Text 11032, 65 rader
Skriven 2006-05-22 21:55:36 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: Early Vista/Longhorn: Compatible Or Not So Much?
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From: Mike '/m' <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188100474

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There may be more going on behind the scenes with Vista and Longhorn than even
the wildest conspiracy theorists have thus far surmised.

Microsoft sources say that as of just a few months ago, the company itself
could not get early internal code for the upcoming client- and server-side
Windows operating system to work together in house.

While some glitches are to be expected, Microsoft's story (and the company
officially denies a problem with interoperability) is that both client and
server are based on the same code and on common subsystems. That would make it
seem that such big interop problems would not occur at all.

However, trusted sources confirm the glitch story. One said that compatibility
between the upcoming Office 2007 and Vista is also a matter of concern.
Microsoft has said that Office 2007 features will "light up" with Vista but
that the suite will not require it and will run on Windows XP and Windows 2000
clients as well.

Asked if there was a disconnect between early server and client code working
together at Microsoft a source close to the work said: "This is entirely
true…when all this started back it was to be a single code base for all these
things, and in particular Indigo [the communications subsystem]. Last year,
when they started again with the client, there was a fork in the code base, so
the components of Indigo on the client are no longer the same components in the
server," he noted.

This is important because the client needs to know how to interact with the
server, what the server needs to hear from it. A bifurcation of effort occured
because Microsoft was under the gun to get the client out in some semblance of
a near-term timeframe and "ripped the API model out of the client but not out
of the server," he noted.

This source said when Microsoft tried to do an entire "platform build" a few
months ago "it crashed completely."

He characterized this as a big deal, but not a SUPER big deal because Microsoft
has time to fix the problem before shipment. Vista is due to EA accounts by
year's end and to everyone else early next year. The server is still slated to
ship in 2007.

For the record, Microsoft's story remains that Indigo (now known as the Windows
Communications Foundation) is the same on both sides of the client-server
divide.

Says Microsoft (through a spokeswoman):

"The use of common platform components and standardized communications
protocols across the WinFX technologies ensures interoperability between any
operating system in which these components are integrated (such as Vista and
Longhorn) and with any down-level operating system for which these components
will be made available –such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

At any rate, this is a good thing to sniff around on at WinHEC, no?
===

  /m

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