Microsoft have outlined features in Longhorn it claims will alter the way developers build applications for Windows and users run their desktop systems.
Windows 95 ushered in Microsoft’s entirely new, Macintosh-like user interface and purportedly had a lower likelihood of falling over than its predecessors. Microsoft on a wave of unparalleled hype launched the desktop operating system, now heading towards the end of its supported life.
This time around Microsoft is sounding a note of caution, even pessimism, inspired by economic conditions and bursting of the dot-com bubble. Unlike in the 1990s, organizations today are scrutinizing technology purchase decisions, examining choices, and looking for ways to reduce complexity of new and existing systems.
Longhorn is an attempt by Microsoft to simplify development of Windows applications. This work includes declarative programming and use of Microsoft’s Extensible Application Mark-up Language (XAML), although it plans to re-name XAML.
Longhorn’s Avalon interface is built using XAML, departing from tradition by separating interface logic from business logic. This step is designed to speed programming and allow for code re-use by developers. Microsoft is creating a new programming framework, WinFX, which calls the underlying Longhorn services and which replaces Win32.
In a further step towards simplification, Longhorn uses declarative, instead of procedural, programming to automate creation of some basic application functions.
The creation of certain web services features has been simplified. Longhorn features a subsystem codenamed Indigo that plumbs applications into other applications and web services, by automating creation of transaction and security elements.
Indigo is expected to incorporate specifications in the Microsoft and IBM Corp [IBM] WS-roadmap.
On the user-side, Microsoft is updating its Windows’ interface, moving to a gaming-style architecture. Avalon will use vector-based graphics that run on a device card, consuming fewer CPU-cycles for higher performance and high-quality images.
Longhorn’s WinFS storage subsystem brings together content stored in silos and multiple schemas. WinFS provides logical views, programmatic relationships and synchronization between different types of data, so data in different formats can be searched, linked and displayed.
As with every Windows operating system, Microsoft is taking steps towards ease of installation and management. A planned feature called ClickOne deploys applications without rebooting; data about an application’s performance can be stored; and SuperFetch identifies and stores an application’s requirements.
The first Longhorn beta is planned for Summer 2004.
This article was based on material originally published by ComputerWire.
