Winbeta :Three hundred and fifty three days, that's how long its been since the outside world has been given a peek at the state of Windows, Codename Longhorn. On that day, almost a full year ago now, at WinHec 2004 we received the Longhorn build 4074 DVD in our kit; as recently as today I saw someone in our IRC channel seeking a download of that same build. The long drought for a new build of Longhorn is officially over. I proudly present to you, build 5048...

5048 is to be considered a baseline platform, it doesn't have many bells and whistles. Like any builder, the architects at Microsoft have been working on the foundation first. To the casual observer, Longhorn feels like XP with a new shell. But that is truly where the similarities end. A quick glance at the root of the system drive tells a different story. Dig deeper, and the chasm widens. As I've only had a limited time with these recient builds, my thought is to leave the technical analysis to later when more concrete facts can be presented.

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