Sneak Peek: Windows XP's successor
PC World | at | by Mike
The next major release of Windows won't be ready for a couple of years, but it's already taking shape. We checked out a leaked pre-beta version of the successor to Windows XP, code-named Longhorn, that we found on the Internet. Though Microsoft declined to comment for this story, company bigwigs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have given some broad hints about Longhorn. In numerous speeches and published reports, they've promised a totally revamped OS built on a new file system that gives users a single route to data, regardless of how that data is created or where on a PC or network it's stored.
The new file system wasn't implemented in the alpha code we looked at. But Longhorn Build 3683 does contain a few intriguing interface tweaks--mostly still under construction--that indicate where Microsoft is heading.