of Microsoft Research. Even for XP I still think that there should be some GUI offered to those of us that are tired of looking at Win95.

And thank you matgarnz for calling us idiots and yes we are aware of what cleartype is.

#26 By 2459 (24.170.151.19) at Thursday, March 06, 2003 01:48:18 AM

MS stresses Cleartype mainly for LCDs because depending upon the pixel arrangement of CRTs, you can get great results or bad results.

For most CRTs, ClearType works great, but there are some that don't give good results. And whether you are using ClearType on an LCD or CRT, you should check the results after calibrating it before you dismiss it all together.

From what I've heard, Cleartype will be enabled by default in Longhorn RTM.

JWM - "If we will not be seeing any big UI change till late beta, why did they even waste the time to create a new style to the currrent UI? Plus do you consider Win XP a big UI change from Win 95?"

For test purposes, differentiation, or simply because they could (edit: also to hide the new look from competitors [Ever see spy photos of prototype automobiles? They are usually made to look like older/different models or junkers to throw people off of what the final production vehicle will be like]). It is not unusual for the Alpha and early Beta product to have a GUI that is different from the late beta/RTM GUI. Half the tech that is to be included in LH is not even in the current alpha version. Previous Windows versions have changed even during the beta stages. The featureset generally isn't frozen until Beta 3.

XP has a lot of usability improvements and convienences over Windows 95. I don't think it's as radical a change as going from Windows 3.x to Windows 95 in terms of having a new way of accessing applications, etc., but then again, as XP is a point release to Windows 2000, there should be no radical UI changes. That said, I don't know anyone that would rather use Windows 95 over XP given XP's GUI (and other) enhancements.

All I can say is you'll have to wait to see the final product (or the RCs) to know all that LH will offer (some things can be found with a bit of research, and there will be more hints/pics/public betas before RTM. If you look back at Windows 95/Windows 2000/Windows XP alphas, etc., they also look different and/or have different featuresets than the RTM product. LH's alphas are/will be no different than those past products.

This post was edited by n4cer on Thursday, March 06, 2003 at 02:03.

#27 By 135 (213.61.245.251) at Thursday, March 06, 2003 02:53:41 AM

matgarnz - I switched to LCD monitors last year, and I'm not going back. And clearType makes a tremendous difference as well.

JWM - "I just thought it was going to be overhauled like Mac OS X."

No, with Windows XP they made the UI better... not just prettier like Apple did.

#28 By 1169 (212.38.182.251) at Thursday, March 06, 2003 06:56:17 AM

I think that the whole issue of user interface is an important aspect. One ting is professionals wanting the power of the OS and another is the large percentage of windows users that are not professionals, they want an OS that works well, it is easy to use, and more than anything it looks good, why? it is simple, we are a consumer society, a very brand aware society and the new generation of user, yes the young ones that are doing amazing things at an age most of us were reading comics and awating superman movies, they want the look, look at the mobile phone market, the war for the most apps and looks is on, and it is based on the young ones taste. I thnk that is one area in which apple has the lead. Their systems look god (both out and in) and people want the comfort of a nice looking environment, they decorate their houses and buy nice designer clothes, why should the thing they have to look at the most during the day at work or home look any better than the rest, if it is to fit in the people's lifestyle (and that is a fact nowdays, we buy things that fit our image of what we desever or what we aim for) then it most look good, coherent and sophisticated. I welcome changes in the UI, it will make for a better experience in everyday work.

#29 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at Thursday, March 06, 2003 10:43:40 AM

Sodajerk, have you tried optimizing ClearType (per the link posted above)? I know what you mean about the rainbow effect, but it can be significantly reduced by the optimization.

I'd be curious to know if ClearType has a significant performance advantage vs. other anti-aliasing technologies.

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