What is Windows Vista?
Windows Vista is the successor of Windows XP , released in 2006. Windows is Microsoft's worldwide famous Operating System for use at home, at work, at college and in schools, for presentations and documents, and for the world to use. Windows Vista has suffered criticism, as the Operative System had an unusual high level of bugs, problem with drivers, it incorporates DRM and is very resource hungry. Microsoft has addressed some of the criticisms, releasing Windows Vista Service Pack 1. The release of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 makes it very stable.
Since 2006, many changes are being considered for Microsoft's next system, Vienna, which were not released in Vista, making Vista a sort-of test run for Windows 7 (codenamed Vienna). If you have bought Windows Vista, you may experience faults at times, but Microsoft are building on them for their next system.
Innovations
The list of innovations on Windows Vista is huge and it significantly changed the user interface of XP. This is a small list of it.
- Windows Aero was introduced , giving us the translucent windows and Flip 3D. (Reduced in Windows 8)
- The installation process was redesigned , including changing the framework from i386 to WIM. It also includes a rollback system to restore computers whose installations have failed midway.(Improved in Windows 8)
- BitDefender was introduced , giving full drive encryption.
- Spyware protection was built in in Windows Vista with Windows Defender.
- Security was overhauled in this version , including the introduction of User Account Control.
- New games were introduced , like Chess Titans and Purble Place.
- Search was significantly improved.
- The Start menu was improved with the capability to search.
- Windows Sidebar and gadgets were introduced.
| Feature innovation | Windows XP | Windows Vista | Windows 7 | Windows 8/8.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Aero | No | Yes | Yes | Significantly limited |
| Installation | Old(i386) | Improved | Same as Vista | Redesigned , allowed Windows upgrades by store |
| BitDefender | No | Yes | Improved | Supports device encryption for tablets. |
| Anti-virus | No | Partial | Similar as Vista | Full anti-virus support |
| User account prevliges | Under LUA | UAC | Reduced user prompts | Same as Windows 7 |
| Games | Varied | Some added , some removed | Inkball and Ultimate extras removed | Fully removed |
| Search | Only in Explorer | Full | Better Start searching | (Windows 8) - Separated
(Windows 8.1) - Same as Windows 7 |
| Upgrading | Windows 98/NT4 onwards | Windows XP only; partially for Windows 2000 | Windows Vista only; partially for Windows XP | Windows 7 , limited for Windows XP/Vista |
| Gadgets and sidebar | No | Both | Gadgets only | No |
How Windows Vista was created
From the Windows Server 2003 RC1 code(not Windows XP!). It actually used Windows XP code in the start , but stability issues forced Microsoft to change at the midway stage.
The history of Windows Vista is long and interesting. Look up on the Internet to find out more about it(codenamed Longhorn)
Why a new OS?
There are three primary reasons to consider the new Windows Vista OS: security, manageability, and end user productivity. Windows Vista security features include Windows Services Hardening, IE 7 Protected Mode and Full Volume disk encryption.
Windows 7
Windows 7 , the successor of Windows Vista , was released on July 22 2009. It takes on the features of Windows Vista , while itself adding new features. Even though the system requirements were nearly the same as Vista(the RAM amount actually increased to 1GB) , it became one of the most popular versions of Windows ever.