Computer world

For this preview, I had originally written a long-winded backgrounder about the history of Longhorn, and the ways in which this project has changed over time. I'll save the lengthy exposition for a future review, however, and get right to the point: Longhorn is now considered a major Windows release by Microsoft, and early alpha builds are now testing at the company's Redmond campus. Last month, some of those builds leaked to the Internet, causing a stir in the Windows enthusiast community. I take a look at one of those builds here.

One caveat, of course: This is an early alpha build and the final Longhorn product will bear little resemblance to what you see here. If you think back to the early Whistler builds, which featured the "Watercolor" visual style, you'll get the right idea: Longhorn is a work in progress, mostly current generation technology, and much of what's in there is just the same old stuff from XP. Major UI work, a database-based file system, integrated DVD burning, and other cool features are still to come.

OK, enough talk. Here's what's new in the Longhorn alpha.

How it works: Key Longhorn features

The following interactive images describe some of the key Longhorn alpha features in detail.

Feature drill-down

OK, let's take a closer look at the new features in the Longhorn alpha.

Welcome screen

The Longhorn alpha's Welcome screen (Figure) is a slightly modified version of the one in Windows XP, and it now features a time and date display, a frequent customer request. I wouldn't make too much of the color scheme or look and feel of the Longhorn Welcome screen, as this is bound to change. The design does resemble prototypes I've seen at the Microsoft campus (Figure), however.

Desktop and Start Menu

At first blush, the Longhorn desktop and Start Menu (Figure) are no different from their XP equivalents. However, there are a few small changes. First, you can add My Contacts and My Hardware nodes to the Longhorn Start Menu (Figure). My Contacts is non-functional in the build I saw, but I suspect that it's simply the friendly new name for the new Windows Address Book, which will be consolidated into the Windows Future Storage (WinFS) file system. My Hardware, clearly, is a friendly and more accessible Device Manager, though the version in the Longhorn alpha is limited (Figure).