WinNetMag reports that in November Microsoft is planning to release for a small fee (usually it’s $20) a first public beta of Longhorn. MSDN members will get it for free in December. The report states that the first pre-beta won’t feature the new Aero UI.
Longhorn pre-Beta1 to be Released to All
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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So basically it’s gonna be a stabilified version of the Longhorn internal dev builds with a different theme? Why bother? Color me unimpressed.
Aero is just one part of all the changes Longhorn brings. It just seems that Aero will be available later when it is more stable. What’s the problem?
Pre-beta1…Beta won’t have Aero…
…So does the pre-beta1 have it or doesn’t it?
Is this normal for MS? This just doesn’t seem like them.
I think this is great. It allows people to see what is real and what is hype.
No UI and no super SQL-type file system and the end version isn’t due until 2006-7. Sounds like an easy way for MS to rake in a lot of beta fees.
Nope! Sorry, but I refuse to pay hard earned money just to be MS’s debugger.
If they want to really debug it (and have a whole lot more people doing so), give the thing away.
Until then, if I decide to even put it on a PC, it’ll be from a downloaded version (ie, Kazaa or eMule).
MS obviously doesn’t get it still…
Kinda seems like they are taking some lessons from the Open Source Community. (except free downloads) Seems like the same process that Mandrake, Fedora, etc. use.
MS is just trying to keep the public interested in Longhorn because it’s going to be delayed so long.
Even more desparate to release pre-beta since Panther is coming out tonight…trying to steal the thunder.
Poor Bill…
Will this release of Longhorn include any parts of Pallidium or TCPA?
“Great a free os! O wait, its buggy and useless…
Wait a minute, there is something like linux here”
Uh yeah, that’s why national governments and major corporations alike are using Linux….because it’s useless…you don’t follow the news, do you?
u r wrong ms get it u are the one who does not get it. i will pay $20 to run longhorn. $20 is nominal fee it is not like they are charging super duper amount. it is price u pay to see longhorn features early, and i think it is very fun. ur comment is full of stupidness and fud and u act like what u say and think is what everyone should. well guess what buddy, ms charges money because people WILL pay, even if u are bitchy and whiny. would u even try longhorn if they were giving it away free i bet not
Maybe the real reason they’re releasing it early and for cheap is so companies will start developing for it EARLY. Always before you had to wait a bit before you could see how your applications would react to the new OS unless you were special to Microsoft, part of MSDN, etc. which alot of people aren’t.
MS is trying to change that it looks like. They realize that most average joes won’t download it, let alone pay a really small fee ($20 for Microsoft? Thats DAMN good) but there will be quite a few people who do. Why? Bragging rights. THey want to test, etc.
Not to be nitpicky or off topic but, could you please at least attempt to use grammar rowel? It hurts just to read that, and you aren’t adding much credibility to your claims by writing like a 5th grader who just discovered AIM.
Eugenia writes…
Aero is just one part of all the changes Longhorn brings. It just seems that Aero will be available later when it is more stable. What’s the problem?
Isn’t it obvious, people are more excited about the DirectX rendered interface more than any of the other features.
I am not saying that the other features are crap, but I’d rather see Aero in action first.
Office XP had about 600,000 beta testers using it.
Some real news in this article is Acer’s problem with the high licensing fees MSFT is charging for TabletPC OS causing them (and all other TabletPC makers) grief. Hard to believe that MSFT would do this, considering that they are willing to sell Xboxen at a loss per unit just to gain market share – but there it is in black and white. Sad. Maybe the TabletPC division needs a management shakedown for not taking notice of this.
Microsoft would have included Aero so that we could see how it ran on our current systems, therefore making the $20 purchase worthwhile. Also, the Windows users can gloat about having an OS thats as smooth and beautiful as Mac OS X.
Isn’t a pre-beta release really an alpha release?
Does anyone where even know what the hell MSDN is? Jesus most of you dumb, MSDN is for developers that uses Microsoft products and develop for Microsoft platform (for gods sake try and keep other OS and religion out of this) So if you think about what MSDN is and you use just a few of those brain cells most of you should/hopefully have left you can easily see why Microsoft is letting people on MSDN get an early look at this… those are the people going to start develop for Longhorn in a few years.
So keep all your stupid no use comments away and just say something if you have something intelligent to say.
Yes I am myself an MSDN subscriber for years now and I think it’s a very good service for people using and developing for Microsoft platform.
Quote: Yes I am myself an MSDN subscriber for years now and I think it’s a very good service for people using and developing for Microsoft platform.
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But you must agree that it would’ve been an even more movingly philanthropic gesture (and even MORE helpful to developers) if MS didn’t sit on Aero any longer than needed?
It is interesting though, how much MS’s business practices have changed since the release of XP. Largely due to the upsurge in popularity of OSS…
It’s an interesting strategem from MS, but it would’ve been more useful if the GUI were included.
I agree somewhat, but I think MS realizes there are many out there that would immediately create and/or download Aero knockoff themes for their favorite desktop environment (and somehow think that their OS is now more advanced and cutting edge because of it). Then when Longhorn is finally released, everyone would whine about how the look is so old hat.
Also, notice how MS tends not to go after UI clones unless they blatantly rip off artwork and such. I think they should be more belligerent about this like Apple is. It would serve some cargo-culters in the OSS world right.
Well, if they include Avalon in some form, you can get your performance testing fix right there, seeing as how that is the engine on which Aero will run. I would think they will include enough eye candy in the PDC build to show what is possible with Avalon. We will see.
Insert caveats about basing perfomance evaluations on pre-beta code here.
This makes perfect sense to me. They will get millions of people beta testing, and Windows fans will pay them twice for their new OS. Genius.
I wonder when Microsoft will move to point upgrades (ie Windows XP 1.1,1.2 etc) for their operating systems? It would solve a lot of patching hassles, and enable you to boot a fresh install while connected to the net without risking a trojan.
u r wrong ms get it u are the one who does not get it.
Much like you don’t get the idea of legible posts? Dude… Are you trying to be an 3l33t script kiddie or what? Turn down the volume on that Eminem and crack open a 3rd grade English book for gods sake.
i will pay $20 to run longhorn. $20 is nominal fee it is not like they are charging super duper amount. it is price u pay to see longhorn features early, and i think it is very fun.
I agree it can be fun! And I agree that you should pay for quality software.
You and I obviously disagree about what makes sense here though. If you’re willing to pay $20 to run buggy, untested code, then more power to you.
Myself, I’ll take the broadband route if and when I opt to look at the beta of Longhorn, and I’ll put the $20 towards programmers who aren’t as financially well off as old Billy G and the boys. Their stance is almost one of “Our next version of Windows will suck as much as previous versions unless you pay us to make it better”.
If they gave beta testers $20 off Longhorn when it’s released, you and I wouldn’t be having this poorly worded debate. But they don’t.
After paying to test and debug their product for them, you’re still expected to pay full price for the release version.
In practice, most companies pay for someone to help test and debug their software. Microsoft, on the other hand, has somehow convinced some of those with more money then sense that it’s somehow cool to pay for this, rather then be paid. Have fun!
ur comment is full of stupidness
Wow! Wish I could make up my own words. You’re so… fantabulous rowel! (How’m I doing?)
and fud and u act like what u say and think is what everyone should. well guess what buddy, ms charges money because people WILL pay, even if u are bitchy and whiny.
You’re damn right they well! People will also pay for useless rocks (http://www.virtualpet.com/vp/farm/petrock/petrock.htm), and human feces (http://members.sitegadgets.com/sitegadgets/board/110.html). What was your point again?
would u even try longhorn if they were giving it away free i bet not
Not only would I try it (I currently have 3 OS’s on my new PC, and on my old had 6), but I would provide quality feedback in response to the beta, in an effort to improve the quality of Microsoft’s product. I’ve beta tested many programs in my day.
But I’m probably losing you… Let me re-phrase this for someone of your obvious intellect: “yes i wud tri it f it was freae. it wud b super duper”. Better?
It is interesting though, how much MS’s business practices have changed since the release of XP. Largely due to the upsurge in popularity of OSS…
Every OS from Windows 2000 on forwards has been available to Developers long before release.
MS also did a public beta with Windows XP.
Microsoft is trying to get early versions out there so that developers can get ahead of the 8th ball so when Longhorn is released there will be a huge number of “Longhorn enhanced” or “Longhorn Compatible” pieces of software. How is this any different to Apple making Carbonlib available for MacOS Classic before MacOS X was released or Microsoft making win32 libraries available for Windows 3.11.
Microsoft hopefully has relised that there is no use deliver an awsome operating system if there is no software to take advantage of it. I am sure Longhorn will be a great operating system, however, it is unfortunate that there are a large number of software companies not updating their software and thus not giving any incentive to customers to upgrade.
Just look at Quark and how long it took for them to move from Classic to OS X. The time wasted there InDesign has caught up and moving ahead of Quark. People are now realising that there is no justification to pay simply for the “Quark” factor when there is a superior alternative made by a company committed to developing software to take advantage of new technologies made available.
As for Aero, what is that a concern? isn’t the more important this Avlon, then new GUI toolkit that hopefully will replace the numerous TLA’s that exist in the Windows world. Aero is like Aqua, just a skin and marketing device. For people interested in technology, they’ll be more interested in how Avalon is developing as an API rather than what it necessarily looks like.
If you look at my post you will see I made the mistake thinking aero was the engine. But thanks guys for clearing it up.
So is Avalon going to be in this release? Even if it renders classic or Luna.
If you look at my post you will see I made the mistake thinking aero was the engine. But thanks guys for clearing it up.
So is Avalon going to be in this release? Even if it renders classic or Luna.
View Avalon as the grand unified, DirectX accelerated, themable, buzzword compliant GUI engine. Aero is going to be the theme/them infrastructure. Like how we have Quartz and Quartz extreme.
As for whether Avalon will be released? I am not too sure, however, one can easily say that if you’re a programmer and use C++, why not use Winforms instead of the hundreds of other TLAs that litter Windows. The sooner people use on toolkit, the better, then we can see Microsoft get rid of cludgy crap no longer needed.
Btw, I have a feeling that buy the time Longhorn is released C# would have reached 3.0-4.0 status and will be mature enough for Photoshop and Microsoft Office size applications to be written in it. If the net result is that we can finally see Win32, Win16 and every other third rate POS API ripped of Windows, it will be a great day.
” It would serve some cargo-culters in the OSS world right.”
Yea because we are all rooting for a law breaking billion monopolist over a bunch of people who code for free and ask nothing in return. :rollseyes:
Typical MS lacky who thinks MS can do no wrong and that anyone who disagrees should literally be Punished.
If anyone has anything coming to them its the 500lb gorilla in Redmond who continues to this day to abuse its monopoly power keeping others from entering its market.
Pathetic.
Didn’t MS say in Longhorn old API’s will be removed and that there will be new ones, for developers to take advantage of?
Mr. Banned: Get a life for crying out loud.
You expect Microsof to ship you a CD of Longhorn (a fully useable OS) for free?
When you pay them, you are pretty much just paying for shipping and handling and/or download servers.
Also, if you find the Longhorn final to be buggy, are you STILL going to complain about it, despite the fact that YOU had a chance to help make it better, yet you did absolutely nothing?
I guess everything, according to you, Microsoft does is wrong.
You expect Microsof to ship you a CD of Longhorn (a fully useable OS) for free?
Fully useable? I guess we don’t share the same definition of pre-beta software.
When you pay them, you are pretty much just paying for shipping and handling and/or download servers.
I don’t know where you live, but shipping & handling here doesn’t cost 20$ US… Same thing for 1-2GB of bandwidth. They probably have deals with national/international shippers due to the high volume of CDs they’re probably sending. 5~7$ wouldn’t be that bad, but 20$ is a ripoff. That wouldn’t be so bad if it was Beta 3 or RC1… But it’s pre-beta! Remember that keyword.
Yes, I know, MSDN subscribers tend to wealthy people or enterprises, but 20$ is just abusing them. Then again, I would do the same thing if that many people were so willing to test my software…
Microsoft allowed Windows .NET RC0 to be downloaded for free, along with 5 keys per account or you could pay for it to be shipped. this was for none-beta testers that wanted to see what it would be like. I guess that was the start of what Microsoft will now start doing (and IMO, thats a good thing) by letting mass amounts of users download and try it.
Remember the disc images will be on the MSDN anyway, putting them up for public accesss will just be a case of bandwidth.
Don’t take rowel seriously. He’s just a troll. Just take a look at the quality (or the lack of) of his previous comments in the other threads.
“Mr. Banned: Get a life for crying out loud.
You expect Microsof to ship you a CD of Longhorn (a fully useable OS) for free?
When you pay them, you are pretty much just paying for shipping and handling and/or download servers.”
I’m guessing you’ve never gone to the MS site where they routinely ship out trial versions of products (on CD or DVD no less!) for free. No handling. No shipping. No nothing.
I’ve currently got trials of Windows 2003 server (a fully useable SERVER OS no less, SQL Server 2000, Visual Studio NET 2003. My goodness.
So if they can ship trial products for free, why are they fleecing people to take part in beta testing (which only helps MS…)
Mr Banned‘s comments were perfectly fair and reasonable.
It’s an incredible sign of just how insidious Microsoft can be that they can persuade people to pay to beta test products. I’ve beta tested a fair few products over the last 15 years or so and the rewards have ranged from nohing to getting the full product for nothing when it comes out.
I have never and would never *pay* for the privilege of using alpha software. Yes, folks this “pre-beta” crap is just that. Crap. If it’s not a beta, it’s an alpha. If they want people to test it then either pay them or let them get it for nothing.
And Longhorn without WinFS just seems even more XP SP 1 1/2 to me…
You expect Microsof to ship you a CD of Longhorn (a fully useable OS) for free?
No, not neccesarily.
They could easily make it available for download. People download iso’s daily of Linux and other OS’s…
But considering how cheap CD’s are when published in bulk (think of all those AOL discs you’ve received), they could mail out one to all current Windows subscribers fairly cheap if they wanted to, I’d imagine. At least cheap when compared to how many CD’s that would mean.
But also think about the huge wealth of feedback you’d get on the product! You’d be able to potentially have it tested against a huge range of software and hardware setups.
For that matter, they could let some of these Linux CD sellers sites try selling the beta online.
Also, if you find the Longhorn final to be buggy, are you STILL going to complain about it, despite the fact that YOU had a chance to help make it better, yet you did absolutely nothing?
Read before replying… I indicated in my reply to rowel that I would report bugs and submit reports, just like a good lil’ beta tester. I’ve done so in the past, and I certainly would do so again if my feedback could possibly help future versions of Windows to be more secure & stable.
I guess everything, according to you, Microsoft does is wrong.
Not at all. They do many things right: Office 2003 is an excellent example of how an office suite should function. Everything operates together like a well-oiled machine.
Similarly, Outlook 2003 is a huge step forward from its predecessor, and actually almost makes emailing fun again (I’m very impressed with its junk mail capabilitys thus far. No false positives yet!
Microsoft is also king of usability still, in my book.
Hey, I’m a Linux nut, and I love KDE, but for the average person, and honestly for me in a few areas, it’s easier to pick up new commands and concepts in Windows. Particularly Windows 2003 and XP. It’s just more intuitive for the average person it seems.
I could go on, but my point is that I’m really not an anti-Microsoft person, per se’. If Adobe were trying to pull something similar, like “Hey, pay us $20.00 to let you debug our next version of Photoshop, and we’ll give you nothing in return when the final version’s released”, I’d be saying similar things about them.
Just download it via the inevitable .torrent files that will spring up nodes all over !
Didn’t MS say in Longhorn old API’s will be removed and that there will be new ones, for developers to take advantage of?
The only parts of the win32 api that will be removed are the parts that have been depreciated for a long time. This is nothing revolutionary. If Microsoft Windows product manager was put into a room and given a choice between maintaining backwards compatibility at the risk of exposing a major security hole or ditching the API and replacing with a nice new modern one, the Microsoft Windows product manager will chose backwards compatibility everytime.
There is a diffence between maintaining backwards compatibility for a feature that has been replaced because the original implementation performed poorly, however, backwards compatibility should NEVER be maintained if there is a security risk or because xyz number of applications rely on a buggy piece of functionality.
So basically it’s gonna be a stabilified version of the Longhorn internal dev builds with a different theme? Why bother? Color me unimpressed.
Wow, a new OS should only be good because of its UI? Other things like new features don’t matter? Color me impressed.
P.S. This happens for all other betas, including Whistler and Chicago.
I’m guessing you’ve never gone to the MS site where they routinely ship out trial versions of products (on CD or DVD no less!) for free. No handling. No shipping. No nothing.
With trial software, normally you want to make it as convinient as possible to would-be customers. Not many people would want to waste $20 on a trial, but won’t mind filling up a short form to try something free (almost effortless).
With this pre-beta, most of the people wanting to get it are either extreme hobbyists or developers. I don’t see why they should try to make things overly convinient for them, $20 would help in sorting out the serious from the non-serious beta testers.
“With trial software, normally you want to make it as convinient as possible to would-be customers. Not many people would want to waste $20 on a trial, but won’t mind filling up a short form to try something free (almost effortless).”
It really shows 1: the focus and what is important to Microsoft and 2: that their brainwashing is working.
You just highlighted that Microsoft will give whatever it takes to get a sale (free trial) but aren’t so inclined to put the same effort into improving the quality of the software (paid for ALPHA).
“With this pre-beta, most of the people wanting to get it are either extreme hobbyists or developers. I don’t see why they should try to make things overly convinient for them, $20 would help in sorting out the serious from the non-serious beta testers.”
You don’t see why Microsoft should make things convenient for people… to help them out.
I’m sorry, but the only kind of understanding I can gain of that position is to assume you either work for Microsoft or own shares. Explain *why* it is right for Microsoft to NOT make things convenient and to charge for people to *help them*.
I would say that the pre-beta has automatic reporting features like XP and Server 2003 do. By charging $20 MS is setting limit on how many people will order the CD. On somthing like pre-beta (which really should have be called alpha) it is giong to probably be crashing considerably more than a RC or full release. Multiply this by millions of copies and it could actually make troubleshooting bugs harder, too much info to wade through.
I bet alot of you poeple would complain if they paid you to beta test. “What you expect me to put your crappy ssftware on my PC. MS should give me a dedicated PC to test thier lousy software on.”
MS is a big fat rich company. Bill Gates etal. are wealthy men beyond what most of us can ever hope to achieve. Get over it and enjoy life. I bet they are no more happy than most of us.
People here are complaining about $20 for pre-beta software. I think its a darn good price compaired to a Linux company out there named Lindows. You want to know what they are charging their beta testers? At first it would cost their beta testers $299 per year to be an “Insider” beta tester. Now that nobody bought their “Insider” program they brought it down to $99 per year as long as they have Click n Run subscription.
Sandman
Speaking of getting people to pay to beta test software, it looks like Mandrake 9.2 and Panther are out.
Mod me down. I deserve it. But I couldn’t resist.
This sounds like paying to debug. I have no problem helping debug, but only for free and to open source projects. Other than that I can’t see why I would pay for a useless steaming pile of code.
The only reason left to run windows these days is for gaming and I don’t mean xbox.
“People here are complaining about $20 for pre-beta software. I think its a darn good price compaired to a Linux company out there named Lindows. You want to know what they are charging their beta testers? At first it would cost their beta testers $299 per year to be an “Insider” beta tester. Now that nobody bought their “Insider” program they brought it down to $99 per year as long as they have Click n Run subscription.”
I agree. $300 to help them out is bloody ridiculous. They should have at least given them back the difference in final retail price and what they paid if they didn’t do so.
Because I (or others) find problems with Microsoft and the way they do things doesn’t mean I’m (we’re) automatically a linux zealot. Personally I like the idea of linux and am still not that impressed (but getting moreso) with the reality of it.
“Because I (or others) find problems with Microsoft and the way they do things doesn’t mean I’m (we’re) automatically a linux zealot. Personally I like the idea of linux and am still not that impressed (but getting moreso) with the reality of it.”
I know there are a great deal of people that hate Microsoft, even some of their users hate them with a passion. I have no problem with Linux(or their users), I use it everyday, but I also like Microsofts products.
Sandman