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Longhorn Reloaded - Free Windows?
DHS Odium
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Okay, the first time I tried this, I lost my connection. I'm not sure of the legality of this, if it isn't alright, mods - please delete.
So, as we all know Microsoft scrapped some Longhorn features and abandoned some of their builds. So some people are now working to finish what Microsoft started.
Check this out: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Longhorn-Resurrected-and-Available-for-Download-55624.shtml
According to Wikipedia, the build of Longhorn, as well as the serial number are now public domain since Vista has seen it's release.
Some features have been readded it seems, like WinFS and the original Onyx interface. So my question is what can/will Microsoft do about this, there's no way this could be legal could it? Even if it really is public domain? Discuss.
Edit: Project Website: http://snip.org/
So, as we all know Microsoft scrapped some Longhorn features and abandoned some of their builds. So some people are now working to finish what Microsoft started.
Check this out: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Longhorn-Resurrected-and-Available-for-Download-55624.shtml
According to Wikipedia, the build of Longhorn, as well as the serial number are now public domain since Vista has seen it's release.
Some features have been readded it seems, like WinFS and the original Onyx interface. So my question is what can/will Microsoft do about this, there's no way this could be legal could it? Even if it really is public domain? Discuss.
Edit: Project Website: http://snip.org/
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Yeah I've been trying to get more info about this. They don't seem to be former MS employees. As far as I can tell, they don't have access to the source code, but since it was a scrapped alpha version of Longhorn, it should be legal to use it along with the key, since Vista is now released.
It seems these guys are just using this version of longhorn, and added functionality back in through their own drivers/patches/software to make it usable?
Could MS shut this down though? I mean, people can freely make their own patches or drivers for Vista, this is the same thing, but with an unsupported, unreleased MS OS that should be entirely legal for people to install and use.
There has to be something missing in this story, or they're completely removed from reality.
But yeah, pretty sure this is fairly illegal. Why do intelligent people try this sort of stuff? It seems like a waste of time.
They can not be serious.
Copyright doesn't work that way, and I can't see where in Wikipedia you're getting this from.
M$ isn't going to come after them unless they get a lot more attention than this. Its just not worth M$'s time.
On the other hand, I don't think that Longhorn falls into the abandonware category.
Will be interesting to see how this pans out.
I know, the only thing I could think of while reading that was, "these guys are the ones doing this? They're idiots, this can't be real".
This can't be legal. A leaked operating system beta doesn't become 'abandonware' just because the final release is out, and it especially doesn't mean these guys are free to distribute it without consent. They might consider it such, but I guarantee Microsoft doesn't.
They seem to be floating past on the "well, we're being ignored so we're in the right" attitude. I'm sure a simple letter would sink that little red boat.
Just don't link to any sites that include a download, such as the project's site.
I heard that with every new release, an angel gets it's wings.
Longhorn was the base development prototype, I believe. You essentially have a base which is then built upon/altered to fit the needs of the platform it is meant to target.
So Longhorn becomes Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Home Server, etc.
And "longhorn /= vista" is idiotic. longhorn was the development name of vista. just because they pulled some features from it doesn't mean they don't still own that.
This is the stupidest thing that I have heard of this week.
As for how cool it will be to have what was promised to us in the early builds of longhorn in a full release, wait for Vista SP2, MS has said they want to eventually get all of the features into vista, just not right now.
Actually, to nit-pick just a little bit, Windows Home Server is actually a slightly modified version of Server 2003 Small Business. In the beta 2 release you can actually see lots of refrences to small business server in it, including it named as such in a few places.
Soon we shall be free from Microsoft's tyranny!
Once it's stable, I imagine it will very useful for simple everyday tasks, and should be able to run on really old computers.
Cool, I didn't know that. I wasn't 100% sure, especially considering the timeline for the two products (Longhorn and WHS).
Impressions of WHS?
Longhorn was going to be a whole new Windows. Backwards compatibility was going to dropped in favor of WinFS, which was going to be the primary file system (it was a SQL database on top of NTFS). Vista didn't have any of this.
Pretty nice for a family with no IT member on staff
and, if you want, remote desktop into it and it has full win2k3 server functionality. like, everything. Some stuff you do have to install manually after(hence why 10GB can be limiting), but it's all there. the first thing I did was remote desktop in and set up my FTP server in IIS.
If I wasn't planning on migrating myself and my parents to Macs within a couple years, I'd totally buy a good one when they come out.
hmmm, an alpha version ends up very different than the final version......what a concept.
Yea?
Will Vista ever receive WinFS? Did Microsoft ever say what is going to happen to WinFS?
I think they said they plan on using it in future operating systems.
I would, but I'm afraid of what Microsoft would do to my system if they figured out I installed it.
That's pretty sweet. I've toyed with the idea (even bought some second hand hardware from a friend) to just whack up a FreeBSD box to act as a file server at home, but to be honest, I know my Windows shit and I work with it 10 hours a day, so I'd be more comfortable with a Microsoft product which integrates with my Windows desktop and Windows notebook well (and hopefully my Xbox 360!).
Is there any data redundancy? I heard something about it using some kind of software doodling that essentially gave you RAID5-style failure threshold, but never heard anything else about it.
I heard that it's in the pipeline for the second service pack, around the time that it hits the server product in the boxed form. But as to how they're going to convert the file system, etc... I can't imagine that it's going to be as easy as FAT32 to NTFS, at least from the programmer point of view.
Just get Linux?
Where?
ya, there is redundancy. if you turn it on, and you have 2 or more HDD's, it will put one copy of each file on 2 HDD's. it's all software based, but it's so seamless, with a mouse click you could backup the entire server storage system. There's also a nice chart and info screen that tells you exactly how much space is being used by file shares, PC backups, and redundant data.
Speaking of which, I forgot to mention that it does incrimental backups of each pc every night(or at a schedule of your choosing), and you can choose how long to keep the backups.
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As for WinFS, MS has stated that it will make it into Server 2008 at some point(probably SP1), and Vista too(probably SP2 if I were to guess). You'll probably have to do some kind of add in on the install if you have vista now(either slipstream the disc or a thumb drive, or something), but they plan to put it in.
To be fair it was because MS was actually making a Halo RTS, and that Generals mod hadn't been updated in months when they got the C&D