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Microsoft's Longhorn Build 4074 appears to be more stable and feature- rich, based on recent testing of a 4074 version that was distributed to WinHEC attendees. Longhorn Build 4074 is also available to MSDN subscribers at msdn.mx.com/longhorn. Microsoft seems to be on keeping to its promised feature set, but, for Longhorn to be successful, it will need substantial buy-in from hardware and software vendors. New hardware has to be developed, and new drivers in 32- and 64-bit versions, have to be written to run the new hardware. For users to enjoy the whole Longhorn experience, applications that leverage Avalon, WinFS, and indigo have to be written. However, the industry is not yet certain if developers will promote Longhorn-only features in applications that also have to support Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Longhorn's new subsystems will require much more powerful hardware, and when Longhorn does ship, a large percentage of machines will not be able to use Longhorn's new features, and may not be able to run any of them. Most of the visible changes in Build 4074 center around the new Avalon presentation subsystem that enhances use of the high-end abilities of graphics cards, improves graphics performance and stability, and improves the ability of developers to bring features such as 3D images and video into their applications.
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