Late Friday, Microsoft quietly released a technology preview of the Avalon presentation technologies portion of the WinFX Software Development Kit (WinFX) to MSDN Subscriber Downloads. The Avalon tech preview utilizes features that were previously designed solely for Longhorn, but will run on both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft was quick to warn developers that the release is not a full beta version but is rather an early look at Avalon technology only, one that the company hopes will garner lots of feedback.
"This is a 'Technology Preview,' or rough bits," Chris Anderson, a Software Architect on the Avalon team wrote Friday in his blog (URL below). "I don't recommend you put this on your primary development machine ... You need a pretty beefy machine to run the bits. This build will run on Windows XP. This build will not run on [the] PDC or WinHEC Longhorn builds. This is not the final API set, XAML spec, or anything else - this is a 'Technology Preview'."
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