Longhorn is the next OS from Microsoft. Planned to release it in 2006... but mostly will hit sometime in 2007.. may be. Here are few screenshots of the next gen OS.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_4074_01.asp

It requires atleast 32MB of VGA card for the minimum graphics, recommended is 64MB. Must have a P4 and a lot of memory to run it properly.

Would be a huge boost for computer hardware industry.

Yeah.. and i am already lagging so behind

Was fortunate enough to lay my hands on this new OS... It has some other features which will change the way we looks at basic things like files etc...

WARNING!!!!!! A bit techie stuff ahead...

To start with, it comes with a new file system called WinFS. Then there will be a new shell alongwith existing cmd.exe. This shell is codenamed Monad and will be having a powerful scripting language and will be totally object oriented. The GUI is really good but as mentioned by myawan will require an equally good graphics card... Also M$ is planning to completely do away with reboot stuff. No more reboots after installing new softwares

But when I heard last, the release of this OS is postponed till 2006. It was originally suppose to hit markets by end of 2005...

Cheers,

Why dont they fix things in Windows 98 and Windows ME? Both OSes are complete mess. Users have to cry day and night to get things working that are already there. I dont know what they are behind creating a new OS every 2 yrs. Pehle jo banaya hai woh itna garbad wala hai jyada banate hi jaa rahe hai. They just dont get a hint. DUH!

Yeah thatz money for microsoft. Time ke saath chalo...

fix kiya to naya kaun kharidega aab to support bhi ban kar diya hai

I've heard they have dropped winfs from longhorn... is this true?

Yes I guess WinFS will not come with initial release of Longhorn... As usual microsoft slips...

Cheers,

Maybe coz WinFS doesnt support Fat32 and the good old FAT file system.
Argh who knows, Microsoft introduced so many file systems, I am losing track of them already...

-Azgar

As far as I know WinFS is an independent FS?

Pradeep,

Can you please elaborate on "independent file system"?

Pranav

Does it support FAT32? Meaning.. can it sit as a layer on FAT32 as well? I was reading an article few weeks back, which claimed that longhorn needs NTFS partiition and winFS optimizes the storage by holding the TOC and meta data.

Pradeep you are correct when you say that WinFS is an independent FS. Also, if I remember correctly, Longhorn will need NTFS and as you said WinFS will hold the metadata of the file stored in NTFS. This is because initial release of Longhorn will not have WinFS. The rumours are that WinFS may not be publicly available until about late 2007 or early 2008. It may come with SP1 of longhorn (not even Longhorn Server).

I have some vague idea of how WinFS accesses files in NTFS or other data store, not sure if they are changing this now (I may be wrong)...

Say for example if you have a file in NTFS, you can import that file in WinFS. When you do this, the file stream is still stored in NTFS but the metadata of the file like creation date, etc is stored in WinFS alongwith a pointer to NTFS file stream where the actual file data resides. For a user, the file is in WinFS, that is, user can access the file as if it is stored entirely in WinFS.

Similarly, a user can export file stored in WinFS (metadata alongwith file data stored in WinFS) to NTFS.

But WinFS is not just a file system. Microsoft claims that it will be able to store outlook contacts, events and probably database too in a similar fashion. This will enable anyone to seamlessly fetch data from different data stores like NTFS, Outlook contacts, Yukon as if they were files stored in WinFS.

As of now, WinFS does not support importing/exporting files from/to FAT32. But given that WinFS exposes framework APIs, if Microsoft is not coming up with this, someone else may write a software to integrate FAT32 with WinFS.

Cheers,

Bye Bye Windows 95, 98, ME ...

Although 3rd party software vendors will try to create a 'bridge software' to convert the old FS to new FS, but for an average user its a farewell to the old O/S.

-Azgar

M$ has long back stopped supporting 95,98,ME. For them they are just like Windows 3.0 or DOS

Cheers,

I thouht XP is the best! magar kyon kyon kyon Lonhorn agaya

Here are couple of screenshots of Longhorn.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

colours and graphics look awesome!

About time 1+ GB RAM and a superior graphics card becomes prerequisite for day-to-day computing...

Cheers,