I’m sure most of you have heard of Longhorn by now but you may not be sure what exactly it is. “Longhorn†is the codename for a wave of products that Microsoft is planning to release in 2006 – the most important of which is the next version of the Windows operating system itself. The word “Longhorn†comes from a mountain near the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Seattle.
The 3 Pillars
Longhorn is probably the most important version of Windows since the path-breaking Windows 95. We’ll look at the 3 main features that Longhorn boasts of. Longhorn is said to be built on top of 3 pillars.
Avalon
Avalon is the new graphics sub-system in Longhorn. Whatever you see on the screen would be due to Avalon. For those of you who are into gaming, you’d be aware of the power of the graphics cards present today. However, Windows XP cannot use this graphics power to display its UI. However, this changes in Longhorn. Instead of using the CPU, Avalon uses the graphics card to do its magic.
By harnessing this power, you can now expect Windows to look and feel very different. Windows can now be animated, translucent and even 3-dimensional as Avalon has full-fledged 3d support. All these new features also mean that developers would need a new way of writing applications. That new language is called XAML (for eXtensible Application Markup Language).
Indigo
Indigo is the new communication/networking subsystem in Longhorn. Ever since Bill Joy developed Berkeley sockets, there has been no major revolution in the way we write networking applications. However this promises to change with Indigo.
Indigo is a revolutionary new model for writing any type of communication application.
XAML is a new XML-based markup language that makes developing GUI applications as easy as developing HTML-based web sites. XAML is built on top of the .NET framework and .xaml files can be run by Internet Explorer also.
In early September, Microsoft stunned the world by announcing that Avalon would be made available on Windows XP and Windows 2003 also. This means that if you write Avalon applications, anyone with Windows XP and above can run those applications
It is built on top of 2 fundamental concepts – channels and messages. Channels, as the name implies, is a path of communication that exists between 2 computers. Channels can be written on top of any protocol, be it high level protocols such as HTTP and SOAP or low-level protocols such as TCP and UDP. Channels can be built even on top of P2P networks such as Gnutella. Messages are the things that are sent over these channels. Messages can contain any sort of data, giving the programmer huge flexibility.
Like Avalon, Microsoft has announced that Indigo would be made available for Windows XP and Windows 2003.
WinFS
WinFS (Windows File system) is the new data storage model present in Longhorn. In the early 90s, Microsoft announced “Cairo†which was supposed to be an object-oriented version of Windows. Though Cairo was never released, Microsoft has been constantly working on ways of making it easier for people to view and find their data.
Today, every application stores data in its own format. For example, you cannot find out which word documents were sent by the people in your MSN friends list. WinFS changes all this by providing a common place for all applications to store their data. With WinFS, you could perform searches like “Find all word documents sent by my boss in the last 2 weeksâ€. WinFS does this by storing data in SQL Server and finding the relationships between data.
Microsoft has announced that WinFS would be released a year after Longhorn is released. This puts the prospective date for WinFS somewhere in 2007.
Other features
Longhorn has several other features like “Aeroâ€, the new user-interface and the new “sidebarâ€. It also has several enhancements to Internet Explorer as well inbuilt anti-virus, DVD writing support.
I assume at this time, you would have known lot about Microsoft's next generation OS. You can also check the attachments provided along with thi article to preview some of the features of LongHorn. And I am providing with some of the reference sites below for you guys to check out. More screenshots and reviews available at sites mentioned below.
Thanks to Sriram
The 3 Pillars
Longhorn is probably the most important version of Windows since the path-breaking Windows 95. We’ll look at the 3 main features that Longhorn boasts of. Longhorn is said to be built on top of 3 pillars.
Avalon
Avalon is the new graphics sub-system in Longhorn. Whatever you see on the screen would be due to Avalon. For those of you who are into gaming, you’d be aware of the power of the graphics cards present today. However, Windows XP cannot use this graphics power to display its UI. However, this changes in Longhorn. Instead of using the CPU, Avalon uses the graphics card to do its magic.
By harnessing this power, you can now expect Windows to look and feel very different. Windows can now be animated, translucent and even 3-dimensional as Avalon has full-fledged 3d support. All these new features also mean that developers would need a new way of writing applications. That new language is called XAML (for eXtensible Application Markup Language).
Indigo
Indigo is the new communication/networking subsystem in Longhorn. Ever since Bill Joy developed Berkeley sockets, there has been no major revolution in the way we write networking applications. However this promises to change with Indigo.
Indigo is a revolutionary new model for writing any type of communication application.
XAML is a new XML-based markup language that makes developing GUI applications as easy as developing HTML-based web sites. XAML is built on top of the .NET framework and .xaml files can be run by Internet Explorer also.
In early September, Microsoft stunned the world by announcing that Avalon would be made available on Windows XP and Windows 2003 also. This means that if you write Avalon applications, anyone with Windows XP and above can run those applications
It is built on top of 2 fundamental concepts – channels and messages. Channels, as the name implies, is a path of communication that exists between 2 computers. Channels can be written on top of any protocol, be it high level protocols such as HTTP and SOAP or low-level protocols such as TCP and UDP. Channels can be built even on top of P2P networks such as Gnutella. Messages are the things that are sent over these channels. Messages can contain any sort of data, giving the programmer huge flexibility.
Like Avalon, Microsoft has announced that Indigo would be made available for Windows XP and Windows 2003.
WinFS
WinFS (Windows File system) is the new data storage model present in Longhorn. In the early 90s, Microsoft announced “Cairo†which was supposed to be an object-oriented version of Windows. Though Cairo was never released, Microsoft has been constantly working on ways of making it easier for people to view and find their data.
Today, every application stores data in its own format. For example, you cannot find out which word documents were sent by the people in your MSN friends list. WinFS changes all this by providing a common place for all applications to store their data. With WinFS, you could perform searches like “Find all word documents sent by my boss in the last 2 weeksâ€. WinFS does this by storing data in SQL Server and finding the relationships between data.
Microsoft has announced that WinFS would be released a year after Longhorn is released. This puts the prospective date for WinFS somewhere in 2007.
Other features
Longhorn has several other features like “Aeroâ€, the new user-interface and the new “sidebarâ€. It also has several enhancements to Internet Explorer as well inbuilt anti-virus, DVD writing support.
I assume at this time, you would have known lot about Microsoft's next generation OS. You can also check the attachments provided along with thi article to preview some of the features of LongHorn. And I am providing with some of the reference sites below for you guys to check out. More screenshots and reviews available at sites mentioned below.
Resources
MSDN : http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com
WinSuperSite : http://www.winsupersite.com
LongHorn Blogs : Windows-Now.com - Blogs
Thanks to Sriram
