Windows Longhorn/Longhorn Days

A screenshot of a Windows "Longhorn" demonstration displayed in a Longhorn Days video.

Longhorn Days is a set of Macromedia Director demos created by Microsoft to demonstrate the capabilities intended for the Windows "Longhorn" operating system. The name Longhorn Days is from ReflectiaX, when he shared in 2009 screenshots of the demos.

Videos

Portions of the demos appeared in a promo video for PDC 2003, with "Get the Party Started" by P!nk playing in the background.

Stephen Chapman also made two videos based on these demos. These may be accessed here and here. These demos were also used to generate screenshots for patent filings. See the black-and-white photos in the Gallery.

Demos

Some of the demos are available at the website of Heesung Koo, product designer for the Windows team during "Longhorn" development.

The executable files showing how the Basket tile was intended to function were previously available at here. The .exe files have been archived by the Wayback Machine. Koo's page detailing how the Basket tile was designed to work (with links to the .exe files) is available here. A demo, bin4.exe, could not be opened. ReflectiaX analyzed its contents and concluded, "I think the file upload of bin4.exe died before it was complete and the client wasn't set to resume failed uploads."

Other demos were also available here, but access to this page has since been forbidden. The .exe files were archived by the Wayback Machine. These demos are:

1. bin8.exe - Longhorn Listmaker,
2. burn1.exe - Burn to CD wizard,
3. e2e photos.exe - My Pictures and Videos (the basic functionality of this is in Windows 10's Photos app, though not the user interface and the auto-rotate function),
4. msxday.exe - My Music library,
5. tree1.exe - Longhorn Listmaker navigation.

Other demos, including unused ones, were made available by ReflectiaX and may be downloaded here.

Gallery

These images and their captions were taken from Heesung Koo's website, specifically on his "Longhorn Music & Radio Overview" page, except when otherwise noted.

Acquire

M3

M4 (Partner-WMP) Ownership of specs (per LHMC discussions, next steps are to decide on the actual spec owners and roles for Music, including Acquisition and Playback). Next steps: Drive the specifics. Owner: TonyCh. Usability test planned for grouping algorithm.

— Heesung Koo, Longhorn Music & Radio Overview,

"Insert CD"

• "Since music place is not a physical space we can promote many virtual views. One we promote here is "most recently added" grouped view where cds users have copied recently are populated."

"Automatically copy and play"

• "Whenever users insert a cd our default experience is to copy and play it at the same time. We will provide a cue via countdown mechanism where users are given a choice to select other options. If users let it go, we will begin copying once the countdown has expired."

"Animating currently copy CD in most recently added"

• "Users can see animating CD in most recently added in music library. When users click this album, they can see the detailed status about it."

"Status of copying CD"

• "We want to leverage the preview pane to show progress off copying music to shell library. Here we will indicate Which song is being copied and what the overall copy Status is."
• "The status shows which song is playing and copying and how much time it does remain to finish."

First experience

M3

Designed a place holder null select preview pane.

M4 Define first experience in music library with new frame work.

— Heesung Koo, Longhorn Music & Radio Overview,

"First experience"

• "As first experience, we promote most recently add and music library. Most recently added is based on usage pattern we find songs that recently added in users' library."
• "We want to promote three tasks that we want to bubble up to users. These three tasks are not decided yet."
• "If users don't have metadata for thier CD, how do we want to update thier metadata? do we want to do it forground? or background?"

"Missing metadata"

• "Issue: We consider what the best experience to update and get metadata for music. which experience will be forground or background?"
• "Longhorn starts filling in the blanks for meta-data in your music collection automatically."
• "Missing Album art starts filling in, and a list of recently added music is created dynamically"

"Most recently added"

• "LH music will support auto preset based on users' usage patterns. Most recently added is one of these functions. After we filled up missing metadata, then users can see "most recently added album" from their music library."

Browse/Organize

M3

Music Library - Defined preview pane - Designed list views

M4 (New frame work) Music Library - Define preview pane - Define taks pane - Define filter & pivots - Design list views - Design properties page - Preview song (p2)

M5 - Services Integration - Radio Integration - eHome Integration

— Heesung Koo, Longhorn Music & Radio Overview,

Music library

"All Albums"

• "Expose five pinned pivot in music library which are all tracks, all albums, all artists, all playlists, and most recently added. There are more auto preset using usage pattern under more auto-search."
• "open issue: has to decide an appropriate terminology for other pivot -own by stacy lewis"
• "Expose two filters -albums and artist"
• "open issue: where is group by? I assume that group by is with view by, so that user click the icon of view by, users can see both of them."
• "Let user navigate into get songs. double click to open an album"

"All Artists"

• "Open issue 1: here is two different opinions that First, we need to have consistent users behavior with all albums and all artists. The reasons is that there is one more tiers, then we have to let user navigate into the second tier. We have to give consistent view like albums. All artists view is supposed to thubmail of artist picture, not expose sub tiers. Then what is this view can be? call by " all in one view" which we add another pivot."
• "Open issue 2: On the other hands, Pivot has individual strength or benefit to present users to be albe to see and do easily and quickly. It doesn't have to keep consistenting behavior this case. Another consideration is we already have enough pivot that user has to understand and use. Do we have to add another pivot which call by "all in one view" which actually this view is that the same presentation of all artists."

"Filter 1"

• "Now in LH build you can see that it shows all sub catagories under genre, year, size and duration. Even though the catagories are different here. In music UX team will decide what we think to be filter lists here."
• "open issue: is it better to show sub catagories in drop down? or if this is MRU, then users choose one of filters, show the sub catagories under it."
• "The default will be albums and artist, but the filter area will be MRU, so that it will be changed whatever you used recently."

"Filter 2"

• "The default will be albums and artist, but the filter area will be MRU, so that it will be changed whatever you used recently."
• "open issue: is it better to show sub catagories in drop down? like LH Build has the function now. If the lists are so long, is it an appropriate choice to present to user? or if this is MRU, then users choose one of filters, show the sub catagories under it."

Preview pane

"Preview Pane 1"

• "Open issues: how do we want to expose contextual tasks with related to more tasks and general tasks with related to more tasks. Do we want to put togehter all more tasks that it doesn't matter what the tasks are involved in such as contextual or general. Terminology has to defined, if we will seperate two different tasks."
• "This design presents that more activities will show all other tasks both of contextual and general tasks."

Preview Pane 2

• "Open issues: how do we want to expose contextual tasks with related to more tasks and general tasks with related to more tasks. Do we want to put togehter all more tasks that it doesn't matter what the tasks are involved in such as contextual or general. Terminology has to defined, if we will seperate two different tasks."
• "It presents that we might be seperate "more activities" to present more contextual tasks and other tasks using different location and term. Terminology has to be defined in this case differently."

Playback

M3

M4 (partner-WMP) Define UI on playback - from preview - from list views - from bar parts - from list maker - ehome intergrarion

— Heesung Koo, Longhorn Music & Radio Overview,

"Docked player - first experience"

• "The player is docked to the bar by default allowing for easy access to music while doing other things."

"Docked player"

• "When users start to play music, it will display album art and album title. Also the title line will animate horizontally to show between song title and album title."

"Flyout from docked player 1"

• "In LH media player is optimized for playback experience with the ability navigate through music collections in a light way. Here users can change my play list to others such as auto playlist, albums, or etc."

"Flyout from docked player 2"

• "Users can easily and quickly replace music through flyout from docked player in sidebar."

Other images

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  Virtual folder - all songs

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  Virtual folder - Most frequent played

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  Virtual folder - all artists 1

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  Virtual folder - all artists 2

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  Virtual folder - all artists 3

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  Virtual folder - all artists 4

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  Virtual folder - all artists 5

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  soundslike view 1

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  soundslike view 2

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  soundslike view 3

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  soundslike view 4

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  soundslike view 5

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  soundslike view 6

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  visual design 2: sound wave view-support rich tool tip when users hover on the object instead of full function of preview pane. If users want to see preview pane, they could change soundslike view to the list view

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  Music Library

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  Structure

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  Create a playlist

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  Add music I

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  Add music II

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  Add music III

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  Add music IV

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  Add music V

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  Add music VI

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  Add music VII

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  Add music VIII

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  Add music VIII

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  Add music VIV

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  Rename the playlist

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  All playlist place

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  Device 1

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  Device 2

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  Device 3

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  Device 4

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  Device 5

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  Device 6

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  Device 7

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  Audiotron device

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  Send e-mail experience in XP: Users have incosistent emailing experience: Entry point from task in shell, right mouse click, and from mail programs.

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  Send e-mail experience in LH: User will have consistent emailing experience:Entry point from task in shell, right mouse click, and from mail programs.

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  "FIG. 9A is a screen shot showing an open application" (Source: US7669140B2 patent)

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  "FIG. 9B is screen shot showing the application of FIG. 9A minimized in the sidebar" (Source: US7669140B2 patent)

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  "FIG. 9C is a screen shot showing important features available in the application minimized in the sidebar" (Source: US7669140B2 patent)

Implementation

Build 4015 has a playlist maker, the UI of which is similar to one of the images above from Heesung Koo's website.

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  My Documents from build 3706 Media Center Edition, note UI similarities with the images from the demos

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  My Music from build 3706 Media Center Edition

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  My Pictures from build 3706 Media Center Edition

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  My Documents from build 3713, note UI similarities with the images from the demos

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  My Pictures from build 3713

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  My Documents from build 4002, note UI similarities with the images from the demos

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  My Music from build 4002

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  My Pictures from build 4002

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  Stacks in Music Library in build 4008. Note the quick links at the left and compare with the screenshots from the demos above.

External links

• Unseen Windows Longhorn UI Screen Shots - BetaArchive
• More Longhorn UX thingy stuff. - BetaArchive
• Longhorn Director demos - BetaArchive