Windows Vista – An Overview
Author: Lucy Bartlett

After a gap of nearly 5 years, Microsoft released the latest
version of Windows which is named as Vista. With a name change
from Longhorn to Vista, the stable version of Windows is
expected to be released during November 2006. The beta version
of this software is already available as a free download. If
you have a lot of patience or a very high speed internet
connection then you can download Vista which is nearly 2.5 GB
in size.

Microsoft promises that Vista will have plenty of new features
which includes updated graphical user interface (GUI), Windows
DVD Maker – a new creation tool for multimedia – and totally
revamped audio, print and networking sub-systems. Vista will
make use of peer-to-peer technology to make file sharing
between networked computers easier. With the inclusion of
Virtual PC in Vista, Microsoft claims that running previous
versions of Windows simultaneously on the same machine will not
be a problem.

The developers can make use of the Net Framework version 3.0
introduced in Vista. This version is claimed to be easier to
work with than the traditional Windows API.

The most common criticism of Windows XP is its unstable
security and its inability to protect the system from buffer
overflows, viruses and malware. The stated goal of Vista is to
improve the security considerably and make the system protected
from the invasion of malwares and virus threats.

Vista comes with improved performance of Windows Shell, easier
and faster search functions, a sidebar resembling Apple's
Spotlight, desktop gadgets for applets, the latest version of
Internet Explorer – the controversial web browser of Microsoft
-, Windows Media Player 11, specialized User Account Control,
built in Firewall to control and monitor outgoing and incoming
traffic, Windows Defender, a Windows version of anti-spyware
and Windows mail which will replace the existing Outlook
Express.

Microsoft claims Vista will help in improving the performance
of the PC in certain key areas which includes starting up,
response to user actions, and waking up. The start up is going
to be very quick and while background processing of scripts and
applications are executed, the other desired tasks can be
performed by the users.

The new sleep state provision in Vista has combined features
for standby mode, data protection and low power usage during
hibernation.

If you want to try Vista on your desktop computer then your
system should have a processor which should be at least 800MHZ
speed, 512 MB RAM and have the latest version of any good
graphic card capable of executing DirectX version 9 or above.
This is only a minimum requirement. For optimum results a
better processor – above 1.2GHZ is needed.


About The Author: Lucy Bartlett is a proud contributing author.
Find more articles at http://mindbodyandsoulportal.info/ For
more info visit http://allaboutwindowsvista.info/sitemap.html
or http://allaboutwindowsvista.info/vista products.html