What is new in Longhorn?

I remember the early days when Microsoft used to release a new version of Windows and there would be a lot of discussions all over the world whether this new version of Windows was worth upgrading to and whether the upgrading was really necessary.

Microsoft released its earlier versions of Windows (Windows 95, Windows 98) based on the Win32 model and (Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003) based on the NT model. Each new version meant new features on the WinNT model with full support for backward compatibility. And since Windows 2000 Microsoft stuck to the NTFS file system and also provided support for the FAT32 file system.

So let us see why Longhorn has taken the computing world by surprise and why are people all excited about what Longhorn has to offer. Longhorn marks a significant change not only in terms of how the operating system works, but also in the way in which applications are built. The core features of Longhorn are:-

A screen shot of how Longhorn looks like. Note the side bar on the right. This will host the quick bar, clock, calendar, alerts, notifications and a variety of other features like Tiles etc.

The presentation sub-system code named "Avalon" allows developers to take advantage of its capabilities through a new markup language code-name "XAML". This sub-system "Avalon" consists of a new collection of classes added to the .NET Framework. XAML is similar to XML and is used for defining the layout of the screen to include textboxes, buttons, images, animations and so on. The list is endless.

Programs written to Avalon will contain both the program code and XAML. The XAML will be used for defining the visual interface of the application and code will be written in a .NET compliant language which can either be embedded in the XAML itself or kept in separate files known to .NET developers as code-behind files.

Sample XAML code

Background="BlanchedAlmond"

FontFamily="Comic sans MS"

FontSize="36pt"

HorizontalAlignment="Center">

Hello, world!

After compiling it with MSBuild and viewing it in Longhorn the output is shown below.

Indigo is a set of .NET Framework-based technologies for building and running connected systems. Indigo is the next step in the evolutionary path that started with COM, COM+, and MSMQ and continues through .NET Remoting, ASMX, System.Messaging and .NET Enterprise Services. Indigo offers a single unified programming experience for developing services using any CLR-complaint language. With Indigo developers will be able to build a variety of rich communication-based applications that enables secure, reliable, transacted messaging over multiple transports and across heterogeneous systems.

The basic problem with data is that we always have too much of it and it is always too difficult to find what we want. This problem will get far worse in the future when typical computers will have hard disks measured in terabytes. The bigger the hard disk, the more data will be stored and it will be more difficult to find a particular item. With the rise in the capacity of storage media, users are faced with the dilemma of organizing the data so that retrieval of a particular document or file could be done within a short span of time. Longhorn solves this problem with the new storage subsystem that makes the task easier. This subsystem code named "WinFS" allows the user to perform searches based on the metadata of the stored item regardless of what type of file it is or which application created it.

With WinFS the user will be able to access data in multiple ways like XML, Object oriented programming and TSQL. WinFS is not a replacement for NTFS and not all folders will be placed in WinFS. Only directories like "My Documents", "My Contacts", "My Pictures", "My Music" etc will be placed in WinFS.

Note the folders "My Documents", "Photos and Videos", "Contacts", "Music" in the Start menu below. This is where WinFS works.

Disclaimer

"Since the Longhorn version is in a very early stage of development there is no guarantee that the features explained will be there in the final version and is subject to change. This article should be taken only for getting a general idea of what is going to be available in Longhorn and not the actual features that will be a part of the final release of Longhorn"