Windows Longhorn build 3683

Windows Longhorn build 3683 is a Milestone 3 build of Windows Longhorn. It is currently the earliest available build of pre-reset Longhorn and was originally shared on 19 November 2002 by the beta group XBetas, with their branding visible in the setup handle (advertising for their now long-gone IRC channel). The actual unmodified copy of this build was uploaded to BetaArchive at some point.

This build is one of the earliest to introduce the blue Plex theme, which would be used all the way up to Milestone 6. Builds from this timeframe are also notable in that the window captions are centered when the Plex theme is enabled, which is reminiscent of early Windows versions and which was also later used in Windows 8, Windows 8.1, up to some earlier pre-release builds of Windows 10. The Windows flag on the Start button has been changed to monochrome white in order to fit in the new theme. The login screen was changed to include a clock in the top-right corner and to use a silver and dark blue color scheme, although it still gets to keep the same overall layout as in Windows XP. Windows Explorer was updated with a new Plex-styled task pane and new templates for the My Documents and My Pictures directories. A new file copy dialog has been implemented, although it doesn't use Avalon. Also, the fold/unfold buttons have been added to Windows Explorer when the Show in Groups option is enabled.

A preliminary version of the Avalon user interface framework is included and is used to implement the new Windows Sidebar and Desktop Properties. The Sidebar is empty upon enabling and similarly to later builds, it can be combined with the taskbar, which enables a new Start button design also found in later builds. A new virtual desktops feature is also accessible from the Sidebar. Desktop Composition Engine is also included with this build, although it is quite unstable and is only known to work on real hardware. When enabled, it renders open windows with a translucency effect.

This build still uses the i386 installation used in previous versions of Windows (and as such still has the same minimum requirements as Windows XP). However, this build cannot be installed by directly running  from MS-DOS unless the user appends the launch parameter. This is a debug parameter that exists as far back as Windows NT 3.5 build 612.1 and was used by the author of, Ted Miller, to debug   inside. It remained in  because a preprocessor definition to enable it was not removed.

This is the last build to have a version of Program Manager that is still usable. Starting with build 3706, Program Manager is still present, however it just redirects to Windows Explorer instead.

Fun fact: You can run the blue Plex theme from this build on Windows XP.

New features and changes

 * The kernel version has been changed to 6.0.
 * The OOBE music is also changed to "No Hay Problema" from Pink Martini, which is included but not used in Windows Server 2003.
 * The Windows Product Activation grace period has been reduced to 14 days.
 * Castle Service has been introduced.
 * Internet Explorer has been updated to version 6.05.

Avalon
This build includes an early version of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), codenamed Avalon, which unlike versions found builds later than 3713, is built against the original .NET Framework 1.0 and can therefore be installed on Windows XP or other systems supported by the framework.

Windows Trust Manager
This build features already the new Windows Trust Manager, which can be seen when launching a copy of  obtained from a later build, for example. In this case, it does nothing more than asking the user for permission to install the aforementioned app.

WinFS
An early revision of WinFS, referred to as "Windows Future Storage" in  and in the "Windows Components Wizard", is also included in this build, but very little in the way of a user interface was included, and as such it appeared to early testers to be nothing more than a service that consumed large amounts of memory and processor time. In reality, WinFS is responsible for a few of the new features found in this build, such as the "My Contacts" library and Pivots. Thus, disabling WinFS will make it impossible to open the aforementioned library, as well as accessing the Pivots functionality.

Windows Explorer

 * Windows Explorer features a huge number of enhancements: three new buttons have been added to the toolbar, namely Zoom, through which it is possible to change the size of the icons in the current folder; Details, which acts as a toggle for the new preview pane; and Pivots, which allows grouping of items such as pictures or music by a specific property, such as "Music Grouped By Album". It should be noted that when selecting a pivot, the system will not filter the contents of the current folder, but it will rather filter the content of the whole hard drive.


 * A new breadcrumb bar has taken the place of the traditional address bar and the tasks pane on the left has changed as well: other than featuring a new background which fits the new Plex theme, it also includes a new "Find" section with a TextBox, through which it is possible to filter the contents of the current folder. A new Explorer Bar called "Media" has been added, however it fails to load a non-existent page called "Media Places". The media controls are shown, however. A few new options are also available in the "Folder Options" dialog, such as "Check box select".


 * The "New" context menu allows the creation of two new items, namely "Photo Album" and "Playlist".


 * The previously mentioned "My Contacts" library can be enabled via "Customize Start Menu" dialog. It is possible to create new contacts through its context menu, but this feature is very rudimentary, and once created it is possible to edit just their name and e-mail address. Double-clicking a contact will open an IM window.


 * A friendlier version of the more advanced Device Manager, the "My Hardware" folder, appears by default in the Start menu.

New file copy conflict resolve dialog
This build has a new file copy conflict resolve dialog, it can be enabled by setting the DWORD value  to 1 in.

Briefcase introduction
This build contains a briefcase introduction dialog, you can open it by running the command.

Sidebar
This build features the sidebar, which is disabled by default and can be enabled in the "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" dialog. Among its options, there is the possibility to toggle its transparency as well as side, other than an "Unlock bar" option in order to resize it and a "Taskbar" one, which is an early implementation of a combined taskbar and sidebar: upon clicking it, the taskbar will disappear and a new Start button will appear at the top of the sidebar; currently open applications will not be displayed though. The sidebar includes several tiles already, which are the equivalent of the gadgets that would much later be seen in Windows Sidebar, such as Clock, DesktopManager (a functionality that would have not made it into a final Windows version until Windows 10), MFU, Quick Launch, Search, SlideShow and UserTile. When the sidebar contains tiles and is set to be minimized, a second tray will appear in the taskbar, showing the icons of the added tiles. Clicking each icon will open the flyout of its associated tile, if it has any.

"People" sidebar tile
This build features a normally hidden People sidebar tile. It can be enabled by changing the following values in the registry:

Digital clock sidebar tile
Another hidden sidebar tile, included in this build, is the digital clock tile, which also can be enabled by changing the following values in the registry:

Game manager
This build contains an early prototype of a game manager. Game Definition (GDF) files are recognized by Explorer, and a sample file can be downloaded here. Additionally, it's possible to open a "My Games News" window by running.

Desktop Composition Engine
Contrary to popular belief, this build already contains Desktop Composition Engine, but it is unstable and only renders window transparency. It is only known to work on real hardware, and it lacks a user interface as well. It can be enabled on the next startup by adding the following registry key and restarting:

Alternatively, DCE may be started or stopped on request by substituting  with   in the reg key above. After restarting the computer, DCE may be started by entering  in a command prompt window and stopped with. After stopping DCE it is helpful to drag a few open windows around to redraw the screen.

Avalon-based Display Properties
This build also includes a new Avalon-based display settings applet, which can be accessed by right clicking the desktop and then selecting "Properties". However, this applet is largely incomplete; only the "Desktop Background" and "Use Classic Display Control Panel" options work (the earlier option is partially broken), while "Scale and Resolution" and "Display Connection Settings" crashes the applet and Theme and Screen Saver applets and "More Information" option of Display Connection Properties only lead to a screen saying these components are under construction.

In the Desktop Background, one can select to choose a solid color background, gradient background, rotate to different images (this functionality was under construction) or even make picture collages. The option to change images on the desktop periodically would eventually be a feature that would come in the final release of Vista. Gradient backgrounds made by the applet will be created as a bitmap file named "Wallpaper1".

Media Center
Much like the other Milestone 3 builds, this build contains an early version of the Media Center components, codenamed Freestyle. The components can be added from the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel under the name of "Freestyle". Once installed, restart your computer to complete installation. Media Center is unstable and is very likely to crash instantly on some systems. This also changes the boot screen, altering the "Professional" text to "Freestyle", while the About Program banner changes from "Professional" to "Media Center Edition".

When prompted for the second disk, it should be pointed to the I386 directory of the installation media.

Start Page
This build, along with the other Milestone 3 builds, contains a new Start Page feature, appearing to be a prototype to a different OOBE to replace the one used in Windows XP. By default, it is not accessible, but Stanimir Stoyanov provided the original Start Page Launcher which can be used to open the Start Page. Due to its earliness, it only contains four tiles that are nonfunctional, being E-Mail, Calendar, Quick Launch, and PromotionsTile.

OOBE
The  screen seen before OOBE may take quite some time to disappear before bringing the user to OOBE.

Explorer

 * When logging in, Windows Explorer will be fairly un-responsive for several minutes.
 * Logging off has a chance of crashing Windows Explorer.
 * Deleting the registry key  will disable the details pane in Explorer and will enable the Windows XP style task pane.

Sidebar

 * Often, switching to a virtual desktop will fail if the virtual desktop has at least one open program.
 * When combining the taskbar with the sidebar, balloons will still pop at the same place as where the taskbar would be at if not combined with the sidebar.

Applications

 * Task Manager allows the user to terminate critical system processes.
 * Paint crashes on exit with a error.
 * As with later builds of Longhorn, this build is incompatible with a number of applications that require Windows XP or earlier due to the kernel version. Many of these compatibility issues can be resolved by running applications in Windows Compatibility Mode or by editing the CSDVersion key located in the Windows Registry.
 * Some installers that rely on Windows Installer may incorrectly say that this build is x64.
 * Outlook Express has a broken pane close button and the bitmap shown in the About box is not properly displayed.

Media Center
Once installed, it is impossible to uninstall Media Center. The only way to uninstall this is to reinstall Windows.

Upgrading

 * On some software configurations, upgrading from Windows XP can result in setup reporting that a file is missing in . The filename will always start with the letter 'a' followed by a random string of seven alphanumeric characters, but the file extension will always be  . This can be fixed by expanding any valid   file in to the   folder.
 * When upgrading from a clean install of Windows XP Service Pack 1 and higher, the system will be upgraded to the Media Center SKU. However, most branding will not be updated, and will still say.
 * On some machines, setup will crash the system on registering components. When the system reboots, setup will restart. However, it will fail to find several files (mainly during Installing Start Menu Items) despite the files being in the correct location.
 * Some drivers may cause a BSOD when booting to the desktop. This can be fixed by booting into safe mode, uninstalling the malfunctioning driver and then reinstalling the driver.

Control Panel

 * In Display Properties, the Luna theme is referred to as Plex.