The Windows we never got: users get to work programming "Longhorn Reloaded"
A handful of programmers and tech-savvy Windows users are attempting to do what Microsoft's legion of coders could not, by turning the 'Longhorn' beta builds of Windows Vista into a full-featured operating system.
The Longhorn Reloaded project is a daring attempt to roll back the clock from Vista and resurrect the OS in its original form using the seeds of its first iteration -- specifically, the '4074 build' shown and distributed during the WinHEC geekfest in Seattle in May 2004. At that time, Microsoft was still spruiking Longhorn as a radically re-engineered OS that would forever change the Windows roadmap.
However just three months later, frustrated by delays and with the feeling that Microsoft may have bitten off more than even the mighty software colossus could chew, then Windows chief Jim Allchin persuaded Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to flick the reset switch on Longhorn and settle for a far less ambitious but more 'do-able' OS.
