Posted on: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Windows plan scaled back

By Elizabeth M. Gillespie
Associated Press

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp.'s ambitious plan to keep data safe on PCs will make a scaled-down debut in the next release of Windows, though the operating system's most anticipated improvements in graphics appear to mirror what's now available from rival Apple Computer Inc.

The long-delayed Windows upgrade, code-named Longhorn and now expected in December 2006, has been touted as the most significant update to the ubiquitous operating system since Windows 95 launched in 1995.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates yesterday demonstrated Longhorn's new graphics and other features, which include better ways to view data, such as seeing through windows that are stacked atop each other, more natural file organization and faster searching.

He also promised better performance and reliability — but hinted that the final release could be delayed further.

"Our key goal in terms of Longhorn is that it be the highest-quality release we've ever done," Gates said. "At every stage of the way we're going to listen to feedback, so it's possible some of these milestones will change and we'll choose to put more time into things."

And though he spent only a few minutes on security in his speech, Gates said it is the most important improvement and had received the most attention by developers.

"If you had to take one area where we put the most investment in, the security area would be the head of that list by a significant amount," he told the audience at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference.

Longhorn is the first Windows version to implement Microsoft's vision of placing security cryptographic keys on special silicon chips that would be built into PCs. Currently, such encryption locks are stored as data on a hard drive. It is much more difficult to crack a chip.

The security chip in computers running Longhorn would thus render sensitive files inaccessible if someone tries to boot the machine from a portable hard drive or floppy disk.

The security initiative — once code-named Palladium but later christened the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or NGSCB — was announced in 2002 and was quickly attacked by privacy advocates, Microsoft critics and others as a mechanism by which commercial interests might wrest control of PCs from their owners.

Some say it would enable strict copyright protection schemes for music, movies and software. It also could restrict the tinkering that has driven computer industry innovation over the years, they said.

But secure startup isn't expected to be as controversial as chip-based rights management. Microsoft has not said how else Longhorn might interact with the chip, though security features are expected that would make it more difficult for online criminals to break into PCs.

Neil Charney, director of product management in Microsoft's Windows group, said the secure startup feature is most likely to be used in business computers, especially in laptops that store sensitive data.