36 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2004
roving profiles without the hassle of
administering a Windows domain.
The Longhorn Castle is a mini domain
of sorts for home networks, and does
not require a server. Whenever you
set up a new computer on your home
network, you’ll add it to your castle.
Machines in a particular castle will auto-
matically synchronize user information—
usernames and passwords—as well as
the actual content of the user profiles.
That means your bookmarks, e-mail, and
application settings will automatically
be shared between all the computers on
your home network. Newer games that
store save games and user data in the
Documents and Settings tree of the hard
drive will also be automatically synchro-
nized across your home network. Pretty
convenient, huh?So, Where Do We
Stand Now?
That’s it—everything we know about
Longhorn, packaged into one tidy and
exhilarating magazine article. The upshot
is that there’s a lot of exciting new
technology in development, and a lot
of very cool features to look forward
to in Microsoft’s nascent, next-gen OS.
We admit to being concerned about
Palladium’s impact on our digital media
desires, but with more than 18 months
until launch, it’s really too early to make
any judgments—or cast any aspersions.
Rest assured that we’ll keep you posted.
And you can expect full Longhorn
hands-on testing sometime next year,
when the first beta ships. ■One of Microsoft’s goals with Longhorn
is to make information more accessible.
To wit, many of the new sidebar widgets
include popup windows of their own. This
one shows the last few system notifications
we received.Maximum PC’s
Longhorn Edicts
The editors ring in with their
must-have features for the next
version of WindowsGeorge Jones: I feel like the power-
conservation features of Windows
just don’t work
the way they
should. Clicking
the hibernate
button is a
sure-fire way
to bomb out
my machine,
and that’s just
not acceptable.
Furthermore,
I’m sick of
seeing the crappy three-year old
nVidia drivers every time I log in
to Windows Update. I want to see
the latest—too hot for Doom 3 —
Detonator drivers!Katherine
Stevenson:
One thing that
Longhorn must
fix is its terrible
Wi-Fi support.
I’m sick of my
wireless net-
work connec-
tion dropping
out all the time
for no apparent
reason.Will Smith: Finding and installing
new applications is ludicrously easy
on most Linux distros these days.
Microsoft needs
to make finding
new apps and
loading them
on a PC as easy
as emerge does
on Gentoo or
apt-get does
on Debian.
I’m sick of the
Installshield
installer.Also, many people who’ve been
running Windows for a year or two
have dozens of apps running in their
system trays. I want Microsoft to
acknowledge that the craplets that
every company feels is necessary to
install are a problem, and give nor-
mal users an easy way to get rid of
them forever.Gordon Ung:
I’d like to see
Longhorn finally
support the auto-
rotation flag in
JPEGs so all the
pictures from
my digital cam-
era don’t have
to be manually
rotated. While
you’re at it, how
about fixing the mixer so you don’t
get blasted out of your chair by the
Windows boot sound just because
you increased the volume for a DVD.Josh Norem:
It’s absolutely
crucial that
Microsoft make
the Windows
Update service
easily acces-
sible to people
who don’t use
Internet Explorer.
Remove the
dependence on
IE -only ActiveX controls!Logan Decker: An operating system
should first and foremost take care
of administration and management
of files and resources for the user,
and Windows
XP still demands
too much house-
keeping from us.
For instance, I’d
love to see the
next version of
Windows be able
to do what the
Mac has been
able to do for
years—maintain
shortcuts so that even if the files or
executables they point to are moved,
the shortcuts still work.WINDOWS LONGHORN
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