Mary Jo Foley writes about members of the Joejoe.org site, who are taking the 2004 WinHEC build of Longhorn, which contained mountains of code that never made it into Windows Vista, and putting together Longhorn Reloaded, their version of what the final release might have looked like had Longhorn development not been famously reset later on. Milestone 1 has been released, based on Build 4074, complete with WinFS (the revolutionary file system we never got with Vista), and we’ll just have to wait and see how angry the lawyers are.
An exhibit in an Iowa antitrust case against Microsoft had this tidbit about Jim Allchin, the longtime chief of Windows development:
Exhibit 7264. Almost three years ago, on January 7, 2004, Jim Allchin, the senior executive at Microsoft, sent an E-mail to Microsoft’s top two executives, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, and the subject was losing our way.
Mr. Allchin says, I’m not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers, both business and home, the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems our customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that does not translate into great products. He goes on to say, I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.
This email is nearly 3 years old, and I was being purposefully dramatic in order to drive home a point. The point being that we needed to change and change quickly. We did: We changed dramatically the development process that was being used and we reset the Windows Vista development project in mid-2004, essentially starting over.
2-and-½ years later, Windows Vista has turned into a phenomenal product, better than any other OS we’ve ever built and far, far better than any other software available today, in my opinion. It’s going to be available to customers on Jan 30, and I suggest everyone go out and get it as soon as you can. It’s that good.
The fact is, Allchin shouldn’t be ashamed of that quote, he should be proud of it. Longhorn at that point was becoming a disaster, and the decision later that year to reset development was spurred on by emails like this very one, and most likely saved the company.
If you don’t reset Longhorn in mid-2004, there might not even be a Vista today. Right now, arguements around Vista center on design issues, battery issues, and graphics issues. If we were still dealing with the old Longhorn, the discussion would center on buggy code, incomplete and broken features, abysmal performance and awfully inconsistent interface and design issues. The only way Microsoft would have had Longhorn out when it actually got Vista out, would be by rushing it out the door, and not getting all the stabilizations and bug-fixing we’ve seen over the last year.
Mary Jo Foley interviewed Jim Allchin, the man most directly in charge of Windows Vista. They talk about the tough frog Microsoft had to eat to make Windows better and easier to update in the future, a big job that will pay off in future Windows versions. Also on the menu: the big reset of Longhorn and why XP Service Pack 2 wasn’t considered a new operating system.
And so I wanted to do anything I could to ease the deployment, and I felt that if I called this thing Windows XP release 2 or anything like that, I would have started a retest, re-verification, delay the deployment and in would have come an attack of some form. I wanted to, even with as simple thing as the name, we did things in technology to make it simple to deploy, too.
Want to read the whole inside story on the (long) development of Windows Vista, starting back in July of 2001? Well, Paul Thurrott is recounting the whole sordid tale for you (one that hopefully includes a happy ending), and it’s a good read. If you want to sound like a Windows expert in January, get reading. So far, Part 1: 2001-2002 is up.
Few remember it now, but in the earler stages of Longhorn, Microsoft was proposing some pretty crazy stuff for the Longhorn UI. Witness this video of “floppy windows” from 2003:
Well, you can get this sort of stuff in XGL, of course.
The new Windows Shell team blog discusses why they don’t have floppy windows in Vista. The reason: Vista can do it, as promised, but doesn’t, because it creates a crappy user experience. In fact, there are a million cool things the Vista UI can do, and the idea is that any third party can create a utility that hacks the Desktop Windows Manager to do it.
For god sakes, if you want to make a lot of money, someone needs to create an easy software program that lets users choose from hundreds of effects to add to Windows. Microsoft will have something to shut up Mac users, and Windows users will be able to do amazingly cool things. This is one area that needs to be exploited before Chris Pirillo abandons Windows forever.
Boing Boing reports that Microsoft has decided to make it a requirement for all drivers used in 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Longhorn Server to be certified before the operating system will let them load.
Considering that there is plenty of old hardware out there, and plenty of hardware companies that no longer exist, does Microsoft have a plan for unilaterally certifying those old drivers to avoid problems for users, or are they so concerned that all hardware be locked down to assist DRM?
Starting with Windows Vista and Windows Server (Longhorn), kernel-mode software must have a digital signature to load on x64-based computer systems.
The decision to block unsigned drivers from loading is a direct attempt to restrict the spread of powerful rootkits that intercept the native API in kernel-mode and directly manipulate Windows data structures.
“By requiring digital signatures on all kernel mode software running Windows Vista on x64-based computer systems, this allows the administrator or end user who is installing Windows-based software to know whether a legitimate publisher has provided the software package helping limit the impact of kernel malware on customers’ systems,” she said.
I guess Microsoft expects that if you have a 64-bit system, you had better have advanced hardware in the entire system.
Apparently, no one expected it to take so long for Longhorn to develop, so Microsoft set the end of support for Windows XP Home as December 31, 2006. The countdown is moving fast, after which the most popular operating system, with plenty of security flaws, stops getting new patches.
When that day comes, XP Home users may feel left out in the cold, because they will no longer qualify for security updates, and will not be able to purchase support from Microsoft. Finding this situation somewhat alarming, I contacted Microsoft’s representation to clarify the matter. A Microsoft spokesman relayed the following to me:
“For consumer products, security updates will be available through the end of the mainstream phase. For Windows XP Home Edition, there will be no security updates after 12/31/06.” Regarding paid support for problems unrelated to security patches, I was told that “Users who want to continue to receive support after the Microsoft assisted and paid support offerings have ended may visit the Retired Product Support Options Web site.”
Microsoft needs to add at least a year. Giving users barely a month to move from XP to Vista (or from XP Home to XP Professional, which has two more years of support and five years of extended support) is absurd, and unfair to supposedly valued customers. If XP boxes become wildly unsecure, it’ll only serve to bite Microsoft in the ass.
(via Mary Jo Foley)
This Wall Street Journal article is required reading. It basically explains how Jim Allchin convinced Bill Gates to change how Windows was being developed and scrapped years of code work.
While Windows itself couldn’t be a single module — it had too many functions for that — it could be designed so that Microsoft could easily plug in or pull out new features without disrupting the whole system. That was a cornerstone of a plan Messrs. Srivastava and Valentine proposed to their boss, Mr. Allchin. Microsoft would have to throw out years of computer code in Longhorn and start out with a fresh base. It would set up computers to automatically reject bug-laden code. The new Longhorn would have to be simple. It would leave bells and whistles for later — including Mr. Gates’s WinFS, Messrs. Srivastava and Allchin say.
This sounds very similar to how Apple built OS X, and could be what ultimately saves Microsoft. Of course, it also explains why Microsoft should never let Jim Allchin leave, like he has already announced he is doing.
(via Slashdot, where the comments on this are immensly interesting)
Dave Winer points to a News.com article discussing Microsoft’s moves to counter Google. It looks like the release of Vista is it; the big event that will define the future of Microsoft, Windows, Google, and all of computing. Which direction it goes in remains the big question.
Not long ago, experts were enjoying that Microsoft had removed the annoying Longhorn sidebar from recent builds and the Vista beta. Well, apparently it was all a feint, as Microsoft has retooled the sidebar to compete with Mac OS’s Dashboard, and Microsoft is trying to hide the news.
A photo originally posted at the Microsoft-run Hive community and reposted by Paul Thurrott:
Despite having previously announced that it was removing the Sidebar from Windows Vista, Microsoft this week returned the feature to its post-Beta 1 (e.g. 5200-series) builds. It’s not on by default, and is surprisingly similar to the Dashboard feature in Mac OS X Tiger, according to my sources. But it’s in there. And that’s all that counts.
Paul now says, where that post used to be:
Citing trade secrets, Microsoft has asked me to remove this posting. After a brief period of introspection, I’ve elected to do so. Hopefully, the 6 people who actually read this blog will understand my utter capitulation.
Here’s what all the fuss is about. Note that this image is a still from a movie found on a public Microsoft Web site. I guess it’s only OK when the leak comes directly from Microsoft, eh?
Slashdot had some big Microsoft news over the last few days, not of which I could post (frizzin’ frazzin’ host company). Here’s a quick roundup.
Win2000 Still Performs on 8-year-old Hardware - The issue isn’t as much that Win2K runs on old hardware, but that it does so while being compatible with most of the software and hardware released for XP. Given that I wouldn’t be surprised if a person in 2010 could claim the same thing about Longhorn and 12-year-old hardware (due to a lack of incompatibility caused by innovation), why would anyone buy a new PC? If Microsoft is smart, maybe every Longhorn consumer PC should be a Media Center PC, just to give some incentive.
MS Urging Developers To Prep For IE 7 - Microsoft is notifying web developers to prepare their sites for Internet Explorer 7. Of course, site owners will only care if PC users actually install IE7 (otherwise, they’ll hold off changes till Longhorn). With IE7 only working on some versions of Windows (and not SP1 systems), I wouldn’t be surprised if the XP SP2 versions of IE7 has the same market share as Firefox, if not less. Which brings us to:
Firefox Gains on IE Again in June - Firefox is gaining on IE, pulling within spitting distance of 10% market share, while IE drops to 86.56%. Firefox gains are not steamrolling, however, so at current growth it should hit 15% in January 2006.
Longhorn to Require Monitor-Based DRM - Apparently there will be some DRM support in Longhorn that, if it is determined that your monitor is not “secure” enough, will either downsample or deny playback of video. Like that can’t be avoided with a fifteen dollar box that dummies a secure monitor, attached to your video cable. Such a product doesn’t exist, but will sell in the millions of units is this actually happens. Perhaps Microsoft can explain to the idiots forcing them to do this that any DRM easily thwarted isn’t useful DRM at all.
Mary Jo Foley posts some of Microsoft’s claims as to the performance benefits of Longhorn over XP, including 50% faster bootups, 15 percent faster application starts, and two-second resumes from standby.
The countdown to Longhorn will begin later this month, according to Paul Thurrott, who reports that Longhorn Beta 1 will be shipping in late July. Other tidbits from his massive roundup:
Microsoft is experimenting with Project M, a major shell enhancement for Longhorn far more advanced than what we’ve been seeing. I hope this is true, and if it is: Thank you thank you thank you
Beta 1 will not have the currently showcased Aero UI, although it is reported to be almost surprisingly stable
Microsoft will unveil at PDC 2005 in September its plans to secure Windows against any possible security attacks through RSS. If successful, they could make RSS more popular than traditional browsing, by making it more secure.
AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel? How did I miss that one?
I want to hear Microsoft’s plans for getting the beta to trustworthy bloggers. If it really is coming in a few weeks, I would hope they plan to include the blogosphere in it.
(via Marc Orchant)
Amir Khella shows how to recreate Mac OSX’s Dock in Avalon. I can’t install Avalon on my system, so does anyone want to put together a video?
This is just an example of things that are easy with Avalon, which begs the question: Will Microsoft actually be using the functionality it created to make Windows’ UI better, or is it going to leave coolness to the developers? Perhaps Microsoft should make it easy (and resource-friendly) to create plugin that replace or suplement the UI and navigational elements for Windows, letting anyone put together a cool spin on Windows.
I picture some sort of floating 3D cube, with the Start menu on one face, the taskbar buttons on another, an advanced notification area (think Dashboard) on another, a search interface (for web and desktop search) on another, RSS on another, and simple shortcuts on the other. Does any of that make sense?
Here’s a dumb-looking mockup:
Don’t think I’m actually trying to be a UI designer. Just try to imagine your desktop replaced by a spinning cube with customizable navigational elements on each face. Now, I’m not saying that even 5% of computer users would want to junk the desktop and start menu for that. My point is that, with Avalon, such a thing should be simple, and the fact that it is simple would guarantee someone would make it. I really hope Microsoft makes it easy to develop cool UIs for Longhorn.
By the way, is there an award for terrible Photoshopping? Because I think that image deserves special recognition.
PC World has a nice look at Longhorn, next year’s Windows release, complete with screenshots. There’s a lot of focus on Aero, the new desktop theme which supports 3D and transparent window elements, and some enhancements to file browsing, such as virtual folders. All of it represents some nice enhancements to Windows, but it doesn’t look like enough for many to upgrade from the stable and similarly secure Windows XP.
A suggestion to the Windows UI team: All of those features that don’t “test well” and don’t seem useful enough for the vast majority of users? Put them in there anyway, just leave them off by default. If the geeks have a hundred different little options to customize Windows, it should help satisfy those who drool at Mac OS.
Two things:
Hey, Scoble, how can I (and other bloggers) tell everyone Longhorn is great, if we haven’t seen it yet? Its nice that PC World got a look, but what about the blogosphere? For that matter, the press contact list is atrocious. Shouldn’t there be an effort to get review copies of new products into the hands of as many well-linked bloggers as possible?
How can a computer magazine like PC World still have pop-ups on their website? What is this, 1998? Pathetic.
UPDATE: One Slashdot poster points out how Windows tends to evolve rapidly, but not dramatically, through each iteration, beta and release candidate. He links to several articles by Paul Thurrott previewing each version of “Whistler”, which eventually became Win XP (although it was rumored to be Windows.NET):
The one big feature that never made it from Whistler to XP was the Start Page, a full-page HTML task-based interface that replaced the Start Menu, if you wanted it. Longhorn famously had a sidebar that isn’t in the latest versions. I wonder if anyone knows if the Start Page is hidden somewhere in XP, or if Microsoft plans to put the Sidebar in Longhorn as an option, just for the hell of it. Does it really hurt anyone to add options, even if you think they stink?
Some quick links to clear out the ole’ aggregator.
Peter Moore To Keynote DigitalLife event in NYC
Peter Moore, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Publishing, Home and Entertainment Division, for its revolutionary and much-anticipated, Xbox 360TM video game and entertainment system, will deliver a keynote address at Ziff Davis’ DigitalLife event in New York City. Mr. Moore will open the event on Friday morning, October 14 at 10:30 a.m. ET. Mr. Moore will share his thoughts on how the next generation of videogame consoles will enable people of every age to come together in new ways and transform home entertainment. Good news for me, since I will be there.
Old Suit
The founder of Go Corp., a maker of handheld computers controlled by a pen that went out of business in 1994, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. that claims Microsoft drove the company out of business. Go said Microsoft withheld technical information and discouraged investments in the company because Microsoft perceived Go’s operating system as a threat to Windows
Phil Ringalda didn’t like part of the way Microsoft’s new RSS extension is structured, and suggested a cleaner format. Twenty-one hours later, the RSS team at MS, in their first blog post, suggested making his change pemanent and asked for feedback. When was the last time a blogger’s good idea changed the way something worked at Microsoft, let alone this quickly? There are some teams at Microsoft, that, if you blink, don’t seem to be working at Microsoft at all!
(via Scoble > Findory)
I’ve been wondering what, if anything, would be a compelling reason to use Longhorn over Windows XP. This is exactly the type of thing I’ve been hoping for.
Todd Bishop reports in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that Microsoft is dropping the “My” prefix from user folders in Windows, starting with Longhorn. This means no more “My Computer”, “My Documents”, “My Pictures”, “My Chicken”, or “My Severe Arthritic Thrombosis”. Microsoft started the whole “My” trend with Windows 95, and has decided, ten years later, that “My” is sooo played, with widespread use in websites such as My Yahoo, My eBay, MySwitzerland, and My Invasive and Embarrassing Surgery.
In fact, the very pervasiveness of the prefix is one reason the company is moving away from it, said Jim Allchin, who oversees Windows and related areas as Microsoft’s group vice president of platforms.
The company introduced the “my” prefix in part to give users obvious places for storing their own files, Allchin said. (Although users can rename the standard folders, and create their own, many tend to stick with the default Windows naming structure.) He acknowledged that the company also was aiming to make the experience more personal.
But now, the “my” prefix has become so ubiquitous in the technology industry that it’s no longer the distinguishing characteristic the company hoped it would be. In part, Allchin attributed the situation to the tendency of software developers to adopt the common Windows terminology when making programs that run on the Microsoft operating system.
“People got carried away,” Allchin said in a recent interview. “Anytime Microsoft does something, everybody wants to do it. … It became a worthless descriptor.”
Another change in the upcoming Windows version, code-named Longhorn, could render even the newly named default folders moot for some users. A new Windows search feature will let people create custom “virtual folders” that continuously gather files and organize them automatically based on keyword, file type and other characteristics.
