This afternoon we were treated to an interesting Microsoft TechNet chat session on networking in Windows Longhorn. The session provided a great overview of what we can expect from the Longhorn networking team come this May. Longhorn will introduce us to a completely redesigned and harmonized IPv4/IPv6 protocol stack. (Windows currently implements 2 independent stack binaries to support IPv4 and IPv6) Effectively this means that it will be possible to listen to IPv4 and IPv6 traffic simultaneously, while using only a single listening socket.
Microsoft was really pushing the fact that Longhorn will be completely IPv6 compatible, finally establishing a platform for 3rd party vendors to build on.
Our message to the industry is "move the applications, get them IPv6 ready, rely on transition technologies until the infrastructure is in place" Longhorn is slated to be capable of running in a "IPv6 Only" mode. Although you can currently remove IPv4 capabilities from Windows, a wide range of services and programs still depend on it for network access. All components of Longhorn which are "network aware" are slated to natively support IPv6 and IPv6 only mode.
Several small pieces of information came up in the chat which are worth mentioning. There are no plans to include a GUI version of 'Ipconfig', similar to the old 'Winipcfg' in Longhorn. Longhorn will completely do away with support for IPX networking, but will still include legacy support for WINS. Microsoft is still unsure whether NetBIOS support will make it into Longhorn, or when a decision concerning NetBIOS will be made.
See our 'Read More' section for some interesting quotes from today's TechNet session.
View: IPv6 Information
View: Longhorn Preview
View: Windows Longhorn Home
Making home networking easier is a key focus in Longhorn; among the aspects made simpler are setup, discovery of network resources, access and use of networked resources, diagnostics, roaming, etc. Considerable effort is going into making file sharing simple.
Our principal focus in Longhorn is to "make WIFI a great experience", both for users and for managers. We are investing a lot on a great diagnostic service, so that users can quickly understand and correct issues with wireless services. We are also investing a lot on a configuration and management. Finally, the extensibility of the stack paves the way for future innovation.
We are focusing on several major aspects: simplifying the interaction with the various configuration and setup UI aspects to make them much simpler to navigate; providing a more unified way of looking at different types of networks and managing them, making discovery and use of networked resources quick and simple, allow users as they move from work to home and public spots to easily roam without onerous intervention on changing settings, and making sure that end users can quickly discover problems, fix them and keep on using their network connections.
There is going to be a Network Explorer in Longhorn that will show the PCs and devices on your network. Users will be able to organize the PCs and users in different sorting order and will show PCs in the different workgroups and domains.
News source:
Neowin
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