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.