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Indigo, Avalon Previews Available to All Comers

Over the weekend, Microsoft posted the "Indigo" and "Avalon" community technology previews for free to anyone with the bandwidth to download them.

Previously, the pre-beta versions of the two Windows subsystems for Windows Longhorn, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 had been available only to MSDN subscribers.

"This CTP release recently became available to MSDN subscribers and is now being released to the general public in response to numerous requests," Microsoft noted on its download page.

Microsoft originally released the Indigo and Avalon CTPs March 16. The CTP for the Indigo communications subsysytem was the first Microsoft has released since expanding Indigo and Avalon beyond the Longhorn operating system in August. An earlier CTP for the Avalon presentation subsystem came out in November.

The Indigo and Avalon CTPs are available here in a 450-MB download.

Microsoft defines Indigo as Microsoft’s unified programming model for building connected systems. It piles APIs onto the .NET Framework 2.0 for building secure, reliable, transacted Web services, and Indigo is supposed to cut development time.

Avalon, a unified presentation subsystem, consists of a display engine and a managed-code framework. Avalon is supposed to standardize how Windows creates, displays and manipulates documents, media, and user interface.

Longhorn, Avalon and Indigo are all scheduled to ship in 2006.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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