Microsoft is expected to recommend that the "average" Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.
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What a load of crap. Forget this, I'm running Linux.

If this is truly the system requirements for Longhorn then it will be the biggest, slowest, most bloated Microsoft OS yet. More than likely MS is releasing these "requirements" to spur more computer sales when Longhorn ships, specifically new computers with MS DRM chips installed so they have total control over content on your computer.

With the recently released standards for MS new DRM these chips could and will control access to features you now use legally, such as outputting video from you graphics card to your TV or audio to your CD burner or soundcard or even erasing files it deems as "stolen"

If this is the true requirements for Longhorn then my WindowsXP pro machine will be running linux and I will be spend even more time in the Macs Unix based OS X. Giving more power to external sources is the cause of the security problems we are saddled with today...such as shutting down banks and automated tellers, slowing the internet no matter which platform you use and of course spending more time maintaining a device that should do a good job of maintaining itself. If Longhorn opens up even more hooks into the system without proper security....and MS still has not got it right then more problem are bound to happen.

The world is becoming more and more dependent on MS products and if MS fails in making it a very secure product then future losses could run into the billions and billions of dollars.....and sooner or later people will being looking at Microsoft to pony up for those losses.

Longhorn is coming out in 2006 at the earliest. Probably more likely to be 2007. By then these system requirements (given current trends) will be normal.

So let's see. Right now a prescott dissipates nearly 4x the heat and power @ 3.4 that a G5 does at 2, and they expect that in 2006/7 Intel chips will be cooking at 6 gig? I hope the 2000W power supplies are just around the corner. But the truly exciting news is that every intel machine will come with an integrated george foreman grill. Seriously. Think about what people want when you make an OS, and I for one don't want to wait 15 minutes for my os to start. My P4 2.8 HT 800FSB with 1 Gig of ram takes over three minutes to boot completely. My dual G5, 19 secs? A pit of a difference if I do say so myself. Microsoft needs to look into innovative ideas and products, and stop it with the "stuff as much garbage as possible into the box" line of thinking.

I, as a mac user, will personally tell you that this "longhorn" crap is nothing but an ugly, slow, sad excuse for Mac OSX. "Avalon" is a direct ripoff of Quartz, only ugly. "Cobra" is just a load of crap, and most of its functions, including disk journaling and such are already in OSX. OSX has protected memory, will run on 400mhz/128MB/5GB just fine, has a unix core, looks 5x better than winXP, and is generally better. Furthermore, our open source effort is far better than that on windows. Our file sharing clients will connect to massive numbers of p2p networks and run faster than MS word, our aim clients run faster than notepad and can do all sorts of things you windows users never thought of, and safari owns IE and mozilla badly. iLife in general owns, and, you guessed it, it runs better on mac for obvious reasons.

Now, just to prove that anyone who supports windows is an idiot, I will finish off my bash, as long as it is already. Think of all the security flaws in all versions of windows. Win98 is the ONLY ONE that isn't entirely insecure, and it isn't even supported anymore. There's an app out that would allow me to crash any non win98 windows user with only their ip, there's virii out that don't even need email to spread anymore because MS provided them with backdoors and security holes to work with. Now imagine what MS will do with a 1TB operating system compared to what they've managed already with ones that takes only maybe 5GB. Anyone with half a brain and some programming knowlege will have enough security holes to bring down every longhorn comp on earth once a day for the rest of their lives.

of course you should always, always believe what you read on the internet, it's such a bona fide source of truth

I suspect that a 14Ghz CPU, 1 Terabyte of L1 cache, a exabyte of storage, 28" monitor and an intercooled Rayjay turbo to run Longhorn may be more likely. Really. Maybe. Perhaps its all just a wind up ?? My old mans' 400Mhz P2 runs Windows XP just fine, thanks.. and remember what they said about that ?

Quote "Windows 98 was the only version to be not completely insecure" (or something)

lol

shows how much u know, mac boy. go play with your toys and stop reading MS posts

The reason us Mac users are reading this is the whole Mac community is laughing its butt off over these specs. Even if they aren't the final specs for the OS when it releases in, say, five years, it's just a great piece of irony this even came out - true or not - given the bloated nature of anything M$ does. This has all the humor of a Dilbert cartoon, even. Whatever the case, there will never be a windoze OS that matches the attention to user and operation detail and interoperability of Mac OS X, no matter how many terrabytes of code M$ packs into their mad-cow (that's 'Longhorn' for those unable to grasp the pun) operating system.

well done at last microsoft lauches such OS that can not be used to a cooman man, it will be used only two place one is Microsoft and other is Intel .
big rabush, all isthe ways of geting more and more money