Preview: Microsoft's Windows Longhorn

Preview: Microsoft's Windows Longhorn "It's difficult to draw any definitive conclusions at such an early stage. Fooling around with Longhorn was almost like playing with a research project. But Longhorn is shaping up to be a big bet for Microsoft and, from what we've seen, it looks promising. It's also clear, though, that many elements are still in flux. At the very least, there are more ways to do the same thing in Longhorn -- at least, when it comes to files and the file system – than there are in Windows XP. That offers added flexibility, but it could also be confusing.
What we've seen of WinFS also looks very promising. We're looking forward to checking out the progress on this exciting new capability as it evolves.
Unfortunately, the thing that users will see, interact with and benefit from -- the user interface -- was mostly missing. We're particularly intrigued by the compositing engine, as well as the idea of a fully hardware-accelerated, 3D desktop. Alas, that will have to wait for another day."

Via Microsoft Watch