Longhorn could be tough sell for Microsoft

[raskren]

Come on guys - XP themes don't look anywhere near as nice as OS X does and you know it. You can't even get alpha blended shadows unless you use a buggy app like Y'z Shadow.

585699503[/snapback]

WRONG!

Windows XP supports full alpha blended transparency.

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

dear god.. i hate when things like this come up, it's pointless really.

longhorn is gonna sell, it's someones opinion, and it's been waited for for almost 2 years now. stop these stupid little quotes that people THINk is gonna happen, and get the FACTS.

[Guest]

Most people who are like that just install a Mac OS X theme :rofl: they wont buy a Mac just for that reason alone. If what you are saying was to be true, Apple would have a higher market share but instead what we see is a lot of people just make their Windows look like Mac OS. :D

585699483[/snapback]

actually, i bought a powerbook and 50% of it was because of os x and about 50% of that was because it looks pretty so i'd say its a quarter for me... but still... yep, i bought it cuz it was pretty and os x themes suck, they are never right

oh yea and tis stupid debating this at this point, its common sence that it aint anywhere near ready yet... and remember... many people will have newer hardware when is out anyway :rolleyes:

[EduardValencia]

dear god.. i hate when things like this come up, it's pointless really. 

longhorn is gonna sell, it's someones opinion, and it's been waited for for almost 2 years now.  stop these stupid little quotes that people THINk is gonna happen, and get the FACTS.

585699528[/snapback]

totally agree :yes:

[jerry]

dear god.. i hate when things like this come up, it's pointless really. 

longhorn is gonna sell, it's someones opinion, and it's been waited for for almost 2 years now.  stop these stupid little quotes that people THINk is gonna happen, and get the FACTS.

585699528[/snapback]

Facts ? So you have the fact of what is going to happen in 2006 ?

And no this article is not saying Longhorn will be a tough sell for Microsoft. I've seen people not reading the thread/article before but not reading the title ? :whistle:

[JustGeorge]

Everyone will have LH eventually, whether you want it or not. They will slam the door on XP support/updates and all new machines will have LH installed.

I'm personally going to put it off for as long as possible. This whole "trustworthy computing" BS going into LH is just one more POS idea, that will only complicate the lives of legit users and add one more notch to the belts of pirates.

I'm hoping that my underclocked brain decides to "click" with Linux, so I won't need LH at all.

[Menge]

WRONG!

Windows XP supports full alpha blended transparency.

585699518[/snapback]

Windows GDI+ does, the widget part of the Theme API does. NOT the window parts of the Theme API.

[Robbie Khan Reviews]

Where did you get that info from??

Anyway I'm gonna buy it! Just bought new laptop, and I think it'd be powerful enough to run LH.

585699329[/snapback]

eh, LH is out late 2006, by that time your lappy will be old hat :p

since ill have a full time job longhorn will be the first os i actually buy with my own money :D

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Facts ? So you have the fact of what is going to happen in 2006 ?

And no this article is not saying Longhorn will be a tough sell for Microsoft. I've seen people not reading the thread/article before but not reading the title ?  :whistle:

585699544[/snapback]

NO. so why blab about it now? i bet it out sells windows XP. people are so dumb these days. "longhorn won't sell, and everyone will go out and buy a mac just to rub it in bill gates face"

who cares. topic is pointless

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Come on guys - XP themes don't look anywhere near as nice as OS X does and you know it. You can't even get alpha blended shadows unless you use a buggy app like Y'z Shadow.

585699503[/snapback]

Well... you get alpha-blended shadows on menus (among other places) out of the box. You don't get shadows on window borders, no. But there are ways to add them (WindowFX comes to mind).

I hardly think shadows on window borders is a necessity, however.

The biggest thing holding back effects like that on Windows XP isn't even GDI+. GDI+ is surely more crude than Quartz Extreme, but it does many of the same things. The problem is that Microsoft made support for per-pixel alpha blending and hardware accelerated stretchBlts (among others) optional for driver authors.

Support for those features exists in many ATI and Nvidia drivers - but as anyone who has played with WindowFX's "transitions" feature knows, that support is flakey - and can vary hugely from one driver release to the next.

If Microsoft pushed/required these driver authors to better support these functions, programs like WindowFX could utilize GDI+ in much the same way that Aqua leverages Quartz Extreme.

Instead, they're just waiting until Longhorn - when they'll basically ditch 2D acceleration altogether and go strictly 3D.

There are a lot of components that will contribute to that move... including the very important Longhorn Display Driver Model.

[jerry]

"longhorn won't sell, and everyone will go out and buy a mac just to rub it in bill gates face"

585699569[/snapback]

Sheesh, you have no clue what this topic is about :pinch:

who cares.?topic is pointless>

585699569[/snapback]

To you ! so please dont post here.

[Guest]

well, this is all just speculation, sure theres loads of info about longhorn out there now but its all gonna be old news by the time its released

[trickytraka]

this is so true

but there are numerous companies and universities that have contracts already...

and if the price is resonable and the feature that GREAT then i think people will move ..

it will take more than a year to gain market share though

[at0mican]

No probably will not buy Longhorn when it's released.

1. Can't afford 4 GB of RAM

2. Can't afford a PCI Express Video Card with 1GB of RAM

3. Can't afford a Pentium 4 / 64Bit @ <3.8GHz

but if I somehow get invited to play with Longhorn in a Microsoft beta test, and get it for free - then I will happily test it and maybe even attempt to use it. For me Windows XP does everything I need.

[CruJones]

Oh rest assured, Microsoft will find some way of eventually forcing you to have to buy longhorn with thier power of a consolidated monopoly.

585699325[/snapback]

This is definately what will happen. With no one to have the market power to impact microsofts monopoly.

[cpu killer]

If they're making it and it's not Windows ME, it will sell =)

[laz45]

Ordinary people don't have to buy Longhorn cause when the computer breakes and they need to buy another one from Dell, it will come with longhorn preinstalled. Same with all the other companies, AlienWare, HP, Compaq........

[Boeing 787]

Windows 2000 still runs fine on thousands of machines in businesses and some still have NT 4.0, moving to Windows XP didn't make much sense because it didn't really offer anything that serious business users wanted accept maybe security features.

Longhorn though may have some new and tempting features that will attract business users.

Home users will probably not be swayed, most can't use the features in Windows XP or have no real use for many of them. It will be hard to convince 90% of users that they "need" something that Longhorn has.

It reminds me of ACDsee 3.1 versus 7.0, 3.1 had all the features I wanted or need in a image viewer, it's launches fast and has the neccessary plugins to do all the things I want. ACDsee 7.0 has some new stuff but launches slower and is bloated with stuff that really belongs in a photo editor.

Longhorn will undoubtly have some features that will belong in an office suite but some users will take advantage of them.

[jerry]

Ordinary people don't have to buy Longhorn cause when the computer breakes and they need to buy another one from Dell, it will come with longhorn preinstalled. Same with all the other companies, AlienWare, HP, Compaq........

585699628[/snapback]

You do know that the cost of Windows is included in those PCs, dont you ?

[NeoXY]

we all think something is good enough until we see a better one...;)...it's only human..

[Brandon Live Veteran]

No probably will not buy Longhorn when it's released.

1. Can't afford 4 GB of RAM

2. Can't afford a PCI Express Video Card with 1GB of RAM

3. Can't afford a Pentium 4 / 64Bit @ <3.8GHz

but if I somehow get invited to play with Longhorn in a Microsoft beta test, and get it for free - then I will happily test it and maybe even attempt to use it. For me Windows XP does everything I need.

585699613[/snapback]

There will almost certainly be a 32-bit version of Longhorn.

The minimum specs will most likely not be hugely different than Windows XP - unless something changes from the currently announced plan.

Also, you can't afford a processor less than 3.8Ghz? That's odd.

[raid0]

I recently switched!

The point is i'm not following the Windows evolution anymore. Longhorn will be Win XP with a different name.

[pacifica]

they ask the same questions everytime ms has a new os release.

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

if people bought piece of crap ME, then they'll buy anything

[Menge]

Come to think about it... The specs will be upped, BUT I don't think they should go up that much.

If we analyze the "trends":

Win 2000 = 64MB -> Win XP = 128MB -> Longhorn = 256MB

Curiously enough, a Mac Mini running OS X 10.3.X (which uses some sort of hardware acceleration for graphics and the kinks much like Longhorn) runs quite a bit chuggy with 256MB of RAM and comfortable with 512MB. I think things will go up to the 256MB min and 512MB for comfortable usage (like it is TODAY with OS X).

About processor... I don't know... My old Cyrix M2-233MHz can run XP quite well if I put 256MB of RAM in it.

And video card... Only god knows... Specially since the advanced Longhorn UI is using Pixel Shader 2.0 for antialiasing text and stuff like that... I take that my card (FX5200) won't cut the mid-high settings... But I do hope it does, because I won't spend money on a video card so soon (or at least don't plan on doing so).

Someone please tell me if I'm talking jibberish here :)