A preview of the next version of Windows code named Longhorn was released at the PDC Summit in October 2003 in Los Angeles. This conference created a sensation because 3 new technologies were showcased at the same time (a) Windows code named Longhorn, (b) Visual Studio .NET code named Whidbey which has now been renamed to Visual Studio .NET 2005 Community Preview and (c) SQL Server code named Yukon. The most interesting thing about this event was that Microsoft released the preview of Longhorn in its very early stages of development, a shift from its paradigm where it used to release the software only to a select group of testers for the beta testing and then release the software to the public after the completion of the beta testing.

   I received my copy of Longhorn in December and I couldn’t wait to install the software and see what the big changes were and how they would feel like. I decided to install Longhorn on a Virtual PC. (For those of you, who haven’t heard about Virtual PC, let me describe about it briefly. Virtual PC is a new powerful software virtualization solution from Microsoft that allows you to run multiple PC-based operating systems simultaneously on one workstation. When you are running an operating system like Windows XP with internet access, mail box access, your daily work tasks, Virtual PC will allow you to install another operating system from within Windows XP so that you can switch between the operating systems seamlessly without having to sacrifice time for dual booting.).

   Since Longhorn was released in a very early state, the build number 4051 was not baked with all features and not optimized to run smoothly without loss of performance. The minimum requirements for installing Longhorn were the following:-

   Since I had to install Visual Studio .NET code named Whidbey to experiment with developing programs for the Longhorn platform, I had to go for the developer workbench configuration and set up the computer for installing Longhorn. Installation on a Virtual PC is slightly slower than installing on a PC. Specifically “Longhorn build 4051” was designed for developers who want to explore the Longhorn Software development Kit (SDK) and the unique features it exposes such as the .NET based WinFx Application Programming interfaces (APIs), the Avalon graphics engine, the Indigo Web Services Framework, the WinFS storage engine etc. There is not much for an average user to do much with Longhorn since none of the features have been fully implemented.

   The screens for installing Longhorn have changed from the earlier versions and Microsoft is doing a great deal of effort to make the installation totally automatic without a lot of user intervention. Longhorn installs in 3 steps. First one is collecting information, second one is installing Windows and the last one is completing the installation. Since I was installing it on a Virtual PC I accepted the default settings (anyhow it was a limited preview version and so there was no need to tweak a lot with the installation settings). Copying files took quite sometime and then the computer rebooted to the next stage which said (Detecting Hardware, this will take around 10 minutes). Well this took around 90 minutes to detect the hardware and thankfully all the hardware got detected. Well when you are installing to a Virtual PC the detection of the hardware is slightly different because Virtual PC uses an emulator to stimulate the hardware and does not utilize the entire capabilities of the video card. Next the computer rebooted after completing the hardware detection and soon the Longhorn boot-up screen appeared. This is similar to Windows XP boot up screen except that the color of the scrolling boxes is orange and the text says “Microsoft Windows code named Longhorn”. Next a blank screen with the Windows logo animating from the top and resting at the center of the page appears and then some strange text like “Waiting for Profiles”, “Waiting for DIMS”, “Waiting for GPClient” appears and finally after a considerable wait and the hard disk churning a lot, the desktop finally appears with the new “Slate look”. Longhorn –build 4051 sports a “Slate” theme which will be replaced with the “Aero” theme in the final release. Aero is the new Windows user interface which will sport new features like 3-D images, 3-D look and feel and will be completely vector-based. (Today everything is bitmapped in Windows). It is called “Slate” because it has a grayish color all over the desktop, title bars etc which resembles the color found on a slate.

   The first thing that catches interest is the Sidebar. The sidebar is a new element in Longhorn that appears on the desktop and is used to display dynamic information. More of this will be covered in a future release. Well the clock on the sidebar is a great innovation and is indeed worth having it on the desktop and indeed looking at an analog clock instead of a digital clock conveys a lot, just like the grand father clocks that we have at home. When the sidebar is turned off (yes it can be turned off) then you get the normal taskbar as you have in Windows XP with the clock on the right hand side in the system tray.

   Disclaimer.

   "Since the Longhorn version is in a very early stage of development there is no guarantee that the features explained will be there in the final version and is subject to change. This article should be taken only for getting a general idea of what is going to be available in Longhorn and not the actual features that will be a part of the final release of Longhorn"