Using Windows Longhorn (Unreleased Windows Version) in 2021
Вставка
- Опубліковано 3 чер 2024
- The first 200 people to sign up with Brilliant using my link will get 20% off your annual subscription: brilliant.org/DanWood/
Windows Longhorn was the pre-release codename for what eventually became Windows Vista, but the final product ended up being very different after a total development reset in 2004. I take a look back at some of the pre-reset builds of Windows Longhorn and find out how well they run in 2021.
Thanks to Gareth Williams for supplying me with the PC used in this video.
▬ Contents of this video ▬
0:00 - Intro & Project Overview
3:47 - Build 3683 Overview on Real Hardware
10:18 - Brilliant Sponsor Message
11:53 - Build 4074 VirtualBox Install
14:20 - Windows Longhorn 4074 Demo
20:25 - Running 3rd Party Software
22:01 - Conclusion
My retro gaming podcast: theretrohour.com
My Twitter: / danwood_uk
My Facebook: / danwooduk
Software sources:
Sigma OS 3.0: archive.org/details/sigma-os-...
Windows Longhorn beta archive: winworldpc.com/product/window...
Sources used in this video (under fair use or with permission):
Longhorn Concept "WinUI Prototype": • Longhorn Concept "WinU...
Longhorn Concept "we're just getting started"/"Aero feel concept": • Longhorn Concept "we'r... - Наука та технологія
The first 200 people to sign up with Brilliant using my link will get 20% off your annual subscription: brilliant.org/DanWood/
I want it but I don't need it now
I remember using stupid slow internet connections to download versions of Longhorn and trying to use them as my main machine
Brave to use it as your main OS! 😄
@@danwood_uk Not really. Do people not realize there are tons of people with extra PCs and/or don't have anything important on PCs? Especially when you're installing a new OS, there's usually nothing else on it. If it crashes, who cares? Even getting a BSOD isn't usually going to fry your entire OS or machine.
the longhorn UI starting at 1:24 reminds me of how windows 11 is developing with its rounded corners and animations. They are finally giving us a similar experience 20 years later.
I think it's more inspired by Gnome ui instead
Not really.
Only took about 20 years to get that fully implemented...
Windows 11 is gonna end up like longhorn
Windows XP, Vista, and 7 had rounded corners. Where have you been?
Takes me back to my days with the WinBeta group - Longhorn was exciting and we were anxious to get our hands on every iterative release. Can't believe that's 2 decades ago. I think I've still a few early cds kicking about in my collection :)
Hey! Would you mind taking some time to identify the contents of your CD's? Would be wonderful to have any potentially missing stuff preserved for the sake of Longhorn's legacy.
@@betacyst9462 BetasIRC were often releasing builds as well, ohh the glorious XDCC bots of the mid 2000s - *memories* - most builds seem present, but it would be gr8 to have all the release .nfo & timebomb removal tools still avalible.. I'm sure they are still around somewhere
AWW! I remember those WinBeta groups that released Longhorn. Always got my iso's from eDonkey2000 back in the day,..
So many scrapped (pre-reset) Longhorn features have been reintroduced since Vista, and others still haven't. A good example is the "legacy notifications" sidebar tile present in some Longhorn builds that gathered all of the system tray icons into a new place, leaving the system tray itself looking much cleaner. Build 4074 that you show here shows an example of a slightly later implementation of this feature and it seems to be something Microsoft is (or, at least, was) considering even now, as something very similar appeared in builds of Windows 10X (now scrapped), where the system tray icons were put into the Action Center. Some rumours suggest this feature is finally coming to Windows 10 sometime in the near future. Crazy to think this is almost 20 years after it was first seen in Longhorn!
I remember playing with these Longhorn builds at the time, good times! Crazy compositing effects like transparency and wobbly windows were all the rage among the Linux crowd in the early 2000s, kind of crazy to think that Microsoft experimented with similar stuff before (thankfully) really toning it down. I think they found a good balance.
Haha! Longhorn was admittedly a pretty solid system, great to see more interesting OS videos, especially on more niche systems ;)
I'm glad these names are only used internally
so you enjoyed vista rtm vista sp1 and vista sp2 since they are longhorn too?
@@rayzen_undogen Never used Vista, only the early Longhorn versions.
@@joeharley1423 that's vista too sooooooo
It was even buggier than vista xd
Thanks for the shout and glad they both work Dan 👌
takes me back to the days of Technet. We used to subscribe to them through work and had all the CD's/DVD's sent to us with all the latest versions of software/os and Beta projects.
People: we want a new Windows!
Microsoft: sure, what colour do you like?
lol... i only need one
@@Tech-geeky what color do you like????
I remember being curious about Longhorn and kinda sad it never came out.
what if i tell you it came out
Actually it turned into Vista and released in 2006
@@zank8470 yeah what i was saying
Same here.
Yes. The closest thing we have to a finished version of Longhorn now is Longhorn Reloaded or Sigma OS.
Seeing that we're itching the surface of Windows 11. It's quite amazing how we evolved from XP to 11.
Scratching, not itching! JFC.
I still remember waiting in the hot Florida sun for my copy of Windows 98. I even picked up a Sound Blaster AWE64 while I was there. Then I got a SB Live later on. I still have both cards, just sitting in a box because no modern Windows OS has drivers for them and the existing ones don't work.
Well if you ever want to send them to a good home... :-D haha
@@nickwallette6201 Well I do still want them. I'm actually hoping someone invents a universal driver to make them work. Sure I could just use Linux instead of windows since the cards work fine on there, but that cuts me off from playing the latest bleeding edge AAA video games.
@@johnnyrebel3340 Same here. I think what initially hooked me in was messing with some Windows 3.1 IBMs in my high school during the 90s, messing with the soundblaster software, which allowed me to make my own MIDI music and play with text to speech voices. It was loads of fun for teenage me.
Longhorn is so cool looking, even the earlier version that ran on your Celeron.
I too was always amazed by the awesome design changes *both* XP and Vista (well and Longhorn in between) brought to the table, but even though I have been gifted with a very beefy system for its time that was supposed to run Vista just fine, things turned really ugly past Service Pack 1 for me :/
4074s aero theme is really golden, but the best ones are the old plex and slate aero versions and the hillel concept
That's odd. SP1 fixed most people's problems...
@@Josh.Davidson sp2
SP2 and platform update were good improvements too bringing it in line with Windows 7, but SP1 is what really fixed most of the launch issues especially around XPDM drivers.
@@Josh.Davidson some people say it brings more problem
I remembered Longhorn demo. I liked it a lot.
Great video thank you for this upload fascinating to see
Good old days when the OS wasn't built in spyware and you choose when to do an update.
And overutilize your cpu when you're copying files.
That actually looks quite nice, weird how they ended up with what we got in the end. Must be the same individuals who though Windows 8 was a good idea 😅
windows 8 is nice, its just they should have had an option to select if you had a desktop or a touch based tablet\laptop
@@user-lw1iw9bg9y Agreed. With Stardock Start8 installed, the problem was solved.
@@user-lw1iw9bg9y Without the start screen it’s literally just Windows 7 but soulless
@@glacierlegion9439 No its not
@@glacierlegion9439 Why use windows seven in 2022 now lol windows 8.1 is the next gen and awesomer os that is soooo underated
This brought back many memories. I was a software developer at the time Longhorn was previewed. I remember installing it and testing our apps on it but what I remember most was the promotional videos for Microsoft's vision for the integrated software environment. It had things like X-rays being passed directly to your doctor and the doctor authorising treatment via email - it made us howl with laughter because Windows (and PCd in general) had a reputation for not being that stable and security was a big concern The whole project was one of the most arrogant things that I ever saw (they called it ambitious)/
I think Windows Vista has aged better than all of the other versions of windows.
just a shame that the last service pack was the update that made Vista actually reliable and usable
I think most versions of Windows have aged fine, except for Windows 8/8.1.
Great video Dan. Why oh why did Microsoft think it was a good idea to lump the Windows 8 interface on us. Would love to return to Windows 7 style.
I honestly don't understand why they got rid of the crystal transparent type themes on our window tab and Taskbar. It was aesthetically pleasing to me. I don't even know why they even went more bolder instead of more "beautifuller."
I used it many years ago, the web browsing speed was insane at that time considering I was using a dial-up internet
I kinda like that later build of Longhorn.
i remember using this, i was an insider back then and got weekly builds to play with
Great video
Windows Media Player totally still exists in Windows 10.
It's right there! Take a look.
Winamp 5 works on XP. You should use the final repacked 5.6 redux distro, as they removed the licence checking and made it totally free.
I remember being so excited to try out long horn when the torrent arrived.
I had no problem with Longhorn back in the day, i also liked Vista (still would if not for newer hardwear). I am Currently on WIN10 but i have an Intel NUC with Windows 7 because i prefer that :)
Vista finally was good after SP2. And Windows 7 was essentially Vista with yet another service pack.
At first, I was almost sure it was a meme until I looked it up.
Turns out, it's just the beta version of Vista.
*Adding to the pile of Vista jokes*
Don't you mean better version of Vista?
At this point making Vista jokes is punching down on a long dead horse skeleton.
Looking for an old tech demo that MS released back during the pre-reset era. It was showcasing Avalon's windowing effects (genie minimize, shaking while dragging) and stuff like that. MS stopped development because the era's hardware wasn't powerful enough to run it full time, but Stardock's WindowFX picked it up instead. Aside from that, there's also the 2003 concept video which is still here on YT, one of my favorite demonstrations of what could have (should have) been the Vista we got..
Longhorn was ahead of it’s time…
You should definitely have a look at Microsoft Chicago and Whistler. Chicago became what we know as Win95 and Whistler became XP. You should be able to get Chicago up and running on PCEM with relative ease or you could try it on that Pentium 1 system. Whistler should run on that Celeron, but for best results, a 440BX board would be recommended for broader compatibility
I feel like this video is Michael MJD's territory ;)
I have a detailed series on Longhorn if you're interested. :)
@@WindowsOnWindows hello windows on windows
Ye
Ah remember being super eager back in the day to get this. I was in the winbeta group and ended up downloading it with my IDSN connection *i was one of the lucky ones allot of people were only on 56k back then.
Used it as a main OS for a while, the Slate theme was amazing i hated they changed it on release of vista. I felt the same with windows Whistler theme also when XP came out. The Whistler theme was really good and holds up even today imo much more than luna did.
Was a good OS, the desktop gadgets were a good idea, the side bar imo just got in the way but it was a nice addition. I thought they would have moved into "windows tiles" on the desktop at the time for release. Never happened but i guess Windows 8 sort of tried it with the full screen start. I imagined it different with larger sort of "windows" on the desktop showing news, weather. Like an ultra wide tile in the start menu today showing weather / news, stats or whatever.
Man i miss the days of these exciting windows releases.
Windows Longhorn and Windows Vista have a similar story to my job that I had at Publix. I started working at Publix in August of 2004, however like Windows Vista, I was being criticized so much that they never gave me an opportunity to improve myself and grow with the company, so then by October of 2010 when Windows 7 was already out for a while, thats when Publix got rid of me, so like Windows Vista, I was just left with a bad reputation with them and no way to fix it. This is why I consider Windows Vista to be so nostalgic, I can relate to Windows Vista's story like a story in my own life and though I didn't have much problems with Vista even when I first used it in April of 2007, I remember it being funny by watching everyone complain about it.
When you’re in need of a sub, you’re not eating a pub sub, you’re eating an sburton15 sub. 😎
I’m sorry about your experience there.
I remember getting the upgrade edition to use with my dodgy copy of Windowsme :D
I assume Windows Longhorn 6.0.4029 is the last version based on WXP/WS2K3, does that mean it's the last version to use IDE mode, before SATA took over? I know Windows Vista, of which Windows Longhorn is beta, is the first Windows to require SATA, and WL from 6.0.4033 onwards, as well as 6.0.4015, is similar to Windows Vista as we know it, that's why I'm wondering.
Another thing, are there any Vista software, especially Vista games, that can run in 6.0.4029, but not in any version of Windows XP?
So is there a place to download Longhorn today to try it out in VMWare?
how did you get the product key pls make a vid about this
yes
I was never one to get overly excited over new versions of Windows. I usually wait a couple years before I upgrade. I used Windows XP right up until sometime after Windows 7 came out. I used it until XP was no longer supported and then I upgraded my entire computer, Windows and all. I done something similar with Windows 7, I used it right up until support was ending and I built an entirely new computer again with Windows 10. In this way my system was always fresh and new and I had very few, if any, problems when I switched to a new version of Windows. I never used Windows Vista or Windows 8. Didn't like the look of the Windows 8 interface. Loved Windows 7 and I have grown to love Windows 10. Just glad I waited a few years to adopt Windows 10 so most of the problems were ironed out. I still wish I could get the same Aero look as I had with Windows 7 on my Windows 10 machine.
Longhorn was scrapped more because of the serious security problems they were having with windows. They ditched longhorn and concentrated on locking down XP which they did with release of SP1.
LH seems to have been the codename for SP4, rather than a new release. They scrapped that plan because Xp was getting too old.
But Longhorn continued development long after XP SP1 was released.
It would be great if we could watch this with system sounds playing.
Thanks for the guided tour.
Its interesting to see the demos of Aurora and Phodeo. All of that animated photo stuff is on phones these days but very little on the PC.
After all of the bad builds of windows, I doubt we'll ever see Win 11.
Much more detail on all the singing and dancing Longhorn features in my Windows Vista series, if you're interested. :)
I think it is worth pointing out what Longorn actually was. It was NOT the beta for Vista. Longhorn was completely abandoned. I wish this video would have mentioned the promises that Longhorn was bringing including WinFS which its 2024 and we still dont have.
I have a PC that dual-boots Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP2, and tbh, so far I've had very few issues with Vista on it.
Vista reputation was caused by poor drivers and it being sold with sub standard hardware meant for XP.
@@dave7244 Exactly. They put Vista on computers with the "designed for Windows XP" tag and developers had a bad time making functional drivers for Vista
Is this still Windows version 5 like WinXP or version 6 like Vista?
I still have a windows vista cd and i don’t know what to do with it and I like some of the things it was on there
Well, I'm going to venture and install Longhorn on a PC with Pentium 4 that a neighbor gave me. Along with MS Office, VLC, Chrome, and a few movies. I hope the computer can handle all of that!
i like how the sidebar was nothing like the 2003 concept, not in the slightest xD it's too bad, the concept should be what we're using today :(
is that Windows Longhorn full software ?
You should do something on WinFS beta 1 the version that can be installed on Windows XP... theres also something interesting not many people know about called Microsoft Max that was developed around the same time
FYI ... I would avoid VMware on AMD Ryzen based PCs. Later versions of VMware removed Vtx checkboxes which are required for Ryzen compatibility. Older versions with the checkboxes are blocked by Windows in Win10 20H2 and later.
I haven't use longhorn yet, but uncertainly, we are in a new generation.
The title should be "The descent from Windows XP to Vista".
Videos are always awesome..... Seems as time goes on spyware and malware always escalates..
Honestly, the XP-like Plex theme looks better than either Luna or gen-1 Aero, not to mention some of those UI updates not appearing properly until WINDOWS FREAKIN' 10... They should've at least patched XP onto the new UI theme if literally nothing else, but it's a shame they never got the whole thing out to production.
haha I have a desktop running Longhorn TWIWMTB (4074) that I got for free, and everything works on it. Sound works, ethernet works, and even Aero runs smoothly. the only thing I had to buy was a working graphics card. I got the setup with a GeForce 7600GS, which is great for Aero, but mine was broken. so I bought a 7600GT, and now it works perfectly (well, as perfectly as longhorn Aero can run. it's still unstable)
the specs are:
mobo: ASUS M2V-MX SE
cpu: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
ram: 512MB
graphics: Nvidia GeForce 7600GT
sound card: Soundblaster Live! 5.1
network: onboard
drive: 80GB IDE Hitachi DeskStar (must be IDE)
wow - rounded corners.
The power of compositing. The future is now, old man.
The irony of that Windows 11 made a big comeback of rounded corners, while most things in Windows 8 and 10 were sharp corners
I would like to get the wallpapers for the build to dress up windows 10.
Make Windows 10 look like Longhorn with the Plex theme and other features like that silly childish clock on the sidebar!!
i have a old 2002 ncr laptop with 512k memory 1 gig drive 14 inch screen running os/2 warp i tried windows xp but it says not enough memory
vista wasnt bad, the computers were underpowered
the "Azul" wallpaper's name is just blue in portuguese
I ran Vista and had very few issues, what were the major problems with it?
Must admit, I had few problems with it too. But it can’t be denied that it has a terrible reputation, I cover it more in depth in my Worst OSes ever video. In short, I think it’s hardware requirements we’re just too high for the PCs most people were trying to install it on in 2007.
As far as I remember with a decently specced contemporary PC you had no problems with Vista. It was actually a fairly modern and stylish OS. The legacy support for XP drivers was less good than expected in many cases and that rightfully upset those willing to use their perfectly fine 5 years old scanner, so to speak.
Thanks guys. True enough I only had it because it was installed on a new mid range PC.
Most people that upgraded from XP had issues with drivers, were pissed that it needed 20GB of disk space and hogged all the RAM.
is windows 7 or vista better? struggling to choose what I should "upgrade" to from win10
you should chose 8.1 since it's a lighter verison of 7 which is also updated for modern times. There is no reason to use windows 7 when 8.1 exists.
I have a laptop from 2011 that came with windows 7, but I updated it to 8.1 just a month ago and I'm never going back.
As someone who has used windows 7 for 11 years, I say that 8.1 is just a better version of it.
If you really don't want 8.1 then you should get windows 7, but remember to get it with service pack 1 and install all the updates.
Which requires a complex and long procedure to make them work because it's out of support so windows update doesn't work by default.
Windows 7 without updates is literally unusable since you won't even be able to browse the internet, most website will not let you in and the browser will show a security warning message.
I had also 3 programs and a videogame not working before I finally managed to update it, probably because of .net framework 4.8 which was required but its installation wasn't working before I updated windows, that also included it as an update.
Same with visualc++ 2015-2022, which wouldn't install before I updated windows for a reason I still don't know.
---------------------------------------------------
*So basically:* Windows 7 is unusable unless you update it, which you can't do right when you get it because it's out of support so you'll have to do some things to get the updates and make them work.
Meanwhile, Windows 8.1 is a better, lighter, modernized, updated, secured, safer and faster version of windows 7 which already works right when installed, you can get the iso directly from microsoft's website and there is an extremely easy way to bypass the product key.
Just get windows 8.1, I used 7 for 11 years and there is no reason to use it in 2022.
@@leothehuman_9476 ahh thank you 👍👍👍
incorrect: longhorn is a codename for windows vista not a seperate windows version
This is Possible by debombing the OS. I honestly prefer it more than Windows Vista or Windows 7 or Windows 8x. These 3 are pretty good but this OS is more interesting
No word on "revolutionary" WinFS?
I miss Windows XP and 7
Umm, an operating system isn't the applications you run on it,. What were the changes it made to the underlying model which differentiates it from 2000 or XP?
That's beyond the scope of this video, as the title says it's a user perspective. I'm sure there are indepth technical breakdowns out there though, it was a big project that lasted over 5 years with many changes.
@@danwood_uk I go into a lot of detail on various Longhorn builds in the Windows Vista video series on my channel, for those that are interested in more detail/technical stuff.
There was a different project for Windows Vista replacement that was supposed to fix the CPU hog that Vista was....it didn't happen, we got a mildly breathed over Vista which STILL required 200% CPU speed to do the same things as XP. They tried the same thing again around the time of Windows 7/8 by coding an efficient OS Kernal but again we got that Metro based rubbish (still using the crap Vista OS Kernal).
2:10 but Longhorn wasn't renamed, It was always titled "Codename" "Longhorn" meaning that name wasn't ever going to be the final name, but just a 'working title'
3:52 one change on that boot screen is the copyright date "2003" which is dated after the release of that build and different from "2001" which is shown in windows xp
15:28 yeahhhh, to get Aero working in a VM you have to use older builds of VMware workstation or Virtual Box, If you had stuck to real hardware with a directx 9 gpu like the ATi Radeon 9000 series gpu or nVIDIA GeForce 4 (NOT MX) it would've worked
The pre-reset Longhorn was never known by any other name.
Windows Vista's development codename was always "Longhorn" pre-reset and post-reset and regardless of there being a reset in the development or not it was always Longhorn. Codenames are nothing new for Microsoft and their Windows products.
Sparta, Winball Windows for Workgroups 3.1
Snowball Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Chicago Windows 95
Memphis Windows 98
Millennium Windows Me
Whistler Windows XP
Longhorn Windows Vista
Blackcomb, Vienna Windows 7
Blue Windows 8
Threshold, Redstone Windows 10
Sun Valley Windows 11
@@mrtwinky2007 Post-reset got the name of Vista later on, pre-reset never had any name besides Longhorn, that's what I was saying, not that Vista wasn't called Longhorn.
yeah the post reset that leads to the final development builds gets the final name like anything in development that starts with a codename\working title, they get a final name towards the end of their development.
The post reset builds also still used the codename Longhorn until the final name was put in place, Even the very first post reset leaked build 5048 had a bootscreen that said "Windows Code name LONGHORN" capitalised longhorn because that's how it was stylised in that build.
In my first comment as well I was only pointing out that Longhorn wasn't renamed since it was a working title and when they named it Vista it wasn't renamed, it just the product in development being named.
I can install the build of Windows XP on virtual box my favorite virtual software
I used Windows Longhorn in my company.It required a better graphics card.Thanks for the reminder.Regards Peter
Did someone say Longhorn?
I think you forgot to show off Sigma OS there. Hahaha
Que parecido al Windows 10 con su sitio de notificaciones oh Windows 98 el de noticias
Run slow? Go run Windows Memphis Beta on a 486 like I did for who knows what reason. I did go back to Win 95 eventually. I don't remember ever trying Longhorn.
12:28 what is that?
Longhorn is all windows vista should have been. If Windows XP were a pentium 3, Vista would be a pentium 4 (and thats not a good thing), and we not yet at the core 2 era.
all longhorn builds have NT 6.0
This was Vista Beta
Photoshop 5 link?
Google detecting Windows Longhorn: WTF
To think what we got so many years later was Vista... Hey nope, not the cliché comment you expected. Actually, I used Vista for years, and it wasn't so bad. And that was on a 700 buck Acer laptop, which would be equivalent as for range to a 500 buck one today... Of course, I did install service packs as they appeared. That said, I do think W7 is better, but not like night and day.
Vista wasn't bad - just way ahead of its time, to the point that contemporary hardware couldn't cope, lol.
how u do that
Windows Vista didn't like my trackball and preferred to just lockup even my mouse would not work and SATA_AHCL.dll would not work properly and would just glitch i.e staying on rather than just flicker as it accessed the hard drive and Vista Pro was just the same so I ditched Windows for UBUNTU 12.04LTS then onto LINUX Mint CINNAMON 32bit then LINUX Mint CINNAMON 64bit and along the way tried Debian abut I really wanted to install GhostBSD but it would not even show up from the DOS prompt so Linux Mint CINNAMON it had to be.
No, Longhorn was October 2003.
No notepad??
Windows XP was awesome as was windows 7. Not a huge fan of windows 11 but I'm sure I'll get used to it. It just feels too much like Ubuntu.
.... Vista was F-ing awesome.
Windows, Windows, Windows never thought I would ever get so engrossed in such a video...
You could even say...Windows On Windows? :D
@@WindowsOnWindows Indeed I could, and I would. Windows on Windows.
XP brought stability?? I did like the look of Longhorn, the sidebar worked pretty cool.
If you knew what you were doing and didn't put a lot of crap that most consumers put onto their system's, then Windows 98 was pretty solid for most things.
Microsoft Windows Longhorn Was Released But Microsoft Killed them
Windows Vista Is From The Windows Longhorn Is From The Lost Version Of Microsoft
My face is everywhere help
It still looks horrible compared to OSX. Could Windows not get some visual designers?
Msn works escargot