Joshua

This week's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2003
trade show in New Orleans will mark the first public preview of
Longhorn, the next Windows desktop version. Long steeped in mystery,
Longhorn will be the first major new version of Windows since Windows
95, when Microsoft began to break its ties with the DOS-based past and
moved consumers into 32-bit computing. Longhorn will be an equally
important milestone for the software giant's customers, as it will
mark the first time since Win95 that each of Microsoft's three core
markets--consumers, business users, and developers--will see major
changes in the same Windows release. The two most recent
releases--Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP--provided major changes
for consumers and businesses only.

Of course, Longhorn is still largely an unknown, despite recent leaks
of early alpha builds (see the URL below for my recent Longhorn
preview). The product will feature a photo-realistic, video-based
layer on top of the standard Windows GUI and will provide 3-D
rendering technology for all the objects and widgets that make up the
Longhorn UI. Another key feature--a Microsoft SQL Server-based file
system called Windows Future Storage (WinFS)--began life as Storage+,
part of a trio of technologies (along with Forms+--now Windows
Forms--and COM+) that the company first touted several years ago. In
many ways, Microsoft has been working toward Longhorn since the
company formulated (and then subsequently dropped) plans for a Windows
NT successor, code-named Cairo, in the mid-1990s.

But this week, WinHEC will provide a more concrete, down-to-the-metal
view of Longhorn, with overviews of the product's core hardware
technologies. WinHEC attendees can choose from sessions about the
following Longhorn technologies:

- Longhorn drivers--This session with examine Microsoft's vision
for the new Driver Development Kit (DDK) and Hardware Compatibility
Test (HCT) kits that will accompany the next Windows version.

- Longhorn audio/video experience--Microsoft says audio and video
devices in the next Windows version will be easier to work with, for
both users and developers. This session will detail the
Windows-platform and device-UI enhancements that will make it easier
for users to set up, test, configure, and improve their experiences
with speakers, microphones, sound cards, video, and TV tuner cards.
The session will touch on topics such as audio/video (AV) device
installation, setup, configuration wizards and Control Panels, Windows
Volume Control and application mixing, and an overview of Longhorn's
new Audio Video Preferences Control Panel.

- Longhorn display convergence--This session will discuss ways
Longhorn will improve the out-of-the-box experience with "convergence
PCs" (i.e., PCs based on Windows Media Center or similarly targeted
Windows-based products). The session will include information about a
new Longhorn Signature Monitor, which will help OEMs create display
panels that are equally viable for AV applications and business uses,
and the XP Media Center Edition Display Calibration Wizard, which
helps deliver PC solutions through a television.

- Longhorn display platform and color management--This look at
Longhorn's color-management architecture will highlight the product's
new display innovations, which will apply to medical imaging,
professional photography, enterprise printing, and other real-world
scenarios.

- Longhorn manufacturing--This session will offer a guide to the
new and exciting features that Microsoft has planned for the Longhorn
Deployment Toolkit (also known as the Longhorn OEM Preinstallation
Kit--OPK). This session will detail the ways Microsoft will streamline
Longhorn installation.

- Designing portable media players for Longhorn--In a bid to offer
users a more integrated experience when working with portable media
players, Microsoft is creating a new set of standards for interacting
with Longhorn. This session will detail those features, which include
simplified device installation, new wire protocols for device
communications, and remote playback of AV content from a
Longhorn-based PC.

- Longhorn graphics drivers--Longhorn will take full advantage of
the massive amounts of 3-D rendering power in many users' PC video
cards, giving users a more stable and feature-rich experience. This
session will focus on the changes Microsoft is making to the Windows
display infrastructure to enable this new functionality, as well as
some changes in common display scenarios.

- Longhorn hardware-accelerated graphics and desktop
composition--This session will cover new hardware requirements for
Longhorn desktop composition, including Microsoft's plans to
hardware-accelerate 2-D graphics, 3-D graphics, and imaging in Windows
applications and on the Windows desktop. The session will also discuss
the requirements for enabling hardware-accelerated ClearType text
rendering in Longhorn.

In addition to this detailed Longhorn information, Microsoft will also
provide a first look at several other technologies, including future
Windows Media Center versions, Real-Time Communications (RTC) Server
(code-named Greenwich), Windows CE .NET 4.2, and the Next Generation
Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) technologies (formerly known as
Palladium).

"Longhorn Alpha Preview 3: Build 4015"
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/longhorn_4015.asp

__________________
The Apexer formerly known as SnotRocket.

"Like I ****ing said, "Ok, so I hear it may be a repost. Blah But I had never seen it, so..." **** you Canta." -Jenny 12/4/2003