Microsoft: Let the 64-bit era begin

Microsoft will attempt to bring Windows into the 64-bit era with a bang on Monday, unveiling its long-awaited 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP client. It will also show off the progress it has made with Longhorn and detail the role it will play in helping make 64-bit technology and advanced mobility common place.

In his keynote address at the company's annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Chairman Bill Gates will give a flashy demonstration of Longhorn. He will highlight the benefits of the operating system's 3D graphical interface and he will show how desktop users can still manage, sort, and view meta data and then organize that data into virtual folders across their systems using just the Windows shell, despite the absence of the Win/FS file system from Longhorn.

"I think what will surprise people the most is that the functionality associated with WinFS can also be delivered through the Windows shell. This technology can be used by all of Windows file explorers like My Documents or My Pictures. In Longhorn you will be able to richly organize and query meta data that is automatically tied to these (file explorers)," said Greg Sullivan, Lead Product Manager in Microsoft's Windows Division.

The various transparencies, shading, and richer animation capabilities of Longhorn's graphical interface that will be featured in the demo are not glitz for glitz's sake, because these improvements are designed to help users to "collect, organize, and visualize data in a way that is not possible today," Sullivan said.

The biggest drawback to not having Win/FS present, however, is that there are no APIs present that would allow corporate and third-party developers to write applications that fully exploit the advantage of the technology, Sullivan said.

The 2,800 people expected to attend this week's show will get a copy of the developer's preview release of Longhorn, although it will not contain any of the 3D graphics or data management capabilities demonstrated during Gates' keynote. This latest build is intended more to accommodate developers and hardware manufacturers who write device drivers for Longhorn, according to company officials.

Gates will also "offer guidance" to what the desktop hardware requirements will be to run both the 32- and 64-bit versions of Longhorn with good performance. A Longhorn-ready PC will need 512MB of memory, a Pentium processor considered to be "mainstream" by today's performance standards, and a graphics card that supports the new LDDM (Longhorn Display Driver Model).

"If your machine meets the requirements of the existing Windows XP logo program, your users will have a good experience. The differences in hardware requirements between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions will not be that different as far as RAM and video are concerned," Sullivan said.

Gates will reiterate that Microsoft is still on track to ship Longhorn in time for the 2006 holiday season, although he will not announce a specific date. Sullivan did suggest, however, that in order to make that timeframe, Microsoft would have to finish its development work well in advance of that time period in order to have enough time to manufacture the retail product as well as get it onto hardware makers machines.

Declining to comment on when Longhorn would be available, Sullivan said that Windows will celebrate its 20th Anniversary on November 18 of this year.