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formerly Windows code name "Longhorn"

[img]http://i3.microsoft.com/h/en-us/i/WV_halfPanel_MSCOMhp_10.jpg[/img]

http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0507/25234/Win_Name_MBR.asx

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002396597_webmicrosoft22.html

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by kc0arf

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A quick, practical summary for anyone reading this later: the thread mixes name/branding chatter with browser and security concerns. and cover the naming angle, and raise browser/UX hopes, and rightly flags malware and isolation. Below are concise, experience-driven steps and cautions for evaluating or trying any major Windows milestone without risking your main machine.

Try-before-you-upgrade checklist:

  • Test on a non-production machine or inside a virtual machine (snapshot before you start).
  • Make a full disk image of any system you might touch so you can roll back quickly.
  • Verify driver and peripheral support first: printers, video, network and storage drivers are the usual trouble spots.
  • Install common apps you rely on and exercise the workflows you cannot afford to break.
  • Keep the test system on a separate network or VLAN if possible to limit exposure.
  • Document any behavior you consider a regression so you can report it or search for known fixes.

Browser/compatibility notes (germane to the thread): when evaluating how a new platform affects web work, treat browsers as separate runtimes. Test pages across multiple engines, use the W3 validators and feature-detection (not browser-sniffing), and prefer progressive enhancement so layout degrades gracefully. If you develop or maintain sites, include a short test-suite of pages that exercise your CSS/JS edge cases and run that suite after any platform or browser update.

Security and patience: heed — early builds can have rough edges and attract malware research. Keep antivirus/antimalware updated on any machine connected to the Internet, avoid using production credentials on test boxes, and delay wide deployment until hardware vendors and ISVs publish official support. If you follow those basics you get to explore new features without turning your main workstation into a troubleshooting project.

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Member Avatar for jwenting

Nice name.
Everyone knew (or could have known) that Longhorn would not be the name of the product.
It's a project name only, and probably still is.

Member Avatar for Sp!ke

Well, I for one, am hopeful that Microsoft has improved their OS experience, even with the addition of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 soon to be released.

Member Avatar for jwenting

and what would you call an "improvement"?

Not the way Linux calls itself "better" I hope, having to constantly juggle with shared library version conflicts, manual editing of configuration files to get even the most basic things to work, etc. etc.

Windows has a pretty good user experience as it is, I'd rather hope they are very cautious about making more than minor changes to it.

Member Avatar for c_shaft05

You are right. Windows does have a good operating experience. But, and this is the keyword, BUT, Internet Explorer could use some minor overhauls (which I'm betting they have done.). If they do well enough, then that could lead to less usage of Firefox, but then again, who knows what will happen with that! I'll keep firefox on my machine, but I'm hoping I won't have a need for it ;)

Member Avatar for jwenting

IE works and supports the W3 standards. I've tried FF and found it clunky in places and found the CSS and Javascript support lacking (tested it with a moderately complex piece of CSS positioning code, verified as CSS2 compliant by the W3 validator and working perfectly in IE and it simply failed to do anything with it, poor performance for a browser that claims to support the standards better than IE or anything else out there).

The main thing people use as a "reason" to "hate" IE is that it supports custom extensions to for example CSS, which is another mistake by those people.
IE supports things that were proposals to the standards bodies at the time IE was released. Not all those proposals made it (yet?), and Microsoft leaves them in to provide backwards compatibility.
All browser makers do the same (just look at the very bad things you can do with Netscape...).

Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

Anyone who feels that Windows offers a great user experience should check out our Virus & Nasties forum, and see all the hell that is floating around in there. Such user experiences are why I do not have any Windows computers running on my home network, and why I do my development on a completely separate subnet -- so that it will not try to infect the rest of my network.

As for me, I will remain a happy Linux / Mac user for some time. Yes, I realize there are no perfect Operating Systems, but do know that these systems are much easier to maintain, and I spend most of my time on them doing useful work, instead of repairs.

Christian

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