Every decade or so, Microsoft launches a new operating system that is a radical departure from its predecessors. Windows Vista, due in early 2007, is the next big thing from Microsoft.
Originally, Vista was supposed to appear on our desktops in 2002 and it was to contain three dramatically new technologies: a file storage system called WinFS, a Web development system called Indigo, and a graphics presentation system called Avalon. As has happened all too frequently in the past, Microsoft missed its original shipping date and then several revised dates. In fact, the slippage became so bad that Microsoft decided to strip out some of Vista’s advanced features, such as WinFS, and deliver them separately.
Even so, when Vista hits our desktops sometime this year it will be a major advance from Windows XP, in looks, in security and in features. Keep in mind that Vista is currently under development (in “beta testing”), so what you read here is subject to change in the coming months.
What’s in Vista?
Vista is the first of Microsoft’s operating systems to be built from the ground up with security in mind. Microsoft has completely rewritten Windows’ core code to make it far more secure. Vista will also include technologies to combat viruses and spyware and to make your computer more resistant to outside attack and control.
Vista looks markedly different from previous versions of Windows. As with the jump from Windows Me to Windows XP, there’s enough that is familiar to help you orient yourself, but plenty that’s new, too. The new interface is cleaner and more visually appealing than anything we’ve seen so far and the new graphics system has a noticeable impact on how items on the screen move and behave.
Although WinFS won’t see the light of day until a later release of Vista, Vista still brings dramatic improvements to Windows’ file management and searching capabilities. This is particularly welcome, as the search features built into Windows XP are woeful. When WinFS does ship it will revolutionise not just file management but information management by providing deep integration between different types of information stored on your computer. All information, regardless of its format—contacts in Outlook, images, audio clips, Excel spreadsheets, Web pages—will be searchable and accessible from other applications.
| vista versions | ||||||||||
With Windows XP, you had two choices of
operating system: the Home Edition or the Professional Edition. With Vista,
there's a veritable smorgasbord of offerings:
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Vista is also far more multimedia savvy than Windows XP. It features built-in DVD burning and incorporate other technologies currently only available in Windows Media Center Edition.
Microsoft is also hoping to make installing Vista a more comfortable experience. The aim is to allow users to install the operating system in 15 minutes, a noticeable improvement on the 30 – 60 minutes required with earlier versions.
A Vista test drive
So what’s Vista like to use?
The Vista desktop appears, at first sight, to be comfortably familiar. Click the – now-circular – Start button and this impression is reinforced. Until, that is, you let the mouse pointer rest on All Programs, waiting for the sub-menu to pop open. It doesn’t. Instead the left side of the Start Menu is replaced with an in-situ Programs menu, which scrolls in place.
The Vista desktop (click any of the images in this article to see a full-sized screenshot).
Look at the Start Menu once more and you’ll see a search box at the very
bottom. These search boxes appear all over Vista and they’re a sign that
Microsoft has finally wised up to the fact that Windows makes it really hard
to find things. Not so with Vista. Start typing a
few letters in the Start Menu search box and Vista instantly displays a list
of matching programs. It’s a great time saver.
The right side of the Start Menu contains links to familiar items such as the Control Panel, Documents (it’s no longer My Documents or My Computer), Music and Pictures, plus several new items including a link displaying your log-in name which, when clicked, takes you to your user folder (equivalent to the \Documents And Settings\username folder in Windows XP).
Explorer revamped
Another area of significant change is Explorer. Explorer windows have been totally redone. Gone is the menu bar (although it’s still accessible by tapping Alt). Instead, there’s a turbo-charged ‘breadcrumb’ navigation bar. This bar lets you see the exact path you’ve taken to get to where you are; it also lets you jump to almost anywhere in a trice using mini drop-down menus. Beneath the breadcrumb bar is a tiny strip which is all that remains of the old, sizeable task pane.
Folder and file management in Vista are streets ahead of XP.
At the bottom of the window is a preview pane, a thing of beauty. It not only gives you a peek at the contents of a selected file, it also lets you add keywords, attach a rating to the file and change the author. You can use any of these criteria, and many more, to search for files and sort them.
Security
While Vista shows plenty of signs of Microsoft’s road-to-Damascus security fervor, much of it is hidden from view, built right into Vista’s foundation code. Features such as Windows Services Hardening – which prevents compromised Windows services from altering configuration settings – mostly run below the user radar.
The bustling Control Panel indicates just how much more control is at your fingertips.
Things you will notice, though, include a beefed up firewall which monitors both incoming and outgoing traffic. Parental controls make it a whole lot easier to manage and monitor your children’s computer usage. User Account Control (UAC), which in earlier builds required you to supply a password when installing an application or making other important system changes, has now been loosened up, so it requires nothing more than your permission to continue. Even with this easing of control, UAC’s frequent pop-up dialogs are likely to drive you bats, and it will not be surprising to see further changes to UAC before the final version of Vista ships. Microsoft has also built its excellent anti-spyware product, Windows Defender, into Vista.
Internet Explorer 7
With Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft’s browser plays catch up and then goes a few steps farther. Features that Firefox and Opera users have been enjoying for months or years, such as tabbed browsing and RSS support, are now part of IE. A nice touch in IE’s tabbed browsing is a preview feature which shows thumbnail views of all currently open pages. Mimicking Firefox once again, IE also lets you set multiple home pages, which are loaded in tabs when you open the browser.
A variable zoom feature lets you zoom an entire page – rather than just the text on the page – by holding down the Ctrl key while scrolling the mouse wheel. IE’s multi-page Print Preview, drag-and-drop margins and shrink-to-fit options are welcome enhancements to Web printing. IE 7 also includes the Anti-Phishing filter which is currently available as a plug-in for the MSN Search Toolbar.
Users of Windows XP are going to have access to a lot of these features
through the standalone version of IE 7, also currently in beta testing. What
they won’t get, and which will be available only to users of Vista, is the
new Protected Mode. Protected Mode is the
strongest new security feature for the browser. It prevents the browser, or
any outside code trying to operate through it, from doing anything that
could harm your system. In effect, the browser’s local actions are corralled
within the Temporary Internet Files folder and it is unable to write outside
its confines.
More multimedia
Each new version of Windows provides more sophisticated handling of
photos, audio and video, and Vista is no exception. It includes a new
version of Windows Media Player, WMP 11, a DVD
Maker and the Windows Photo Gallery.
WMP 11 has a stylish revamp.
WMP 11 has a far more pictorial and dynamic design and it has also been simplified. Stacks let you group and sort albums within your music library. The most noticeable improvement is in WMP’s performance: its lightning fast.
The Photo Gallery is an all-new feature. It provides a centralized way of viewing your photos and images, with photo management tools and very simple editing capabilities. The Auto Adjust feature provides a one-click photo makeover and lets you see the new settings made to brightness, contrast, tint and colour temperature so you can tweak the settings further if you need to. If you’ve had any experience with Microsoft Digital Image Suite you’ll find a lot of familiar features in the Photo Gallery.
Get a handle on your photos with the new Photo Gallery.
And much, much more
There’s so much more. Explorer View sliders that change the size of icons and thumbnails on the fly. Display options that make it easier to view the screen at high resolutions. File filtering within folders. Live taskbar thumbnails which display pop-up images of your currently open applications. Flip 3D, a snazzy new way to shuffle between open applications, accessible by pressing Windows Key + Alt. Revamped File Open and Save As dialogs. A firewall which monitors incoming as well as outgoing traffic. Extensive file permissions. In-built speech recognition. Automatic file backup.
Flip 3D provides a new way to switch between running programs.
The Mobility Center applet in the Control Panel centralises laptop management functions such as battery and power management, external displays and wireless connections. The Network Center, which is the front-end to a total rewrite of Windows networking support, simplifies network control. A Notification Area icon in the taskbar gives you instant access to the Network Center, as well as a set of right-click options.
Windows Calendar is just one of many new and welcome extras.
All in all, although the absence of features such as WinFS preclude Vista from being a revolutionary operating system, it’s certainly a giant evolutionary leap from Windows XP.
| xp now or vista later? |
| If you’re currently contemplating
buying a new PC, should you, perhaps, wait until 2007 and get one that ships
with Windows Vista? Yes! Unless you have an urgent need for a new PC, it’s well worth putting off your new computer purchase until Vista is available. Vista’s increased security is reason enough for the delay, but there are plenty of other reasons to hold off. If you must buy a computer immediately, make sure it has enough oomph so you can upgrade to Windows Vista in the future. For all but the Basic version of Vista, minimum requirements are a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a dedicated graphics card with DirectX 9 support. If you make sure the computer you buy has these things, you’ll be ready for Vista when it arrives. |
© 2006 Rose Vines
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