Longhorn Is A Different OS From Vista?

Thank you!

Aloha,

DSH
-----------------------

"roman modic" wrote in message
...

Hello!

"D. Spencer Hines" wrote in message
...

VERY Interesting.

Thank you.

From some of the comments about Vista, we hear "everything has been moved
around and renamed" -- which sounds rather loony.

Any truth to that?

Uh ...
The following article is informative:
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/art...rn-Server.html

With all of the marketing hype aside, probably the best reason for running
Windows Vista and Longhorn Server together is that they are essentially
the same operating system. To understand what I am talking about, you need
to look at Microsoft's history of operating systems. When Microsoft
released Windows NT Server 4.0, they also released Windows NT Workstation
at the same time. The only difference between the two operating systems
was a registry setting. By altering one registry setting, you could turn
Windows NT Workstation into Windows NT Server, and vice versa.

Fast forward a few years, and Microsoft did something similar with Windows
2000. Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Professional were developed
simultaneously and contained nearly identical kernels.

Microsoft's next server release was Windows Server 2003. Windows Server
2003 was developed separately from Windows XP (to the best of my
knowledge), and there are some significant differences between the two
operating systems.

When Microsoft decided to develop Windows Vista, they went back to their
roots. Windows Vista and Longhorn Server were developed simultaneously,
using the same operating system kernel. In fact someone from Microsoft
explained to me that differences in the two operating systems (aside from
applets, consoles, etc.) were only introduced into the code after Windows
Vista released the Beta 2 stage of development. This ensured that the
underlying code base was stable before server specific code was
introduced.

Being that Longhorn Server and Windows Vista share a common kernel and
user interface (although Aero is disabled by default in Longhorn Server),
it only makes sense that the two operating systems would work well
together. However, a more compelling reason for deploying Longhorn Server
and Windows Vista together is that doing so can reduce your support costs.

Think about it for a minute. If both operating systems share a common
core, then you don't really have to worry about training your support
staff on two separate operating systems. Yes, there are definitely server
specific components that your support staff will need to learn about, but
eighty to ninety percent of code is going to be the same for both
operating systems. That means that if your support staff knows how to fix
a problem in Vista then there is a good chance that they will also know
how to fix the problem if it should occur on a Longhorn server.

The code for the two operating systems is so similar that they share a
single model for updates and service packs. I have heard rumors that when
the first service pack for Windows Vista is released, the service pack
will also be intended for use on machines running Longhorn Server. If that
rumor is true, then it means that maintenance could be greatly simplified.

To quote the quote:
1. Longhorn Server and Windows Vista share a common kernel
and user interface (although Aero is disabled by default in Longhorn
Server)
2. I have heard rumors that when the first service pack for Windows Vista
is released, the service pack will also be intended for use on machines
running Longhorn Server.

----
And now something completely different:
"Beware of hard-coding issues in Vista user folders"
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=436

Microsoft has added the ability to move user folders such as the Desktop,
Favorites, Contacts, and other user-specific data in Windows Vista with
simple drag-and-drop operations. While this is certainly an improvement
over Windows XP where you could relocate "My Documents" (Note that
Microsoft has wised up and dropped My from the naming conventions) to a
different physical or logical hard drive partition, it still doesn't
address the fundamental issue Microsoft's bad decision to put user data in
the same volume as the operating system.

I spoke out about this last summer when I wrote "Why Microsoft should put
user data in a separate volume" and actually had a long conversation with
the now-retired Jim Allchin and even longer conversations with his team of
engineers. A lot of technology writers and readers praised for speaking
out on that issue and wanted to know where Microsoft stood on this issue
and I'm sad to inform you that their answer was NO because the PC Makers
and OEMs didn't want to confuse users with an additional partition.

Cheers, Roman