mrk Reviews Posted February 9, 2004 Reviews Share Posted February 9, 2004 (edited) Well, I've been meaning to writeup something about this for a while but lack of a spare hard disk meant waiting. Yesterday a girl at work gave me some wad for a new hard disk to install on her PC on Wednesday night - so as there is 2 days left I thought "what the hell" and proceeded to install this fresh build of the latest MS offering in Alpha form of course. Installation Installation was easier than XP, in fact it only ever required me to click continue basically and it did the rest. - Nice to see they changed the interface too, it looks more professional than playdoh-like now (XP) First Boot First boot, as always with widows took it's time, averaging 10 Min's or so but once it got loaded everything ran fine and i didn't even have to install any drivers at all bar the sound card ones (which were built on June 2003 for 2k/xp but they worked flawlessly) Immediately noticeable is the massive sidebar which can be shrunk to a desired size of course or auto hidden so it scrolls out or it can be tucked away amongst the system tray where it "morphs" to. From here it's pretty much XP, the main difference being Explorer has changed completely with a new preview pane which gives dynamic info depending on what's in the folder and again just like the side bar can be hidden or resized accordingly. My cable connection was instantly connected form boot and I was happy to see the ipv6 firewall was enabled by default. A quick click of Internet Explorer and the net came to life! the most immediate difference with the new IE is the visual style, it looks nice and refined but packs a damn powerful punch. On XP I use both IE and Firebird, I've also used Operas latest offering and I can safely say that the Longhorn version of IE simply kicks them silly. It's just so fast, much faster than firebird, pages loaded, in an instant, this very forum didn't even bat an eyelid and the pop up blocker and download manager were very welcome. Usability Is this version very usable? Yes and No, well, if you just want it installed and want to fiddle around for hours on end and try out new things then yes, but of you want to share the internet connection then no chance. There are still features visible in LH but not installed or enabled like ICS but you can get round this via a router/HUB easily enough. This version of LH is fast when it loads but the start bar and sidebar add an extra 1 minute to the login process when the desktop and icons load so expect to be hanging around start bar-less for a bit when you first boot. Funky **** Oh yes, there's lots of funky **** in LH that needs to be mentioned, from the morphing image previews and thumbnails to the device icons that animate themselves periodically! it gets even better if you have dx9 card I'm told and as LH progresses this will get more focus throughout Now I hear people say And rightly so, I've finished what I wanted to say so here's screens and videos aplenty :p http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robbiekhan/root/temp/longhorn/ And lastly the system I used this build on. Athlon XP 2400+ @ 2.18GHz 512MB Crucial DDR2100 @ 2,2,2,5,2 @ 290MHz Abit KR7A 133-r motherboard (APIC off) Maxtor DX9 40GB Santa Cruz PCI soundcard Golden sample ti4200 64MB 3x Realtek 100MB/s nics liteon cdrw liteon dvd Edited February 9, 2004 by mrk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshMan Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 Some cool stuff there, thanks for sharing. I was wondering if someone could extract and send me the Animation on the Copy event, shown in this video courtesy of mrk: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robbiekhan/ro...n/animation.wmv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougkinzinger Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 Kinda cool, but most other Longhorn installers have said the same thing. But it's good to share your info with those who don't have a beta copy around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrk Reviews Posted February 9, 2004 Author Reviews Share Posted February 9, 2004 eek, I thought i disabled audio to save space :p ah well, its my bro talking in the BG there btw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xp1ode Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 looks good so far, but as we already know, alot of things are going to change because is MS's nature, hopefully in the next two years (which is a looong time) the changes are more innovative. The way it looks now would've been great to maybe have it as a beta, i like the look and peoples response and explenations. Hopefully time goes by fast or hopefully it gets released ahead of schedule, can't wait to see how this is going to turn out, i like how is going from peoples previews... thanks mrk... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrk Reviews Posted February 9, 2004 Author Reviews Share Posted February 9, 2004 I agree there, by how this runs and feels it can only get better methinks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nazgul Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 Nice man, thanks for the vids :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmoth Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 :sleep: This is similar to other Longhorn testers reviews of recent builds! :sleep: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrk Reviews Posted February 9, 2004 Author Reviews Share Posted February 9, 2004 :sleep: This is similar to other Longhorn testers reviews of recent builds! :sleep: yeah, well, not EVERYONE will have teh SAME experience so everyones view counts plus at least we are doing something to inform explain and describe to users without longhorn! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfish Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 this is something i havent been able to find an answer to: in longhorn screenshots, what is the home, magnifying glass, and circled star icons on the title bar for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death By Sexy Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 i like those image floaters. nifty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freakyfriday Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 Kinda cool, but most other Longhorn installers have said the same thing. But it's good to share your info with those who don't have a beta copy around. is Pre-Alpha.. not beta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted February 10, 2004 MVC Share Posted February 10, 2004 nice vids but how about install windows media encoder 9 and just record your desktop :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graeme_7799 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 :sleep: This is similar to other Longhorn testers reviews of recent builds! :sleep: yes indeed, very boring... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmoth Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 yes indeed, very boring... Yes, thanks! At least someone agreed with me. The fact is that since Longhorn is still in BETA, everyone is going to have the same experience unless you have a huge amount of RAM and a really fast processor (and even with that, Longhorn isn't built to be stable yet). So, for those who say that not everyone will have the same experience :no: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrk Reviews Posted February 10, 2004 Author Reviews Share Posted February 10, 2004 another forum user with pretty much same spec as me but with ddr333 ram has the same build and said it runs very slow for him, however for me it runs very fast and ive not had any stability issues yet. even moreso after installing the det 5303 its been even faster at boot and ive managed to run 3dmark2001se and get 11K+ http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7542239 Also I've updated the screenshots and videos in the link provided up above. It might be only beta but it's something at least.. if you find it boring then do the wise thing and dont complain by wasting even MORE time just to say it's boring... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y_notm Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 this is something i havent been able to find an answer to:in longhorn screenshots, what is the home, magnifying glass, and circled star icons on the title bar for Home, Search, and Favorites :ninja: just like the last 4 versions of windows that had similar icons do the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osiris Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 I got plenty of hdd space.......someone send me a copy? maybe ill write to microsoft, everyone else seems to have one :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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