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Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

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Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#31

Post by majormajor »

ajdlinux wrote: post #11
unsignedqword wrote: post #8

Vista was not a very well-received release, but I remember using 64-bit Vista way back when. Maybe my memory is failing me a little, but I don't really recall Vista being that bad or unstable. UAC, of course, was a little annoying then, but 7 felt a little more unstable and crash-prone than Vista. My dad still uses a Vista desktop regularly (a 2007 install) and as far as I can tell it still works perfectly fine for h…

If my memory serves me correctly, a lot of the public outrage at the time was about poor drivers for some time after release?

Nvidia drivers in particular were terrible at first.

Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#33

Post by voltagex_ »

douche wrote: post #32
voltagex_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threshold, then Redstone.

Interesting, considering Microsoft has acquired Mojang

Yep, Threshold was Halo, Redstone is Minecraft.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/08/windows-10-update-redston...

Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#34

Post by HashThis »

pedalpete wrote: post #13
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #3

In case you ever wondered where the codename "Longhorn" came from, Windows XP was codenamed Whistler, and the follow-up version was codenamed Blackcomb, after the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains at the popular, eponymous Whistler Blackcomb ski resort in British Columbia a few hours away from Seattle. The Blackcomb release of Windows started slipping, so an interim release was planned. It was codenamed Longhorn, afte…

I'm from Whistler, and maybe it is just local legend, but we hear that the reason Whistler and Blackcomb were chosen is because so many Microsoft employees come up on weekends. There are a LOT of local Whistler references in microsoft codenames https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_codenames Harmony, Symphony, Emerald, Springboard, Bobcat, Cougar in the NT family from what I can tell.

This is 100% true. I worked on Longhorn at Microsoft.

Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#35

Post by frik »

pedalpete wrote: post #13
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #3

In case you ever wondered where the codename "Longhorn" came from, Windows XP was codenamed Whistler, and the follow-up version was codenamed Blackcomb, after the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains at the popular, eponymous Whistler Blackcomb ski resort in British Columbia a few hours away from Seattle. The Blackcomb release of Windows started slipping, so an interim release was planned. It was codenamed Longhorn, afte…

I'm from Whistler, and maybe it is just local legend, but we hear that the reason Whistler and Blackcomb were chosen is because so many Microsoft employees come up on weekends. There are a LOT of local Whistler references in microsoft codenames https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_codenames Harmony, Symphony, Emerald, Springboard, Bobcat, Cougar in the NT family from what I can tell.

Dave Cutler's likes skiing, he was the head of WinNT and most important person behind XBox and Azure ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler ).

Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#36

Post by cyanbane »

Could this be one of the most expensive software development failures of all time? Is MS putting money on top of that to show how much of a failure it was and how they decided to deal with it? At a minimum, just letting the story be told from the grave to allow for people to look out for similar things in other projects? Interesting I think. I don't know of many companies who allow/support documentation of a failure of this magnitude. MS continues to amaze me these days.

Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#38

Post by frik »

maslam wrote: post #30

I have vivid memories of working on Longhorn as an intern. It was an incredibly ambitious project - rewrite of the "filesystem" (really, a relational object store!), driver framework and display stack to name a few. The project failed the same exact way many projects fail - they are too ambitious and not well-scoped. The demo Hillel showed, IIRC, was complete vaporware.

WinFS wasn't a filesystem, but implemented upon NTFS as filesystem filter driver and dotNet based service, the files were stored in a hidden directory (SQL Server Compact and raw files with generated filenames in sub folders). The dotNet service was just very slow.

The original vision of "information at your fingertip" was behind the Cairo project. And Cairo had an object stored in the NTFS filesystem driver. WinNT4 and 2000 got several of the Cairo inovations. Well, some hidden APIs were still left in (at least in WinXP era).

Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#39

Post by ErikAugust »

I remember getting a Longhorn build - it took all day to install, and 15-20 minutes to boot.

The first and only time I booted it up, I was greeted with an analog clock. The seconds hand tended to get stuck and jump 3-10 seconds at time. The only reference I can find to it: http://lifehacker.com/5078415/analog-clock-adds-a-classic-ti...

That's when I knew that it might be a good idea to stick with XP until further notice. Further notice ended up being 6-7 years, when I finally went and bought Windows 7.

Re: Experience Longhorn – A look at a defining Microsoft project

#40

Post by rgsteele »

cyanbane wrote: post #36

Could this be one of the most expensive software development failures of all time? Is MS putting money on top of that to show how much of a failure it was and how they decided to deal with it? At a minimum, just letting the story be told from the grave to allow for people to look out for similar things in other projects? Interesting I think. I don't know of many companies who allow/support documentation of a failure…

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