Windows Longhorn build 4074

Windows Longhorn build 4074 is a Milestone 7 build of Windows Longhorn. It is the official WinHEC 2004 preview build, which was released on 4 May 2004, and is one of the most famous pre-reset builds of Longhorn.

The default wallpaper has been changed to "Leaves". The Jade theme can be used to enable translucent window frames, which has not been seen since build 4042.

It is one of the several Longhorn builds that has a timebomb set to evaluation mode that triggers after 180 days, and as such it can be installed on the current date. Once the timebomb is triggered, Windows immediately logs the user out and returns back to the logon screen if the user tries to logon.

User profile picture

 * The user profile picture has been replaced with a silver variant.

"Leaves" wallpaper

 * The default wallpaper has been changed to "Leaves", which was first seen in build 4067 (private/lddm_dev_tech(davidmo), albeit without any text.

Desktop Window Manager and MIL

 * This build, unlike many other leaked builds, is the first build to have complete MIL effects in Explorer and Internet Explorer from the Desktop Window Manager, thanks to an early version of MILExplorer. However, a registry modification is required to extend the effect into the full UI of Explorer and Internet Explorer. The green translucent effect called "Jade" is used natively in this build instead of transparent "Glass". Further modifications such as a re-created  file is required to replace the Jade window frames with Glass ones. See the Windows Aero page for instructions on how to enable Aero effects.
 * This build also contains Aero Stars, an animated desktop which shows stars bouncing around the screen. It works with DWM disabled but it is somewhat buggy, and some graphic adapters may have trouble rendering it.
 * An early version of Flip3D has been added to this build, although it lacks animations and is somewhat buggy. Unlike post-reset builds, it uses the same key shortcut as the default window switcher, leaving the latter unaccessible with DWM enabled.

Preview Pane

 * The Preview Pane has been overhauled in this build, after having been under construction in earlier builds, such as 4066. There is a new button which acts as a toggle between the tasks pane and the details pane. Its height has also been diminished by default: expanding the Preview Pane will show more tasks.
 * This build contains an Animated Preview Pane Aurora, but requires some modification to enable it.

Other Aero features

 * The Aero clock resources now do not require a patched, but instead, a reconstructed Aero theme.
 * However, the patched  must still be used to use the Aero clock for all visual styles.
 * Desktop aurora has been introduced, however a patched  must be used.
 * The ability to control DWM through the Ctrl key combination (present in internal builds and build 4066 in the server counterpart) has been introduced. However, it is disabled by default and requires a reconstructed Aero theme for the key combination to work.

Buddy Matchmaker
"Play A Game With Friends" was renamed to Buddy Matchmaker. However, it will throw out errors unlike in other Longhorn builds such as 4051 and 4093.

Hidden boot screen
There is a hidden boot screen which can be enabled, but enabling it will result in a black screen without LDDM drivers. Nobody has ever got it to work, since no LDDM drivers were released for this build. It may be enabled by using this registry file:

New additional dialog boxes

 * A new program box has been added, saying that it is available and if you really want to change the access of the other program.
 * A new pre-release fallback box has been added.
 * A new debug box has been added. It is the same as the pre-release fallback box, except the information is different and there's a debug button, including the blue gradient placeholder missing.
 * A new application crash box has been also added, albeit being similiar with the pre-release fallback box, except the titles and additional information are different, to talk about the crash.

Other new features and changes

 * MSN Messenger has been updated to version 6.1, with a completely new interface.
 * A new driver installation system is implemented. As a result, most drivers that worked on Windows XP will often have the driver installation fall back to a "pre-release mechanism" upon installation. If you get a pop-up notifying about the pre-release mechanism, simply press cancel.
 * Internet Information Services has been updated, but in Windows Components Wizard it says that is version 7.0, but after installation it claims to be version 6.5.
 * The copyright date in  has been updated from 1985-2003 to 1985-2004. This persists up to Windows Longhorn build 4093.
 * Libraries have been updated and now have a majorly uplifted banner.
 * This build improves support for Intel x64 processors with the EM64T instruction set. The previous x64 build, 4051, was unable to boot on those processors.
 * The new scheduled tasks were also implemented, which they might have lots of empty content and some pages might not be functional at all.
 * A hidden Speech Recognition application has been added and can be run under.

Do note the features related to .NET Framework, such as the sidebar, MIL effects or Aurora, don't work on the x64 version. Basic DWM functionality is present, but can be enabled by directly calling relevant  exports using   and a command prompt or extracting   from the installation media.

Installation

 * This build cannot be normally upgraded from a previous build, and as such it can only be clean installed.
 * The Checked/Debug compile of the x86 version requires either a debugger or replacing drivers with ones from the non-Checked/Debug versions of this build due to the large amount of assert errors that prevents setup from installing the system properly.
 * Setup might disallow installation on IDE drives if SCSI drives are installed in the system. However, this seems to be hardware specific.
 * When the text mode setup on some hardware configurations reboots, if the disc drive is set to IDE and the disk drive controller is set to SCSI an  message will appear.
 * The Checked/Debug compile of the x64 version has an assertion error in the IDE driver that results in a bugcheck during "Completing installation" phase with an error code of  and 0xFFFFFFFF80000003 as there was no kernel debugger attached at that point. When this occurs, start WinDbg on the host, connect the debugger to the VM's virtual serial port (shut down the VM then add and configure one if there are none in your VM), then restart the VM and press the F8 key to select "Debugging Mode" and continue the setup. Once the "Assertion failed" message appears, type "ignore" or the letter I to the debugger command window. Repeat this on every message until the setup finishes.

No mouse driver in WinPE
On some computers and virtualizers, the WinPE does not support the mouse, so you must use the keyboard to navigate the WinPE.

System sounds

 * Many system sounds do not work as they are pointed to the  directory instead of the   directory. Even if the registry entry is modified to point to the Media directory, the sounds often do not work for unknown reasons. This was fixed in Windows Vista Beta 2 builds.

Desktop

 * Showing hidden folders leads to a Search icon and a Help and Support Center icon appearing on the desktop. If the icons are removed from the Desktop namespace via registry editing, both aforementioned features would no longer be accessible.
 * Holding ⇪Shift while right clicking on the desktop shows View options like Windows Explorer. Choosing one of the layouts may cause rendering issues or break the Desktop.
 * If Aero Stars is enabled, the icons on the desktop will disappear.
 * Desktop icons tend to change their vertical spacing quite a lot even if icons are not being auto arranged. The Recycle Bin icon jumps randomly on the desktop as well and sorting options are not saved between reboots. The desktop has also been reported to rearrange other icons automatically in certain cases.

Themes

 * Upon changing themes, there are a few bugs you can encounter. One of which is the theme services can malfunction, causing the taskbar to have the classic theme visuals, and the start menu possibly being entirely black. This is generally easy to fix, however, since all it requires is restarting the Themes and Desktop Manager service in, or switch to the Windows Classic theme and then revert back to Luna, Slate, or Jade themes. Another issue, which is more likely, is File Explorer failing to render entirely. If possible, press the Ctrl keys and open Task Manager to terminate  , otherwise you're only left with restarting the system.
 * DWM works with most of the existing visual styles, causing visual glitches especially when using the Classic theme, which usually crashes Explorer itself.
 * On some configurations with the Slate theme applied, the window title may be displayed in incorrect font.
 * The Slate theme has its start button low-quality stretched if the sidebar is enabled, and the hitbox of it and the Aero theme does not reach all the way to the corner.

Composition

 * Performance might suffer greatly when DWM is running, even on fast computers.
 * Sometimes, Explorer windows with MIL effects may display the text overlapped.
 * When enabling DWM when using a visual style other than Jade (such as Slate), the DWM window frame resource in  is used. The  's window frame is less transparent compared to that under the Jade visual style. This quirk is also present in the build 4066.
 * Incorrect scaling happens when using the Windows Classic theme with large fonts and DWM turned on.
 * Upon choosing a wallpaper, the desktop will glitch out if DWM is on.
 * Windows Media Player 9's automatic hiding of the system frame does not work with DWM. The user will not be able to open or close the player or click on any menu until the user presses Ctrl key to show menu bar and then reopen Windows Media Player.
 * The title bar text will not update when under normal use with DWM turned on unless the user maximizes or restores down the window.
 * The Basket sidebar tile leads to an Explorer crash loop if a DWM theme is used. The only solution is to remove the tile from the registry.
 * Using DWM increases the chance of Explorer crashing under normal use. There is a chance that Explorer won't load properly and instead the system would suffer tremendous lag requiring the user to hard reset the machine.
 * This build (and other build onwards) does include transparent glass notification UI, activated when turning on DWM. However, unlike build 4066, this build does not render it correctly, as a black background appears behind them. An assembly named  must be patched for the transparent glass notification UI to render correctly.

Creating folders
The option to create folders by right-clicking and selecting New does not work as the Folder entry is missing. Apply the following registry key to fix this problem:

Memory leak

 * As with most later Longhorn builds, this build's Explorer tends to leak memory after a while. Turning off the Sidebar reduces the effect of the memory leak.
 * WinFS and related services are also affected by major memory leaks. Disabling WinFS solves the problem.

WinFS
WinFS functionality is not enabled by default on this build. To enable WinFS, the user must set the startup type of the following services to Automatic:
 * SAM WinFS Account Store
 * Computer Data Synchronization Manager

Programs that are dependent on WinFS (such as Outlook Express) may crash if the services listed above are not enabled or running.

Faulty Windows Explorer file browse UI
The Windows Explorer file browse UI has two noticeable bugs. The first being that the Navigation Bar only allows for navigation by clicking on parent directories in the bar. The second being that the Filter and Preview panes may occasionally appear black or show parts of content behind the window, and the chance increases when DWM is turned on.

Safe mode
Windows Explorer crashes in a loop by default under safe mode since the sidebar tiles are enabled by default. A prompt will appear titled "Desktop" and will ask to proceed to work in safe mode or start System Restore. Clicking either button will not perform any action and will bring up another exact prompt instead. The desktop will not appear with the prompt and Explorer may not launch. The only workaround is to remove all the sidebar tiles from the registry:


 * 1) Open the Registry Editor from Safe Mode with Command Prompt.
 * 2) Navigate to.
 * 3) Collapse the "Tiles" folder, and then remove all the sidebar tiles from the registry.
 * 4) Type in  in the Command Prompt. Once done,   will start in Safe Mode.

Additionally, when Windows Explorer is running in Safe Mode, clicking on Log Off from the start menu or initializing the Shut Down dialog box via Alt on the desktop with Safe Mode will bring up another exact prompt. So to log off, shut down, or restart, press the Ctrl key and then click on "Log Off", "Shut Down", or the ">" button for more options.

Internet Explorer

 * The built-in download manager does not work, which leads to downloads not working at all.
 * Many websites hang under Internet Explorer even if they work under older versions of the browser.
 * The website URL is displayed as white by default which is difficult to read under the Slate and Jade themes.

Sticky Notes
This build includes a Sticky Notes app similar to the one found in build 4042 (Lab06_n), but it fails to start because of a missing DLL, namely. This missing DLL can be found in the  folder of the build 4081 installation disc. Copying the aforementioned DLL into the same directory of the  file found in the   folder and typing in Run dialog , will launch Sticky Notes.

AutoPlay
The AutoPlay dialog has two noticeable bugs:


 * The DirectX spinning icon animation of the prompt might spin too fast on newer hardware.
 * The icon on the title of the prompt might have a black box surrounding it when the icon is not rectangular.

Parental Controls

 * Parental Controls are not functional in the x64 version of this build and returns a Visual C++ runtime error.

Other bugs

 * DNS requests might not work properly on certain network configurations when a DNS server is automatically acquired via DHCP. Manual DNS configuration fixes this problem.
 * On some multi-core configurations and at random times, Windows hangs significantly rendering the operating system almost unusable a few seconds after logging in. The only solution is a hard reset.
 * This build relies on Terminal Services and the User Profile Service to properly logon users. If Terminal Services are disabled or set to manual, the operating system hangs at a black screen with the build tag. If the User Profile Service is disabled or set to manual, the user will be able to logon but Explorer would not be able to load properly and profile specific settings would be lost.
 * Some services cause this build to hang at the logon screen for about one minute, which is unrelated to the Ctrl requirement.
 * Pressing Ctrl at the login prompt (when it is required/enabled) has a chance to either hang the system or cause a  or   bluescreen. This chance increases the more users have logged on and off, and Disabling Fast User Switching.
 * If a contact is pinned to the sidebar, an error message would be displayed on certain occasions that the contact cannot be updated. This error can be safely ignored.
 * Edits made to certain Explorer features such as the top bar are valid only for the open window and do not persist, even for the same folder.
 * Attempting to launch some Windows XP updates such as Internet Explorer 7 leads to immediate bugchecks even before extraction completes. However, it may be possible to install it via unofficial patches.
 * Attempting to launch some Windows XP compatible applications such as Google Chrome leads to higher CPU usages.
 * Therefore, it is recommended to use an older version of Chrome, prior to version 25.0.

Itanium build specifics
The IA-64 compile also contains all of the bugs and quirks that the x86 compile features. However, there are some notable exceptions:
 * Because this build lacks WinFS, applications dependent on the framework (such as Outlook Express), alongside with WinFS-provided virtual folders/libraries, do not function. WinFS-related folders can be removed from the Computer system folder through the use of registry editing.
 * Due to the heavier nature of 64-bit binaries, Explorer will consume a copious amount of memory right after logging in, even with advanced features such as the Sidebar disabled.
 * Certain graphics drivers may cause performance degradation when .NET features (such as the sidebar) are enabled.
 * The Explorer application works properly in Safe Mode, unlike its x86/x64 variants. Clicking Yes on the Safe Mode information dialog dismisses it and Explorer starts normally.
 * Upgrading to this build will result in Setup failing to properly configure the system registry and NVRAM boot entries. If installing over a previous build, the hard disk must be completely wiped and the system's EFI firmware cleared of previously created Windows boot entries, as the build will not boot due to an NVRAM-related error. Entries and dual-boot installations on separate partitions created by later versions of Windows (such as Windows Server 2008 R2) may be left alone.
 * Explorer may randomly crash when opening folders with a.
 * Opening DirectX Diagnostics (or using any DirectX-related feature including the AutoPlay prompt) after changing display resolution will hang the system.

Mixing new and old Windows components (backporting and forward-porting)
Not a lot of research has been documented on these types of interactions with Longhorn. However, it's been found that certain components of these builds can be swapped out for that of other builds of Windows. That's so as long as it doesn't version-check itself and it has every dependency satisfied. Notable scenarios tested so far:


 * At least on the 32-bit build of Longhorn 4074, it's possible to replace the Windows NT kernel located at  with the kernel from a 32-bit Windows 7 Service Pack 1 install (specifically build 7601) and still be able to boot successfully. To date, the only noticeable change when running this kernel is that the video mode will reset during the boot animation, where you may see the scaling of the boot animation increase prior to the login screen. It's possible that earlier Windows Vista and Windows 7 kernels may be bootable, but at least there were too many changes sometime after Windows 7 which prevents any of the Windows 11 kernels from booting. Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 kernels remain equally unlikely to boot, let alone function with a hybrid Vista/XP set of drivers.

DWM Themes
This build of Longhorn includes 2 types of DWM themes - Aero and non-Aero. The only Aero theme included in this build is the Jade theme, which may be used to draw translucent window borders with DWM turned on. The Aero Glass theme, commonly referred to as simply "Aero" was at that time still a private theme, hence not included in this build.