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.^[1]

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.

Demos

Some of the demos are available at the website of Heesung Koo, product designer for the Windows team during the development of Longhorn.^[2]

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 The .exe files have been archived by the Wayback Machine.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."^[3]

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:

bin8.exe - Longhorn Listmaker,
burn1.exe - Burn to CD wizard,
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),
msxday.exe - My Music library,
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.

First experience
Missing metadata
Insert CD
Automatically copy and play
Animating currently copy CD in most recently added
Status of copying CD
Virtual folder - all songs
Virtual folder - Most frequent played
Virtual folder - all artists 1
Virtual folder - all artists 2
Virtual folder - all artists 3
Virtual folder - all artists 4
Virtual folder - all artists 5
soundslike view 1
soundslike view 2
soundslike view 3
soundslike view 4
soundslike view 5
soundslike view 6
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
All Albums
All Artists
Filter 1
Filter 2
Preview Pane 1
Preview Pane 2
Music Library
Structure
Create a playlist
Add music I
Add music II
Add music III
Add music IV
Add music V
Add music VI
Add music VII
Add music VIII
Add music VIII
Add music VIV
Rename the playlist
All playlist place
Device 1
Device 2
Device 3
Device 4
Device 5
Device 6
Device 7
Audiotron device
Send e-mail experience in XP: Users have incosistent emailing experience: Entry point from task in shell, right mouse click, and from mail programs.
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.

Implementation

Build 4015 has a playlist maker, the UI of which is similar to one of the images above from Heesung Koo's website.^[4]

My Documents from build 3706 Media Center Edition, note UI similarities with the images from the demos
My Music from build 3706 Media Center Edition
My Pictures from build 3706 Media Center Edition
My Documents from build 3713, note UI similarities with the images from the demos
My Pictures from build 3713
My Documents from build 4002, note UI similarities with the images from the demos
My Music from build 4002
My Pictures from build 4002
Stacks in Music Library in build 4008. Note the quick links at the left and compare with the screenshots from the demos above.