Vista: The Final Take

Over the past half year since the first public beta of Vista rolled out, we

have been looking in detail at the various aspects of this new client OS and

exploring if it merits a switch over from the tried and tested Windows XP. Last

month, we'd promised to take a look at Beta 2 that was going through the

Microsoft compile farms just as we hit the press and that's what we're going

to do this time. Since the time that beta became available to a wider but still

restricted testing audience, a lot has happened out there too, which we shall

talk about as well.

5308 vs 5384



Build 5308 was the Feb CTP and the 5384 came out in May. There are several
significant improvements in the new build. Some of them are the new UIs for a

lot of things, especially what were annoying things in 5308 for the desktop

user. Some of these include dialog and message boxes that have been reworked to

changes in the way the UI responds to different tasks. Then there are absolutely

new things such as boot menus, services, and knick-knacks here and there that

make life easier in Vista.

New boot screen



Two things are new here. One, Vista no longer calls your instance of XP or other
operating systems as a 'legacy' instance. Instead you see 'Earlier version

of Windows'. Then, there is a second menu displayed below the OS selection.

This new menu currently has only one item: Memory Diagnostic. It directly

launches the Memory Diagnostic tool and checks for errors in your RAM. Results

are displayed immediately after the system reboots into your regular desktop.

Efficient disk management



The Disk Administrator includes options to expand and shrink volumes. While you
can shrink most volumes, you see the Expand option only for volumes that are

adjacent to free spaces. You will see the Expand option for the last NTFS volume

on every disk, this is because of the 2-8 MB free space resulting from the

creation of a new NTFS volume. This means you no longer need to install and use

costly third party software to do this.

Privilege elevation



Remember the UAC privilege elevation dialog that comes up every time you need
higher account authorization to do something? Well, now once that box is on your

screen, you cannot do anything else before selecting an option from the UAC box.

The desktop is blacked out with a bitmap overlay and you can no longer work on

something else, selecting to respond to the elevation request later. This is

supposed to prevent malware from selecting one of the options on the screen.

The Task Scheduler console (new to Vista) lists a number of pre-defined tasks, classified by the part of the system they affect

New services



There are a number of new services in this build vis-à-vis the 5308. Some of
these are: Block Level Backup Engine, CNG Key Isolation, Function Discovery

Resource Publication, Health Key and Certificate Management, Microsoft Digital

Identity Service, TPM Base Service and four services for the Media Center. We

shall have more on some of these services for you in later articles on tuning,

optimizing or making better use of your Vista systems.

Better networking



One aspect of Vista we've been cribbing about in our previous installments of
this series has been Vista's network quirks. Build 5384 has an improved

network presence detection and can detect if it is on an active LAN or Internet

connection more intelligently. And... at last they've added the activity

lights (the winking lights on the network icon in your system tray) back on.

But, it is turned off by default, so you need to right-click on the network icon

there and turn it on.

Easier transfer



Windows Easy Transfer has become a lot easier to use, with more options to
install the program on the other system, resume and save information at. Butone

of its options is flummoxing to the new user. 'Windows Easy Transfer USB Cable'

sounds like you get such a cable with your copy of Vista! This is a kind of

cross-over USB cable that can directly connect two computers. It can also resume

broken transfers more easily and you don't need to restart the operation from

the beginning.

Task scheduler



We have known the task scheduler from Windows 95 onwards. But this one is
stupendously larger in scope. The way to configure it now is through an MMC

snap-in and this is available right inside your Computer Management console.

Now, you can set up triggers for the task to be launched, pre-launch conditions

(like what kind of power the system is on, whether the CPU is idle or not and

network presence), repetition and on-demand launches. You can also set up what

programs to run as part of this task. To set this up, you can create the task as

a basic or an advanced task (the difference is the number of options that the

wizard will let you configure).

Dialog boxes



Previously giant dialog boxes with a ton of information have now been condensed
in true Microsoft style, giving as less information as possible in the interest

of not confusing the average-Joe user. For instance, there was this conflict

resolution dialog that came up earlier when you copied, moved or renamed files

while the source folder had a file or folder with a matching name. The 5308 box

gave a lot of information for both and three choices at the end (keep both, keep

the one in the source and keep the one in the target). Now, this has been

simplified with a smaller box that simply tells the user that a conflict exists

with a choice to continue or cancel.

Drag-drop



When the user selects a large number of files and drags them to a different
location, previous versions of whatever, Windows displayed all the icons making

it tough to target the copy/move to a particular folder. Now, only one icon

appears with an overlaid number indicating how many objects are being

transferred. Similarly, animations for different transfer or processing

information have been subtly changed.

Sidebar gadgets



Compared to the 4-5 sidebar gadgets that were available in the 5308, the new
build bundles a lot more. Now you have a calendar, clock, CPU meter, currency

converter, feed viewer, feed monitor, notes, number puzzle, picture puzzle,

recycle bin, slide show, stock watcher and a timer. The difference between the

feed viewer and monitor is that a feed viewer is a continuous scroller for your

RSS feeds while feed monitor displays just what is changed. The timer is an

interesting gadget. You can drag and drop it onto any activity (like a file

copy, slide show, whatever) and the timer keeps track of the time that task has

spent. When the window is closed or the task completes, it shows you the time

elapsed.

Around the globe



Till recently, the stables of Redmond had been quiet on both Vista as well as
Office going by the scale the promotions were for the last releases of the

client OS and the office suite. Now, they seem to have started on a blitzkrieg

with events and training sessions being conducted around the world. The Office

family for instance is being debuted bits at a time, because they say, its too

huge to be understood all at once. Both the OS and the suite have undergone

changes not only in the fundamental way we work with them, but also in the

combinations of SKUs available to customers.



Training sessions are being organized at various locations around the globe for
continuously devolving groups, in an attempt to spread the word. This author was

hosted at Singapore for a two-day workshop on Vista (Beta 2) and Office 2007

where both of them were discussed under varying degrees of NDA. In parallel,

Windows developers are being trained in the nuances of writing code for Vista,

its new paradigms whether in its spanking new 'Presentation Foundation' or

working with the UAC's idiosyncrasies. The expectation is that when the

OS/platform goes RTM later this year or early 2007, enough information would

already be out there for those who need to decide, either way.

The verdict



We have been working with it during the course in a production environment, on a
network, attached to a Win 2003 domain, with all the regular office productivity

software and messaging tools. This has been one long review. But the new client

OS designates a departure on many fundamental fronts in the way we do things.

While the repercussions of what they have got right or wrong will be visible

only a year from now at the very least, one thing is clear. Enterprises need not

tumble and tussle to get a copy and deploy it across their infrastructure as

soon as it's released. There are many features in Vista that can only be used

with Windows Longhorn Server, which will be released about two years from now.

So Vista's true potential will only be realized then. Till that time, it's

good old Win XP SP2 at the desktop, which is tried, tested, and your

applications know how to work with it.

Sujay V Sarma