Microsoft Longhorn

.NET framework

A significant part of Longhorn is written in managed .NET code. Taskbar, sidebar, preview pane… it’s all .NET. I thought it would be interesting to know the mechanics behind this framework, so here we go: an article solely about .NET.

4039 Tips & tricks

This is the very first page in its kind; a tips ’n tricks page. More of these pages will follow for other interesting builds, showing you the ins and outs and providing easy tutorials to activate hidden features. Pages like this will be updated every so often to include the latest finds.

Activation cracks

Run Microsoft’s Windows “Longhorn” today using these activation cracks for each build. Simply replace the “winlogon.exe” in your System32 folder with the copies contained in the ZIP below.

Aurora & Aero

Aurora is one of the eye-candy features which is best represented in Milestone 7 builds. Using the powerful Avalon presentation engine, Longhorn was able to draw fancy animations, like Aurora, without any significant performance hit on the processor. Aurora in the preview panel was first shown at the PDC 2003 conference when a private build was showcased. At first sight many people thought the demo was just a flash mock-up, but Hillel Cooperman was fast to debunk this. The particular demo shows us working WinFS, content-based thumbnails, Aero Glass and an animated aurora effect in the preview panel. Most of these features wouldn’t be seen again until the next year at WinHEC 2004. Although the “WinHEC build”, 4074, does have a working DWM engine, at first it looked like it didn’t have any aurora at all.

Componentising

At WinHEC 2003 Microsoft revealed that Longhorn would be build from the ground up from a list of components. Already before this time various people at Microsoft had stated that Longhorn would be the first “modular” operating system. What does this all mean? I’ll try my best to get clear what componentising really is.

Exposing a spy

Most of you will probably be aware of some hidden view options available throughout the Longhorn builds. These views are commonly known as “Carousel” and “Panorama”. The latter is often also called “Phodeo”. Enabling the 3D view-mode as well as one of these hidden views causes a DirectX rendered view to appear instead of the familiar plain 2D view. The DirectX powered view features all sorts of animation to spice up the browsing experience.

Hexadecimal notation

This quick introduction to hex was originally to be part of another article, but became quite long and therefore I decided to separate it. Even though it doesn’t have anything to do with Longhorn in particular, I believe it will be worth the read.

Hillel demoes Longhorn (Extended cut)

Here it is. 6 minutes of Hillel Cooperman introducing Longhorn to the public during Bill Gates’ keynote on 27 October 2003 at PDC ‘03 in Los Angeles. Originally this demo was cut from the footage from Bill Gates’ keynote that was published online at Channel9. I found bits and bops of the footage scattered over the web and decided to put them together in one large video. I complemented some original footage with videos by Paul Thurrott. The build shown is known to be 4050.private/lab06_demo.

onghornLay

While exploring Longhorn builds you might have noticed these weird spelling mistakes in the Windows branding like; “onghornLay rofessionalPay” and wondered whether one of the developers had a breakdown while typing this. In this article I will elaborate on the exact purpose of the “onghornLay” branding.

Out-of-box experience

With the new image-based installation introduced in Milestone 4 it was also time for a revamped out-of-box experience (OOBE) wizard. The first build to feature the image-based install and new OOBE wizard is build 4001.

Self-hosting

At Microsoft, it is common practice to use products still under development to continue development of that very product. Once a stable version of a product is available, developers are encouraged to install it on their workstations and use it for everyday use. Developers using the product can directly provide feedback and report bugs to teams working on certain features. This process is internally called self-hosting. Often times the process is also referred to as “eating your own dog food” or doogfooding: when the product is no good and tastes nothing better than dog food, developers will still need to eat it.

Virtual development

Ever looked at a Windows build list and wondered what all those different tags mean? Or did you ever wonder about the production process of Windows? If yes, you’ve just clicked the correct article. This article will elaborate on the Windows build process as used during the pre-reset Longhorn development. Please note that even though I’ve conducted rigorous research, not all information in this article may be accurate.