Microsoft Longhorn Build 5048 at WinHEC

[Apex]

@WinBeta

Three hundred and fifty three days, that’s how long its been since the outside world has been given a peek at the state of Windows, Codename Longhorn. On that day, almost a full year ago now, at WinHec 2004 we received the Longhorn build 4074 DVD in our kit; as recently as today I saw someone in our IRC channel seeking a download of that same build. The long drought for a new build of Longhorn is officially over. I proudly present to you, build 5048…

What follows is not an assessment of stability nor critique of its features, but a peek into what we might be able to expect from a more complete operating system. Jim Allchin, vice president of Microsoft Platforms Group, has publicly predicted Longhorn is to be only 1/3 feature complete at the time of Beta 1. I don’t think it too fair that we judge this pre-beta build to par with an OS that one would feel comfortable with on a day to day basis. Qualifying statements aside, I will comment though that with the limited time spent with this build, its been very very well behaved. I even left it booted for two days straight without it leaking memory all over my desk.

A few general observations:

5048 is to be considered a baseline platform, it doesn’t have many bells and whistles. Like any builder, the architects at Microsoft have been working on the foundation first. To the casual observer, Longhorn feels like XP with a new shell. But that is truly where the similarities end. A quick glance at the root of the system drive tells a different story. Dig deeper, and the chasm widens. As I’ve only had a limited time with these recient builds, my thought is to leave the technical analysis to later when more concrete facts can be presented.

The above observation is the result of the hard work that’s been going on under the hood. My opinion is there is a little bit of, “Lets make sure this build isn’t a pig like last years.” As I mentioned above, 5048 is well behaved. Aside from the many things that are noticeably not working, you can expect 5048 to hum along nicely until you get frustrated with it’s missing and broken pieces. I even took some time to do a little gaming. While the hardware I have it installed on is no slouch, (Athlon 64 at 2.75ghz and 1 gig of ram, 6600GT) once I was immersed in a game, there was no noticeable lag. I’ll leave the benchmarking and ruminating over performance to those that expect more of a pre-beta platform than should be expected of this particular spring chicken.

I also noticed a few items conspicuously missing, like the inability to run Add/Remove Windows Components. Seems the easiest way to disable access to features is to not let us install them. Then again I could be reading into something that just isn’t complete. (no Run DLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL appwiz.cpl,2 doesn’t work) Upon further inquiry, I was informed that currently this function is only accessible via a command line tool.

The Stats:

Windows main version: 6.0.5048.winmain_idx02.050401-0536 Compiled on the 1st of april as you can see and given the official Internal Development Workstation (IDW) stamp.

Internet Explorer: 6.0.5048.0

DirectX: 9.0c 4.09.00.0904

Windows Media Player: 10.00.00.3658

Some screenshots from this build are attached below.
More Details and Screenshots here.

[AlbertPacino]

Sweet! another longhorn leak! i really like how Longhorn looks as UI but i wonder if it will be the same pain as the XP family,from most preview’s longhorn sounds like a new update more then a new software but then again Microsoft has lots of haters out there,i guess we need to wait to test it our selfs.

Great post mate!

[lil0]

well need to buy an athlon 64 8600+ or somethin’ like that.

[Apex]

More Longhorn 5048 Screenshots:

[RANK=“ITPro Today | Leading the Charge in Digital Transformation and IT”][/RANK][RANK=“ITPro Today | Leading the Charge in Digital Transformation and IT”][/RANK][RANK=“ITPro Today | Leading the Charge in Digital Transformation and IT”][/RANK]
[RANK=“ITPro Today | Leading the Charge in Digital Transformation and IT”][/RANK][RANK=“ITPro Today | Leading the Charge in Digital Transformation and IT”][/RANK][RANK=“ITPro Today | Leading the Charge in Digital Transformation and IT”][/RANK]

Source: WinSupersite

[it_waaznt_me]

Hmmm.. Microsoft is telling everyone to put off the Longhorn screenshots … See this too .. I read a bitter article by Paul Thurrot too .. but cant seem to find it again .. looks like he has pulled it off ..

[_HeadShot]

Great info there, mate!

[archish]

well i think ms is trying pretty hard to compete with OSX.4 features

[hellscream666]

Yup i think so too…but SP2 is also OK so???

[Nikhil]

What a coincidence… I also got hold of some Longhorn screenshots…

Looks real sweet. Hope it is as nice to work with.

[Apex]

where did you get that last screenshot frm?
windows.net with msn?

[Nikhil]

I am sorry but I cannot vouch for the authenticity of these screenshots. I got it by email…

[kalair]

what is this about?

[Rockyme2002]

^^^Longhorn , Microsofts About to release OS

[rahul001]

Nice Info Dude I like it

[Freaky]

Eveything’s fine. But if any of u do manage to d/l the 5048 version ( it is available thro’ BT ), make sure that u do not have any other OS in ur comp, coz’ what LH does is that it changes the drive letter in which u install it to C : thereby messing with ur drive mapping, a result of which u will not be able to boot into any OS which is installed in ur comp. So the best way to run multiple OS with LH is to install LH first and then install other OS using bootable discs. Am saying this from personal xperience. And the interface does look like the screenshots posted by Quickfire.

[Shripad]

i posted with screenshots a while ago.
Here is that thread.

TechEnclave

To be honest its good only for testing. Its stable alright but not functional OS build.
So many things dosent work or are screwed. Basically its meant for device driver testing.

[Baadil]

Plenty of screenshots going around, I wonder when will they really ship the real product.