I've heard here and there that the next gen OS from Microsoft will not be compatible with existing Windows applications.

Does anyone know if this is verifiably true? I haven't found any concrete evidence that this is the case. It is probably the most logical step in creating a next-gen Windows, but I can't believe for a second that they'd eliminate compatibility with current Windows apps.

If it IS true, then what MS is creating is a fork in the road. They are effectively opening a point where a person can actively choose which road to take (Linux or some other alternative vs. Windows)

" but I can't believe for a second that they'd eliminate compatibility with current Windows apps."

Why not, they did it with WinXP. WinXP broke tons of apps and even more hardware. Ever had to use "Application Compatibility" just to fake a copy of windows 98 or a screen mode to run something?

They're also doing it with Xbox. Next gen Xbox has a different processor architecture, different video card brand. So basically, people will be able to buy a playstation 3 and play all the playstation and playstation 2 games they own, but if they buy an Xbox 2, it'll play Xbox 2 games and that's it.

Microsoft probably figures if they redo everything, everyone will have to buy new copies of everything and they'll try to sell you all the extra's with the operating system.

Due to Microsoft's (from now on mainly called 'they') secrecy about Longhorn, I think nobody knows (yet).

Making Longhorn unable to run old software would boost sells of other software, people have also to buy new office suites which do run on Longhorn, while their old versions don't etc.

This would be a stupid thing to do, since it will cost people more money to change to Longhorn.

Another aspect I think, is how much 'new' things will be implemented in Longhorn. They first planned to implement a new filesystem (I don't know the name anymore) and a whole new shell in Longhorn, but since they had to do so much work for XP SP2 they hadn't the time and people to do it, so that's postponed and will not be in Longhorn, and feature after feature promised for Longhorn is postponed, or being made available for XP as well (like desktop search program, which they had to give out for XP as well, because google was first with such a tool).
It seems they have a hard time 'debugging' XP, keeping up with other distro's, and they will get more concurrents in the server market since Solaris is becoming free (Solaris 10) Furthermore java will maybe be opensourced, FireFox adds appear in papers, OpenOffice is getting more attention, European city's like Munich are switching to Linux, much company's are switching to linux, or even other things like inferno, which is another free OS, and I could go on for hours (read the LXer RSS feeds, and there are companies moving to linux almost every day).
So instead of developing new things, they just try to keep up with things mentioned above in my opinion, and not many new things thought out by Microsoft will be in Longhorn I'm afraid for them.
The only new things for Longhorn will be things available already in other OSdistro's, like better security (hopefully), maybe a package system, they planned a 3d - desktop, which was also postponed (Software needs to change for that, you're right, google for Sun's project looking glass; Sun's lying ahead very much compared to Microsoft at that point), a shell for sysadmins and so on.

The last, least known aspect I think, is DRM. They 'hoped' to implement DRM in Longhorn. They say it's meant to fight piracy, but their real reason could be very different, they hope to get a part of the revenues of movies and music too, which is part of their move to the multimedia-thing, windows media-edition being only a start. Al software needs to change for this, but this is quite an interesting, bit complicated matter other people can explain much better. Please take a glance at:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Erja14/tcpa-faq.html
which explains Trusted source, and former Intel plans being taken over by Microsoft in much detail.

Remember, this is an opinion, other people can have other meanings, and I don't know if I got the right facts, since things told about Longhorn are changing in a fast rate. But they force us to trust gossip instead of facts, by keeping new plans about Longhorn rather secret.

That's all I can tell you at the moment. Hopes this give you some idea's 'bout your question!

Longhorn IS compatible with current applications.

I think what has been sifted out, and given spin, is that support for a lot of older dos based applications is changing, and they are reworking the way 16 bit applications run inside the OS. Just a natural progression of the change in XP, where you could use compatibility types to run applications that required a different version of windows in which to run.

great link DRM is a major goal, with a lot of players working towards it. it would benefit almost all of the gigantic corporations currently in control, to the detriment of competitors and of course, the public. see DMCA for a hint of the future of DRM.

as for ms - what else can they do? what are the reasons that would prompt a switch _to_ ms by someone not using it now? beyond population growth, none - every corporation that is going to use it already does, in the richer nations, and they can't sell it at their ridiculous prices in the poorer ones. even the reasons to upgrade are weak now, in relation to what most corporations use it for. so the only choice is to pack on more useless "innovation," raise the price, and force it on existing users by planned obsolecence if users won't buy it voluntarily.

(along those lines a law requiring, for example, DRM and associated upgrades - for "public safety" reasons of course - would be a nice windfall)

i have used a pre release version of longhorn (build 4015) and my programs loaded on fine and i even put office 95 on it and it worked so i think it should work fine however when installing it was a night mare!!! all drivers have to be digitally signed and non of them are for longhorn yet so you sit ther for about an hour and a half just continually clicking "continue any way" and as for the BSoD well i have never seen it so may times as what i did in longhorn!! but it is in the beta stages so its understandable pluss its windows! lol

change it from warn but allow install, to ignore. Then the driver installation will be transparent.

i would do that but its when its installing windows and befor you can access controle pannel otherwise i would

Longhorn faces a catch 22. It must dump the registry to become securable, and all present windows apps are registry based. I wouldn't want the job, but the registry in present form is indefensible and that amounts to allowing root privileges to anything that can see the IP or send e-mail

thats a pile of crap.

it works with older apps, and because longhron is dropping features and being delayed every day, many apps that where once scheduled to be "longhorn-only" will now be compatible wiht xp and 2k.

no, i was refuting the first post.

the longhorn betaś available on the net i think are a bit of a farse

If longhorn is as revolutinary as win 3.1 to 95
why does on the early builds of longhorn beta does the Windows XP foot printsregualalry appear

the boot screen was on one version the identical one to the standard win XP screen.

According to microsofts claims
current software is inefficicint so they will be scrapping the API win32 model that ensures backward compatibility, aka VB runtimes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.0 etc and replace it with .net.
the engine to provide compatibility with 9x will probably go they described it as a security risk
secunia and other software security ombudandsmen agree with that.

Current XP and 2kx software will likely run i guess providing they don´t use 16bit code or Visual basic pre .net

/me wonders if Longhorn is 64Bit XP?