Microsoft Avalon Community Technology Preview November 2004

4.1 out of 5 stars 4.1 (21 votes)

ALPHA (January 14, 2005)

Windows 2003/XP / Freeware / 6,920 downloads

Microsoft Avalon is Microsoft's unified presentation subsystem for Windows. It consists of a display engine and a managed-code framework. It unifies how Windows creates, displays, and manipulates documents, media, and user interface. This enables developers and designers to create visually-stunning, differentiated user experiences that improve customer connection. When it ships, scheduled for 2006, it will be available on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and all future releases of the Windows operating system. When delivered, it will become Microsoft's strategic user interface (UI) technology.

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Reviews of Microsoft Avalon Community Technology Preview

  1. 4 out of 5 stars
    DigitalSin

    Reviewing November 2004 (Jan 15, 2005)

    Pretty good so far. The framework seems pretty intuitive and friendly. The UI components are pretty slick and responsive.

    For those frustrated about how to use this: you really need to have Visual Studio 2005 (Whidbey) installed to take full advantage of the samples found in the help file. You might be able to use the free Express editions of visual studio. You will still need .NET 2.0 sdk or at the very least the runtime installed which is currently in beta.

  2. 5 out of 5 stars
    avdven

    Reviewing November 2004 (Jan 15, 2005)

    I haven't looked at this yet, but for all of those asking how to "run" it, you're probably not going to be able to.

    I've worked with some of their other CTP releases (I'm a MSDN subscriber) and for some, I had to compile their source files in order to get them to work.

    As the documentation says, however, this is an SDK, so it's simply the framework necessary to develop applications for the platform. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can actually see it in action unless you have a program that has been expressly written to work with it. Hope that clarifies it for some people.

    I downloaded this way back in December but, as I said, I haven't had a chance to look at it. Based upon my previous work with some Pre-release Longhorn technology though, I'm giving it a 5. MS has taken a great new approach to develop the new OS from the ground up and it really shows in the emerging techologies they are utilizing.

  3. 3 out of 5 stars
    Prospero424

    Reviewing November 2004 (Jan 15, 2005)

    How the heck do you run the tech preview instead of just the SDK tools?

    All I want to do is see it running, yet I see no way to do this whatsoever. Am I missing something obvious? I can't even find the tech preview's installation directory.

    Incredibly frustrating lack of documentation.

  4. 4 out of 5 stars
    bryantp

    Reviewing November 2004 (Jan 14, 2005)

    Funny that Avalon translate to mean "Apple island".

    Links to learn more about the material:
    http://www.informationwe...html?articleID=53701374

    http://www.internetnews.com/article.php/3439251

    Perspective from Flash point of view
    http://www.flash-mx.com/news/archives/000348.cfm

    Summary,
    Avalon will be a sort of replacement for the .NET ease of building webservices and consumers of those webservices all rolled up into the upcoming longhorn release.

  5. 4 out of 5 stars
    aerthling

    Reviewing November 2004 (Jan 14, 2005)

    Sweet :D

    You'll need the .NET Framework 2.0 Beta 1 installed before you can install this, apparently.

    http://www.microsoft.com...7019&displaylang=en

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