Barely 4 weeks after terms of the settlement of the Justice Department's Anti-Trust lawsuit against Microsoft, and a reported huge grin on Chairman Bill Gate's lips upon hearing the news, details on the next generation Windows are beginning to leak from Redmond though not a word for the record. I hope, dear readers, you are less spooked than I upon reading some of the details, but when two words "radical" and "Microsoft" are offered in the same sentence, this is more than enough to scramble the NTFS on my hard drives!

The successor to XP will be a far different beastie than the one we're familiar. Code-named Longhorn, it's based on XML, eXtensible Markup Language, will require new hardware to operate, and fully integrate graphics, audio and video very similar to the MAC OS. With the operating system on XML this will require fewer applications for user data, but gives rise to my concern the bottom line is once again, Microsoft's attempt to corner the market and make the new world have the sun rise and set in Redmond.

Increased security will be the result of locking the operating system to the hardware. Longhorn will require PCI Express, the next motherboard design to replace the current PCI specification. Though security firms, defense contractors and large corporations will no doubt rejoice over this news, if you are the weekend tinkerer and are not afraid to upgrade / replace hard drives, DVD-ROM drives, etc. be prepared for this to impact your ability to change the hardware without Windows balking. I've already had problems with XP licensing arising from hardware changes requiring re-installation of XP and after "x" number of times the license will refuse to operate - even on the same PC. Expect Longhorn to further complicate the issue.

Oh yes, did I mention the new operating system will require new software? Do not worry, my friends, I'm sure there will be a new Office Suite available for the rollout of the new Windows. I can almost see Bill Gates smile - once again.

Don Pressgrove

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