This anti-Microsoft FUD is getting out of control. So what if an OS requires 512MB to operate? That stick of memory will set you £30 and for that you get a far richer desktop experience, even 1GB memory doesn't sound wrong to me, it's called the advancement of technology. We can all go back in time to when games ran in a megabyte and DOS needed 640k, what's the point? Sit back one day and appreciate your streaming videos and MP3's and rich, interactive web-content, instant messagers...all of that tech requires resources and if it needs it then so be it. If my OS needs more memory because it's giving me better security or doing background jobs that make my life easier, fine. Do that, no problem. If I need more memory I'll buy some its not the end of the world is it? If I get a scalable vector desktop, then heck I'll put 2Gig in if it needs it, that COOL and FUN.

The Microsoft RSS extensions are awesome- so what if Apple's OS does it now or I can get an aggregator to pull in feeds? Big deal, except, I'm on Windows and I really like an integrated desktop. If I can subscribe to RSS with the ease of viewing a video in Media Player then I want that. If Microsoft extend it to get me lists and calendar subscriptions that integrate with Outlook, I want that too. It's cool.

Where is the gamble? Should we all rollback to Win95 and be happy with out lot? Does technology not excite you? Should Microsoft stagnate and not release anymore software because it's mature? Oh right, no, but yes, or no?!! You can't have it both ways...they add new features and they are "lagging behind and copying everyone." If they leave it, people get bored and cry foul that "IE never gets an update unless there's competition."

You can never ever win with you people. I've heard more cohesive arguments in junior school playgrounds.

Microsoft was never an innovator, right? Where on earth did you get that from? The hottest web tech at the moment, XMLHTTP, was a Microsoft innovation and was in IE YEARS before the other browsers, yet no-one mentions this. Microsoft are huge innovators, not just in technology but in usability, hardware and more. You like your optical mouse? Me too.

Stop being so hard on them. They are tech people just like you and I, we live for this stuff. These people get excited about features and want them all in there. Have you never written software? Feature creep- look it up, it happens when developers get excited about the possibilities and you want everything in. So...Microsoft offers some transparency and you call them crazy for sharing what they are working on, but if they are quiet you go crazy because they are some secretive institution that never give anything away.

So please, get over yourself, get into technology for what it is. If peope don't like it or think it's wrong, then tell Microsoft- they do actually listen and they like good ideas just as much as everyone else, after all, its makes their software better.

I could go on and on defending them because most of your arguments are completely silly, but I don't have time. Write something positive for once in your life, be excited about the possibilities instead of all this negative people and image trashing.

I think alanc5 is on to something here. I happen to have a neutral stance on many of the MS vs open source arguments. And while I can see the benefits of both as solutions to corporate software/server needs, I wouldn't be able to back up much of your opinions. As a developer I was able to integrate in RSS feeds on both the receiving and sending side of things. .NET technologies are already capable of working hand in hand with RSS which is NOTHING more then the simplest of XML files. RSS has a few versions and they don't all match but there are few enough that anyone can integrate it in without using hardly any resources. Gather a few feeds, parse through the data, display the data.. If Microsoft can't handle that then I have great news for anyone with an Anti-MS mentality. Microsoft is doomed.

Lucky for me and the rest of the world who have always been happy with most solutions MS has given us that they are more then capable of handling such simple tasks.

Microsoft not an innovator? That's absurd! There have been a great number of innovations thanks to Microsoft and you are someone who would dismiss this just because they are not the first to come to the table with supporting every new technology? Maybe they just know their users. RSS feeds have really only caught on recently even though RSS is in no way new. It has gone through different companies and completely different versions over the years. NOW is the time to start supporting them as RSS is becoming more well known. Who cared about RSS Yesterday? Ever heard of Windows Channels? Was that not the same general idea of RSS. The ability to let web sites update their content and have your computer download all of that so you can check it all out in 1 place by subscribing? Perhaps that could have been implemented better but it was simply an idea that was before it's time and it never caught on with developers.

Today nearly 5% of Internet users know and use RSS feeds. Well if you like the idea of pushing feeds to other people then why can't you be happy about the decision to put this technology in Longhorn? After all, only after Microsoft makes RSS easy to reach by it's current users will that 5% jump considerably higher.

Perhaps Microsoft loaded 5 bullets in the gun but it sounds like you ate the first round, lost and now have come back from the dead bitter.

"Although the competition coming from Mac OS X and Linux distributions no longer worries the software giant."

Since when? Linux and Mac OS X are more a threat today than ever.

What a bunch of anti-Microsoft garbage! I'm just glad people before me like alanc5 pointed it out.

How much does Microsoft pay you guys to defend them online?

I have Debian on my laptop, I run openBSD on my servers, I have an iPod sat in its dock across from me, I even tinker with my Amiga occasionally when I'm not busy developing.

I pick the right tool for the job, but then I don't scream at Apple because they don't have a VB equivalent, or post anti-Apple sentiment because they built their OS on top of free code and now charge for it. They made some great advancements - applaud them. Microsoft are trying to do the same, give them a break.

It's all just technology, it's all cool. They don't need to pay me to defend them because I have my own opinions and in my eyes Microsoft are an awesome company and make great software. Just like Apple and just like the OSS people.

We don't need to go back to the playground and call people names. What's wrong with being excited about the possibilities Longhorn will bring? Is that to hard for you? Would you prefer everything was Apple or Sun or Linux?

I'm feeling a bit bored with Windows XP now. I look at what Apple are doing and I would like that, but I want it without having to migrate all of my investment in Windows software and tech knowledge. That's what Longhorn will bring me. I can't wait.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Longhorn doesn't owe anything to Mac OS X. The display engine is not a unique concept (we've been asking for this for several decades), and Spotlight is no comparison to WinFS. The built-in search engine in Longhorn will also trump Google's ability to search for files on the computer. Google's only advantage right now is searching the web, but now that they've recently filed a new patent which details a lot of their ranking formula I expect the quality of their searches to decrease rapidly for a long time (search engine optimizers love search engine patents,) so they might be equals as far as web searches go. I love Google as it is today, but realistically they will be declining in quality for a while.

Why wouldn't the new graphics interface be successful? Not only is it drop-dead gorgeous aesthetically, but also technologically because it reduces the amount of work the CPU has to do (current Windows use the CPU to draw to the screen, those CPU resources can be dedicated to something more important). Also due to the offloading to the video card, multitasking will be massively enhanced. Flickering, partial screen redrawing, slow multi-tasking, etc. are things of the past. Not to mention that Avalon requires very little from developers (if nothing) to support programs. There's absolutely no reason why Avalon won't take off.

RSS/SLE is questionable. I do not have any opinions or guesses as to wether or not it will be successful. Microsoft has over 60,000 employees and the RSS team makes a *very* small percentage of them, so it if doesn't take off then no harm was done. I personally don't care for SLE, it doesn't provide anything new. However, I do think that more web sites will open the door to feed aggregators because of this.

Why don't you think that people will use the integrated security features? Protected Administrator and Least-privilege User Access will improve security by leaps and bounds and will require users to manually circumvent it (for what reason? I couldn't possibly fathom a scenario beyond people trying to bash Microsoft and spread FUD.) Because of least-privilege user access, programs will be required to use the Application Data directories and those are encrypted for enhanced privacy on multi-user systems. Not to mention that the encryption could prevent credit card numbers and stuff from being accessible to malicious people who buy old systems and try recovering files. Maintenance is also reduced because of the least-privilege user access system because there are less serious problems and less garbage spread through the filesystem and registry. The firewall has been fitted with proactive protection so it can learn of internet-based vulnerabilities from Windows Update and prevent anything similar to MSBlaster from ever causing the user problems and will disable the proactive protection once a patch has been installed. You'd have to go out of your way to hurt security on Longhorn!

And Internet Explorer doesn't even understand the concept of RSS? Get your facts straight buddy. Internet Explorer 7 has the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds.

Longhorn's stability will go beyond what we currently experience, and even XP is extremely stable. In fact, I have only had one blue screen of death on XP and that was because a memory stick had gone bad (thus, not XP's fault.) Windows Server 2003 undergone a completely different development model that dramatically increased stability and increased security over previous versions. Longhorn is built off of the Windows Server 2003 code base and is using the same development model. Longhorn will be extremely stable and secure.

Longhorn's requirements aren't that bad either. 512mb of RAM is the *recommended* amount, not the required amount. Longhorn is much more scalable than previous versions of Windows, it will probably be able to run with just 128mb of RAM because all of the extras can be disabled and it will be able to use the 2000-style themes like previous versions of Windows. 256mb of RAM will likely be the requirement, but as always you can run well under that value (I have XP Pro SP2 running with 96mb of PC-133 RAM and it runs acceptably, and that's below XP's requirements.) Even if the recommended amount was 1gb, that's only $50 (including shipping) from Kingston. If you can't afford 1gb of RAM, you probably shouldn't even be interested in advancing computer technology anyway.

As for Microsoft ignoring online activities regarding communication and gaming, that is FUD if I have ever seen it. Internet Explorer's rendering engine is available to all programmers on Windows, they integrated a decent firewall, web application controls, enabled HTML applications, online-enabled PC games, Xbox live, Xbox 360 live, MSN Games, Windows messenger, MSN Messenger, administrative alerts, Hotmail, Outlook, Outlook Express, suing spammers, SQL Server, etc. What in the world could they possibly be ignoring regarding online activities? I cannot think of a single instance where that statement holds even a bit of credibility.

The only component that has been dropped from Longhorn, as far as I'm aware, is the desktop side bar. Thank goodness, it was a horrible idea anyways (it accomplished the same things as small notification icons that hide themselves.) Monad, the powerful command system, will make a very small appearance in Longhorn and development will continue for many years after. WinFS will not be included by default but development is still continuing and will be made available for Longhorn. I can't think of anything else that was supposedly dropped.

And if you're expecting Beta 1 to even come close to reflecting the capabilities of Longhorn then you will be sadly disappointed. Like all other versions of Windows, it will be nowhere near its capabilities until Beta 2. Besides, betas are testing software, NOT preview software.

Please quit spreading FUD. You were playing Russian Roulette when you started writing this editorial without doing a single bit of research.