Microsoft to hype up Longhorn at WinHEC

Allchin said it's helping developers to write graphics drivers and the thing will be a "preview" completely different from other "previews" of Longhorn. So it will be a post-preview "preview" of what might be a beta.

The real beta will be very exciting, Allchin told CRN, although we think it's fair to comment that the hardware firms lost their sense of excitement quite a little while ago.

One really exciting thing is that Longhorn will still be able to run Visicalc. For our younger readers, Visicalc was the first spreadsheet program, released in 1979 for the Apple II by industry vets Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston. Aye, it was a killer application. If it will run Visicalc, it will probably run other programs from the past, such as Microsoft's far from exciting DOS spreadsheet product, Multiplan.

Oh, and Longhorn will be safe and secure.

It's all a good read, and it's all here. µ

* WE ARE INFORMED Longhorn will continue to run Edlin as well, which we think is more than you can say for future iterations of the Itanic, although we're happy to be proved wrong.