--:: Avalon, Indigo Previews Go Public ::--

[sreevirus]

Following a release to MSDN subscribers last week, Microsoft has made its March Community Technology Previews of Avalon and Indigo available for public download.

Avalon and Indigo are two "fundamentals" of Longhorn, the next release of Windows. Avalon is the presentation subsystem and Indigo is a platform for Web services.

Last month Microsoft told attendees of the VSLive conference that it would deliver the bits designed for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 before the end of March.

Both Avalon and Indigo were originally designed to be exclusive to Longhorn, but Microsoft backported the technologies to give developers a taste before the next Windows.

According to Microsoft, Avalon unifies how Windows creates, displays and manipulates documents, media, and user interfaces. Indigo extends the .NET Framework 2.0 with additional APIs for building secure, reliable, transacted Web services.

The March CTP "enables developers to experiment with early builds of these technologies, get acquainted with the development experience, and provide Microsoft with feedback," Microsoft says.

After numerous requests from developers, Microsoft opted to make the preview release public.

Source: BetaNews



Official Microsoft page: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

Download links:
Microsoft
BetaNews FileForum

File size = 443 MB

[enoonmai]

Thats good news, but somebody tell me - didn't Microsoft release a technical preview of Indigo earlier this year. Or is this the Avalon+Indigo preview bundle?

[sreevirus]

well yes, but they werent released for public downloading, were they? :roll:
even last week's release was only open to MSDN subscribers.