In a pre-show demonstration of the Longhorn graphics subsystem at the WinHEC trade show in New Orleans Monday night, I saw for the first time some of the advanced video effects that Microsoft will enable in the next Windows version. Longhorn, due in late 2004 or early 2005, includes a completely new desktop composition system that replaces the model used in previous Windows versions with one that is more technically advanced, visually appealing, and scalable. The early test versions Microsoft is showing at WinHEC include amazing animation effects, smooth window scaling, and advanced window translucency.
The change is startling. In previous Windows versions, the Windows desktop was rendered as a single display surface and each window is a region on that shared surface. In this model, individual windows are only responsible for drawing their own surfaces, and then only when those surfaces are not hidden by other windows. In Longhorn, each window has its own, full-featured surface, independent of the other windows and each window thinks it is always 100 percent visible, forcing it to redraw itself constantly. Likewise, the desktop is rendered many times a second by combining the contents of each open window. These changes requires significantly more graphics resources than previous Windows versions, of course, but Microsoft notes that most modern PCs have 3D graphics power to spare. For those PCs that don't have the hardware necessary to take advantage of the full Longhorn user experience, Microsoft will scale the graphics back into different modes.
Screenshot: >> Click here <<
News source: wininformant.com
The change is startling. In previous Windows versions, the Windows desktop was rendered as a single display surface and each window is a region on that shared surface. In this model, individual windows are only responsible for drawing their own surfaces, and then only when those surfaces are not hidden by other windows. In Longhorn, each window has its own, full-featured surface, independent of the other windows and each window thinks it is always 100 percent visible, forcing it to redraw itself constantly. Likewise, the desktop is rendered many times a second by combining the contents of each open window. These changes requires significantly more graphics resources than previous Windows versions, of course, but Microsoft notes that most modern PCs have 3D graphics power to spare. For those PCs that don't have the hardware necessary to take advantage of the full Longhorn user experience, Microsoft will scale the graphics back into different modes.
Screenshot: >> Click here << News source: wininformant.com
- Changelog:
- Sector Viewer
- Ability to look at every individual sector and see the content (normal or raw)
- Ability to save as *.rtf or *.txt file
- Ability to print every sector content
- Support for Pinnacle Image files (*.PDI)
- Map Erroneous sectors during scanning for lost UDF files and folders.
- Indicate if files contain errors or not after scanning.
- By means of a list
- By means of an extra icon next to every file
- Extra options to request that list
- Auto-scan function to find extensions for orphaned (nameless) files after UDF scan
- CD/DVD Surface scan routine to find physical errors.
- Check if all files are physically readable without having to extract them somewhere.
- The CD/DVD icon now also nicely mentions if the media is : DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW or DVD-RAM
- CD/DVD Properties Window shows amount of layers.
Improvements - UDF file improvement for Pioneer CE player created VR discs.
- Take in account badly mastered UDF with dead loop directory references (e.g. DirA contains DirB contains DirA again)
- Improve robustness and implement workarounds for corrupt UDF systems containing bogus data in certain critical fields.
- More logging features default enabled to do analysis.
- Small changes for future devices (cfr. more recent MMC specifications)
- Small GUI improvements.
- Sanitising data after scanning for lost UDF files or folders speeded up in case the directory data contains many errors.
- Improvement to not conflict with certain card reader drivers under Windows 2K and XP
Bugfixes - Switching between SPTI and ASPI could cause problems under WinXP and Win2K.
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Last edited by 20148 on 07 May 2003 - 15:18
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