Unseen Windows Longhorn UI Screen Shots

[Roo_the_Vickty]

hence the word "concepts"

[Maza]

Nice to see Longhorn is still receiving some love, even after 13 years.

I don't love it any less than I did when I was way into it back in the early days! Two more before heading to bed...

Thank you for sharing any screenshots at all.

It is interesting to see some of these; the one for Media Player in particular looks very similar to the applications included in Windows Vista.

The Games Explorer layout is beautiful but it does not look very practical, in terms of what can be seen in one view; it is very restrictive when compared with icons. Disregarding Buddy Matchmaker, it is most unfortunate that the Automatic Game Update and the Add Games Aero Wizard were killed off from the final product when even post-reset documentation suggests that they would be included.

[Zacchi4k]

OMG yes! New longhorn leak!

[ovctvct]

OMG yes! New longhorn leak!

Have you even bothered to read the whole topic? It's a concept, not actual builds.

[ReflectiaX]

More concepts! There is some really spiffy stuff going on in this particular demo.

First, some of you may not know about the fictitious company, "Proseware." It's another to add to the list of Contoso, Fabrikam, etc.

Next up, the third and fourth images show a unique implementation of an effect which we've all seen before (see here and here). To explain, what happens is the user logs in, and the login screen sort of folds back while the desktop then folds in.

Also, notice the big icons on the desktop. Those were much more than just regular icons in the traditional sense. In the last screenshot, you can see the carousel around the "Family Fridge" live icon. That carousel does spin around the main icon, with background items falling behind the main icon as it spins! The menu fly-outs are from the user interacting with the camera icon in the carousel.

Lastly, in each of these, the green/yellow/pink explorer areas do animate with a rather beautiful aurora-type of effect.

This particular envisioning of Longhorn was quite awesome. =)

[AS95678]

ReflectiaX, these concepts look absolutely amazing! This makes me wish Longhorn had come to fruition.

[DiskingRound]

Is that desert orange wallpaper available anywhere? I think's it's beautiful and adds a spectacular feel to the desktop experience.

[ReflectiaX]

Is that desert orange wallpaper available anywhere? I think's it's beautiful and adds a spectacular feel to the desktop experience.

The image is "Twilight at Lake Powell," by photographer John Wang. The original is located here on Getty Images.



For those who do not know, Bill Gates sold Corbis to Getty Images. Corbis is one of the original stock photo sites, and during the time frame Bill Gates owned it, Microsoft employees and contractors had free access to download whatever they wanted to use from Corbis.

Anyway, as I've demonstrated below, the original image was flipped horizontally and zoomed in, which provides a nice offset to balance the presence of the sidebar in the demo.



And here is the demo with just the shell elements and sidebar:



You may be able to find the image floating around out there without having to pay for it (try searches related to the photographer's name and the name of the image, as well as via Google Image search, Flickr, Adobe Stock, etc., etc.).

Last of note, here's a wide-screen version as well:

[Maza]

Thank you very much for sharing these, ReflectiaX. It is very interesting to see applications integrated with the Windows Shell. The Calendar screenshot in particular was very interesting, at least from a design perspective, though perhaps not very interesting functionality-wise. I must admit that one can approximate a lot of this today, a detail for which I am grateful.

It is disappointing to see the Live! screenshots, as they depict products in a subscription-based business model, unlike the eventual Windows Live which offered similar functionality (for example, remote connections to PCs via Windows Live Mesh). The business model suggests that Microsoft still had issues with planning products, much like several other items at the time.

It is also disappointing to see how the Contacts Explorer would display online status—a feature intended for the OS after the development reset but before RTM—and the People Near Me functionality that actually made it as part of Windows Vista, only to be unloved by application developers and even Microsoft itself.

[vildhjarta888]

More concepts! There is some really spiffy stuff going on in this particular demo.

First, some of you may not know about the fictitious company, "Proseware." It's another to add to the list of Contoso, Fabrikam, etc.

[...]

Dang these images actually look good! It would be cool if Windows was still like this though

[superlions16]

It would be really nice if Longhorn was released, but Microsoft kept bloating it and it just became worse after build 4008. At least I have Windows 7 with a LH theme.

By the way, a1920c is a made up model number, as I built a sleeper PC with an old HP a1000 case, and that was the model I gave to this computer.

[Defaultplayer001]

These are such cool concept images!

Great work, so interesting to see what could have been.

[Maza]

It would be really nice if Longhorn was released, but Microsoft kept bloating it and it just became worse after build 4008. At least I have Windows 7 with a LH theme.

Great work, so interesting to see what could have been.

A lot of what is conceptually depicted in the screenshots is possible. In fact Windows Vista was the operating system that introduced the majority of the fundamental functionality depicted.

Additionally, some of what is seen is frankly just not desirable (e.g., the subscription-based business model for Windows Live).

[i4640]

It's almost ten years I still love the design of the UI. I haven't seen these screenshots before but I believe it's pre-4000 version Longhorn and it looks novel to me.

[Maza]

[...]

The designs for the Game Explorer are from Carolyn Farino of Digerati Design.

Here is another design, named "MS_VISTA_GL_6."



It is interesting to see the Quick Links for photos and videos in the navigation pane, as well as the column headers for photos in videos in the Games Explorer.

Farino also created designs for DirectX 6.0; Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP; and the Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP Web page.

[Mister RoyFoy1]

Nice to see concept art for Longhorn is still being made

[Maza]

Nice to see concept art for Longhorn is still being made

This is not new!

[dejco]

Any plans of releasing video, like you did it whit plex?

[xyz]

I hope MS goes back to this sexy Aero style one day. This looks so much better than the flat Windows 8/10-Style.

[Kimberly5384]

You know, some of these builds show a shocking resemblance to these images. That's nice that Microsoft went through all that work.

[Kimberly5384]

These look awesome. Thanks for the share.