PDC '05 is coming...

I just signed up for the next big conference, PDC '05, that's going to kick off right here in LA in September.

There are some great sessions planned this year on Longhorn, Office 12, IE7, WinFX, and so on. Once again, expect lots of information, pictures and possibly even video clips this time.

I'll set up a blog here on OSNN and post the link closer to the event date. Stay tuned. :)

Update (08/25): The OSNN PDC '05 Blog is now up!

Longhorn Evangelism/Feedback 'Team 99' resurfaces...

Think you know someone who would be able to relay your feedback to Microsoft? Someone passionate about computers, and someone trusted in your community? If so, make sure you post your nominations on Channel9, and let them know why he/she would be a good choice!

It looks like the Longhorn information floodgates are officially open—again. Microsoft employee and Longhorn evangelist Robert Scoble announced on his blog this weekend that he has been authorized to restart the "Team 99" Longhorn evangelism effort. On Microsoft's Channel 9 Web site, Scoble is soliciting member nominations for the third-party evangelism team, which initially is expected to include about 20 individuals. "All (Team 99 members) will need to sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) cause there are things in Longhorn that we don't want to leak out, but they'll be your proxies," Scoble blogged. "They'll tell us where we're screwing up, what we're doing well, and will be world's top authorities on Longhorn."

Scoble's announcement follows by a few days Microsoft's first public preview of its latest Longhorn build, No. 5048. Build 5048, which Microsoft distributed to attendees of its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) last week in Seattle, is an alpha release. Microsoft is characterizing Build 5048 as one aimed primarily at PC makers and software developers, whom the company is hoping to entice to write third-party drivers and applications for the next-generation version of the Windows desktop.

News post
Submit your nominations!

Here it is...

The wallpaper that everyone's been looking for. ;)

Removed at Microsoft's request (04/29).

Metro, Fail-over clustering, Virtualization and NGSCB...

Here are some topics that I couldn't cover in-depth during WinHEC due to time constraints, but that are worth noting.

• Steven Bink - "Metro", Longhorn's new print technology. More information about Metro can also be found at Microsoft's WHDC page, as well as through web searches.
• Steven Bink - Fail-over clustering in Longhorn
• Paul Mooney - Virtualization in Longhorn (Part 1, Part 2)
• InfoWorld - Microsoft delays most of its NGSCB security plan

Internet Explorer session - a huge let down...

I concluded my time at the WinHEC last evening with a session called "Internet Explorer - Today and Tomorrow" presented by Margaret Cobb, an ISV Group Manager. Most people who decided to attend the session hoped that we would be able to find out more about Internet Explorer 7. Unfortunately, we left the room feeling like we didn't gain anything substantial.

Almost all of the session was focussed on the improvements that XP SP2 brought to IE6, what Rafael "Uxtheme" Rivera aptly described as "old news" during the Q&A session. Only a couple of slides at the end of the session looked at IE7, and even those just provided a very broad, general overview of what was planned. The claims about Firefox having a poor security track record also left a bad taste in my mouth. Tom Warren has more on this.

Dave Massy, a Senior Program Manager of the IE team, was also present at the session, but appeared on stage only at the end of the presentation for what turned out to be a rather short Q&A session. Most questions about the future of IE received either a "wait for the beta" or "can't comment at this time" response. Now I understand that it might be early in the development process to give out any concrete details, but if that is indeed the case, I feel that a session dedicated to IE, especially one entitled "Internet Explorer - Today and Tomorrow," was unnecessary. Perhaps a session at the PDC this September would have been more appropriate after a beta release in summer. All in all, most of us felt that the session was a big let-down and not at all what we expected to see and hear.

Jim Allchin on Longhorn and WinHEC 2005...

Robert Scoble had the opportunity to interview Jim Allchin, the Group Vice President of Platforms at Microsoft, and had the link sent out by email last night to everyone who attended the blogger lunch on Tuesday.

The video begins with some casual talk and moves onto Allchin's view on WinHEC 2005 and the response that it generated. Jim then talks about 64-bit computing and finally moves on to Longhorn-related issues, giving us his opinion on why he thinks it will be a worthy upgrade for developers, enterprises and end-users.

The video is now up on Channel9, and Scoble has a nice index of all the questions that he asks during the interview.

Channel9: Interview with Jim Allchin

Avalon presentations at the FlashForward Conference...

This doesn't have anything to do with WinHEC, but I thought I'd post it while on the topic of Avalon.

Channel9 posted a new video in which Karsten Januszewski, a technical evangelist, showcases lots of very cool demos of Avalon's capabilities, including:

• XAML file presentation app.
• 3D composition app
• Skinning your app
• Avalon notepad
• Media Mania (you've seen this app on Channel 9 before, but here you get to see more)
• Electric Rain's ZAM 3D (amazing 3D to Avalon app)
• Video in Avalon (a preview of a future version of Avalon)
• Video on a 3D sphere
• video on multiple 3D spheres
• A "Halo strip" (multiple photos on 3D surfaces)

Go check it out while you wait for the next post later this evening. ;)

Avalon and Aero in Longhorn...

I attended a session on "Advances in Display and Composition Architecture for Windows" this morning. Kam Vedbrat, whom many of us have seen before in a couple of Channel9 videos, talked about Avalon and Aero in Longhorn and gave us a few neat demonstrations. We noticed a really nice-looking, new reflection-like effect in the upper glass border that we didn't see during the keynote presentation on Monday. It was subtle, but beautiful. A few of us also met up with Kam after the session to get some questions answered.

Avalon:

With Avalon, window contents are rendered to an off-screen buffer and composed to a back-buffer, which is then displayed on the screen. This enables significant improvements in quality, productivity and style. Avalon also aims to bring one consistent programming model for UI, graphics, media, and documents.

However, Microsoft realizes that not all applications will be Avalon-based, and that many Win32 apps will continue to be used on Longhorn systems. Longhorn will still provide automatic scaling of legacy Win32 applications to provide resolution-independence. To demonstrate this, Kam showed us how Longhorn nicely scales the legacy Calculator application and the Command Prompt window for high-resolution displays.

Kam also talked about possibilities for new tools that would help end-users manage a large number of open windows and the clutter associated with it.

Aero:

Finally, we were given a very clear explanation of the various tiers of the user experience. The tier that you use will depend on the type of graphics card you have in your system. The first two tiers are called "baseline" tiers, while the last two are meant to provide a "premium" experience.

1. Classic - This will be the classic Windows 2000 look that many corporations still prefer to use. The Classic tier will work with XPDDM (XP Display Driver Model) as well as the new LDDM (Longhorn Display Driver Model)
2. To Go - This is the second baseline tier. "To Go" will feature a new Longhorn look, but will not include any compositing or fancy effects. Again, this tier will work with both XPDDM and LDDM.
3. Aero Express - This is the lower premium tier. Aero Express was internally named "Metal" and the name still appears within certain files in Build 5048. Aero Express will include composition-based DPI scaling, and will only work with LDDM/DX9.
4. Aero Glass - Aero Glass, as you can imagine, is the highest user-experience tier that showcases the glass effect, 3D transitions and animations, and composition-based DPI scaling. This tier will function on higher-end graphics cards with LDDM/DX9 only.

Kam also later confirmed that "Diamond" is related to Longhorn's Media Center and doesn't really count as one of the Aero tiers.

The following slides summarize the four tiers and the system requirements:

The blogger lunch...

I was invited to a bloggers lunch at Tulio's this morning, where I had a chance to meet and mingle with fellow-bloggers and folks from Microsoft, including Joe Peterson, VP of Windows Product Development, Shanen Boettcher, Director of Longhorn development, and Clyde Rodriguez, Group Product Manager of Windows x64. Some of the bloggers I met included Tom Warren (aka creamhackered), Ryan Hoffman, Steven Bink, Paul Mooney, Robert Scoble, Paul Thurrott, and Chris Pirillo. It was wonderful to meet everyone.

I had a chance to talk to Shanen who was sitting next to me during lunch. One of my first questions to him was about WinFS - what exactly would it bring to the end-user since instant searches, stacks, lists, and other rich document visualization and organization capabilities can be achieved without it (as seen in the BillG keynote). Shanen explained that there was a miscommunication issue of sorts when the "three pillars" of Longhorn were announced at PDC 2003. All the capabilities mentioned above can be achieved without WinFS, and will be present when Longhorn goes RTM. WinFS takes it one step further when it ships by allowing third-party developers to extend and manipulate the schemas.

There was also a Q&A session at the end of the lunch, and people brought up several interesting questions that Joe was able to answer for us. Here's most of what was covered:

Skinnable UI - There is a possibility that Longhorn will allow end-users to control the user interface, giving them more control over their experiences, without resorting to third-party, unofficial hacks. Again, this is just a possibility, and not something that's been set in stone.

System Requirements - Joe was pretty clear about the fact that Longhorn should be able to run sufficiently well on a ~1.0GHz machine with 256MB of RAM (although at least 512MB would be recommended). In addition to having a new driver model for hardware, LH will also be backwards-compatible with drivers that work on XP today, so any hardware that works on XP should work on Longhorn as well.

32-bit or 64-bit - Apparently, most devs at Microsoft are currently developing Longhorn in a 64-bit environment. When the OS goes RTM, it will be a simultaneous 32-bit and 64-bit release, and customers will be able to buy a single copy that supports both architectures. The OS will detect the type of system you have and install the appropriate version.

Security through user accounts - In addition to Limited User Accounts (which Joe referred to as a Protected User Account) that many of us have known about for a while, Longhorn will also include a Protected Admin mode. This means that if you do login with administrative privileges (and most end-users will NOT need to do this), you will still be protected from unauthorized installations. This decreases the likelihood of getting affected by malware drastically, and is a long-awaited security measure that's finally coming with Longhorn.

Integrated anti-spyware solutions - Joe confirmed that Longhorn will ship with an integrated anti-spyware solution. We can reasonably assume that this will be largely derived from the Microsoft Anti-Spyware product for XP that is currently in the beta stage. However, just like Windows Firewall in XP SP2, the integrated solution will give higher priority to third-party anti-spyware applications if you do choose to install them.

What happened to the sidebar?
Remember the sidebar? Some people loved it; others just hated it. Well, if you've been keeping up with the news, you'll notice that the sidebar is gone from 5048. Is it coming back? Well, Joe summarized it by saying that it has been pulled for now, but could make its way back in the future.

To conclude, I'll leave you with some pictures of the blogger lunch. :)

Mobile PC's of tomorrow...

Next up, I went for the "Trends and Opportunities for Tomorrow's Mobile PC" session. Bill Mitchell, the VP of the Mobile Platforms Division began by talking about how the growth rate of mobile PC's is increasing rapidly as compared to the growth rate of regular desktop machines.

The "Today" section of the presentation looked at the Tablet PC Experience Pack that was released recently as a free add-on for Tablet PC users.



The "Longhorn and Beyond" part looked at new hardware technologies that are planned for Longhorn-era portables. He showed us a prototype of a small, new touchscreen device and how Longhorn makes touch-based navigation more precise. In addition to the increased emphasis on smaller form-factor devices, he also talked about the auxiliary displays that Gates touched on during his keynote yesterday.

While on the topic of instant access to information through auxiliary displays, Mitchell expressed the need for faster bootup and resume times and how Longhorn-generation PC's will address this issue using hybrid hard-drives with non-volatile flash. As you can see from the slide, the aim is to have instant access through the aux display, 2 seconds to resume from standby, 10 seconds from hibernate, and 15 seconds for full bootup.

Connectivity in Longhorn...

I attended the "Connectivity and Future of Computing" session this morning, where Javad Khaki, the VP of Windows Networking and Device Technologies talked about some of the new connectivity features in Longhorn. I got there a little late, but he was talking about qWave (Quality Windows Audio and Video Experience) which offers better multimedia streaming over variable bandwidth connections (like wireless networks, for example) through better utilization of available bandwidth.

Another new feature is Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD). Users can get a visual map of networks, showing nodes with appropriate icons for desktops and mobile machines, IP addresses, signal strengths for wireless links etc. This makes network diagnostics and troubleshooting easier.

There was also a demo of Web Services for Devices which effectively turns IP into just another bus like USB. Devices like printers that are installed on a network are automatically discovered and installed. Taking that one step further, if any changes are made to the printer physically by an administrator (adding a new paper tray, for example), the changes are automatically and instantaneously reflected in the printer options dialog on every machine on the network. So basically, it ends up being automatic discovery, installation and configuration, which can save admins in enterprises a lot of time and effort.

Answers to some of your questions...

Many of you had questions about Longhorn that you posted on the forums. Based on what I saw and heard today, I think I might be able to address some of them.

Tuffgong: For Security purposes is there going to be a difference between how XP handles user accounts and how Longhorn handles user accounts.

I attended the "Redefining the PC Opportunity" breakout session this afternoon where they explained some of the new security features in Longhorn related to user accounts. In addition to having Limited User Accounts, the system will also protect users logged in as Administrators by prompting them before performing certain kinds of tasks like installers etc so as to prevent self-installing malware from causing damage. We even got a demo of what the prompt looks like in the current stages.

gonaads: Also with the new data-organization that has been commented on. It has been said/commented that even if the WinFS file system doesn't ship with Longhorn that Longhorn will come with advances in data search and management that are "integrated into everything". That search results can be stacked, rearranged, filtered, and used to create new lists. They say that these lists can also include RSS feeds. Is this still true?

Yes, all of this is true, and we got a preview of many of these events during the keynote presentation today, which some of you had a chance to watch. Even without WinFS, users will be able to perform instant searches across the drive based on metadata. Stacks and Lists provide new ways of organizing similar types of information, again based on file metadata. So yes, metadata is going big in Longhorn. And while RSS integration was clearly mentioned, we didn't really get any specifics...only that it's going to be there.

tdinc: Will "Longhorn" implement a restructured firewall based on the XPSP2 version?

Gates did mention something about a two-way firewall during the keynote speech, so I'm guessing Longhorn will include a more complete firewall that's comparable to third-party solutions today.

gonaads: One big thing... If everyone is at the persent beginning to migrate to Win XP64 then what will be the situation when Longhorn rolls out? I have read that Longhorn may be set up to let users choose between a 32-bit or 64-bit option when they boot up their computers for the first time. Is this still a probability?

Longhorn will ship as both 32 and 64-bit editions. I'm not sure about the specifics and whether they will be two separate products like XP Pro and XP x64 Pro are. The CD that we received contains both x86 and x64 versions of LH 5048. :)

These are answers just based on what I saw and heard today. Will probably get a chance to get more questions answered tomorrow at the lunch.

Longhorn release schedule...

From the keynote this morning...

WinHEC 2005 (April 2005) - Drivers frozen
Beta 1 (Summer 2005) - Fundamentals frozen
PDC 2005 (September 2005) - API's frozen
Beta 2 - Consumer/end-user features frozen

RTM - Holiday season 2006

Day 1 - x64 Street Marketing and the Keynote...

Just got a whole set of pictures up from the x64 street marketing campaign and the Bill Gates keynote presentation this morning.

The keynote was awesome. I'm not sure if the video is up yet, but when it is, make sure you check it out. There's a lot of very interesting stuff. Gates looked back at the industry's progress over the last two decades, then moved on to 64-bit and multi-core computing with two great demos showing the tremendous benefits of 64-bit in 3D rendering and complex SQL operations. We also had a chance to see the latest Tablet PC's, including an "UltraMobile" device that looked really intriguing. We also got a preview of Longhorn (Builds 5059 and 5060), with some awesome visual effects, and the new information/data organization features like instant-search, stacks, lists etc.

I'll try to post more info on all of this as soon as I get the chance, but the breakout sessions begin in 10 minutes, and I have to get out of here. Until next time, enjoy the pictures. They should keep you busy for a while. ;)

Getting ready for the keynote...

We just did some street marketing with the x64 crew this morning. I'll try to get the pictures up at noon today. Woke up at 6AM and got here around 7:30. I'm now waiting in the Press Room. The BillG keynote kicks off in a little while.

The StartSomethingPC site has now opened up. As many of us expected, it's a competition of sorts to design the next-generation Windows-based PC's. We should be seeing some very interesting new hardware designs in the near future.

x64 VIP dinner pictures...

That was a blast!

Yes, we actually got an AMD Athlon64 4000+ and a 256MB nVidia GeForce 6800 GT in that kick-ass briefcase! It also included Windows XP x64 Pro, FarCry, Chronicles of Riddick, Unreal Tournament 2004, Shadow Ops, the obligatory T-shirt, a x64 sticker and a 64MB USB stick.

It's just the first night, and I'm already convinced this thing was well worth the trip. :D More coming up tomorrow, so keep watching this space.

WinHEC 2005 kicks off in 5 days...

As many of you already know, WinHEC 2005 kicks off next week in Seattle. This year's conference focuses on Windows Codename Longhorn, as well as Windows XP x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64.

Microsoft has sent out invitations to Featured Communities like OSNN, and since E-Punk is unable to attend, I will be representing our community at the event this year. In addition to receiving the registration pass for the 3-day conference, we have also been invited to the x64 Launch Event, which includes a dinner on Sunday night with members of the x64 Windows dev team at the Sheraton, a launch party on Monday night, and some other events.

And as if that wasn't enough fun, we have also received an invitation for lunch on Monday with the Vice President of Windows product development, the Director of Longhorn development, and the Group PM of the Windows x64 team.

Since I am fortunate enough to be able to meet some very bright people while I'm there, I'd be happy to ask them any questions that you might have about Longhorn or Windows XP/Server x64. As you think of questions, feel free to post them in this thread, and I'll be sure to get the answers from the people concerned if I get a chance.

I will be covering the conference here on the OSNN WinHEC 2005 blog, possibly at regular intervals during the day (I'll have my laptop and camera with me), with a more comprehensive story that wraps up the day's events every evening/night; so stay tuned. :)