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Author Information
Tom Burke
Web Design, Internet Marketing
tom@awsinternet.com
Tom joined the AWS Team in October of 2003. A
graduate of Skidmore College with a degree in English, he designs much of the front-end content for AWS-created websites, as
well as cust... [more about this author]
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Windows Vista Beta Released
July 30th, 2005, 11:28pm CDT
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Microsoft this past week rolled out its new beta of the next version of Windows, Windows "Vista". Already technology company Vista, not wanting Microsoft to do the same to them later, filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over the Vista name. Speculation remains as to what will come of this, but Microsoft says that the full name is Microsoft Vista, "so there should be no confusion."
Two beta versions have been released to a closed, limited team of testers. A little more information is now out than was specified at the time of my other article, concerning what this operating system will really do, and is available here, among other places. Some of these details are:
- An anti-malware tool included in the system that will help users scan for malicious content that's come in from the Net. Also intriguing is the "Secure Startup": how exactly will it ensure a computer hasn't been tampered with?
- The new connectivity Vista will offer, which reminds me of the new filesystem Microsoft was formerly planning on incorporating into Longhorn/Vista: WinFS, which as I remember was supposed to give much faster and more integrated connections with network devices, servers and other networked computers. The article above claims that "Windows Vista provides one place to quickly and easily set up devices and keep everything up to date": this reminds me even more of Linux's /dev directory, which provides one gateway into most or all devices. I'm anxious to see what the graphical user interface of such as system will be, and how it will allow synchronization of data across multiple PC's.
- "Metro", a file metadata system that uses open-source standards (XML and ZIP, for example) to give documents metadata like author, subject, title, etc. This will allow Windows to keep track of documents for users and search much more effectively. This idea sounds half-useful, because I'm wondering: will I need to specify author, subject, title and other metadata for all my files in order for Metro to work well, or will there be a more automatic, integrated functionality? The article above claims that it will allow users to "intelligently create virtual folders that automatically populate themselves with documents matching user-specified attributes", but how much will this rely on user input? I don't want to have to manually specify metadata for all my files: that would be tedious and impractical. Microsoft is attempting to rival Google's search functionality with Metro, but it seems like a heavy-handed version of Google Desktop. Time will tell.
- Better power management for laptops. This should be very good for laptop owners, like me, and I look forward to details.
Of particular interest to us web coders is the release of Internet Explorer 7 in beta form, which became available along with the Vista beta this week, also to a closed group. I am very anxious to see if IE7 takes a more standards-based stance, as had been suspected a few months ago, or if Microsoft will continue to snub the open-source community and keep its particular browser behavior intact.
Windows Vista is scheduled for full distribution to end-users in the fourth quarter of 2006.
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Perma-Link: http://www.awsinternet.com/articles/2005/Windows_Vista_Beta_Released.html
Related Links:
• http://www.windowsvista.com/
• http://www.vista.com
• http://www.betadot.com/windows-vista-a-trademark-infringement/2005-58/
• http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4603
• http://217.145.4.56/ind/news.asp?newsitemid=19460
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