*Windows Vista screenshots from Beta 1
by By Admin Frogboy
The main highlights of Windows Vista can be summarized with:
- Better Security. This comes in the form of hardened
services. Essentially, the kinds of things that hackers took advantage
of (buffer overruns and the such) should be a thing of the past. The
ability for malicious programs to patch system files and the such is
being curtailed. Moreover, Microsoft is trying to migrate users away
from setting users up as administrators. Instead, users set up with
normal access can be prompted to enter the admin password when they
need to do something that can affect system integrity. Hence, even if
something does get through Vista’s security, it won’t be able to go
crazy if the user isn’t logged on as an admin.
Better User Experience. The
code-name for the new user experience is Aero. It’s designed to be
fast, efficient, responsive, and intuitive. In that, I think they’ve
succeeded. I do suspect that the glass effect will need more tweaking
before the final release. Perhaps coloring the glass for active and
inactive windows might help as well as decreasing transparency of the
active window. More strategically located shadows might also provide
more clarity without compromising that improved aesthetics. One
correction, the user experience is not based on Avalon. It is its own
thing. - The New Development Platform. Microsoft has also
created a new development platform called code-named Avalon (but has
now given it a long boring official name). Using .NET based languages
(such as C#) along with a new mark-up language called XAML, developers
can now much more easily (read more quickly) develop applications that
have their own unique look and feel. XAML has been designed to let
developers design their UI in much the same way that a web developer
makes a web page. For developers, think of XAML as being similar to a
.RC file. You still have the .cpp file (or whatever language you’re
using) but .xaml is what defines the UI (one wonders whether Yahoo was
aware of Avalon before their recent buying spree but I digress).
Information Organization. WinFS
(the database layer for the Windows file system) won’t be in Vista.
But Microsoft is working to make fuller use of NTFS’s capabilities to
make it much easier to find your things and organize your data than
what was previously possible. Simply put, searching for yourself will
be much easier and faster. The virtual folders feature looks to be
very promising. For those people who have been using short-cuts in
painful ways, virtual folders may be just what you’re looking for. - Windows Communications Foundation (WCF). Code-named
Indigo, Windows Vista is designed to make it far far easier for
developers to create programs that can talk to each other over the
Internet securely and easily. Developers (particularly game
developers) can tell you the pain it is to write things that can easily
talk to each other over the net through routers, fire-walls, etc.
Opening ports and such is not an ideal solution. Indigo, amongst other
things, aims to solve these kinds of problems. Over the past few
years, a gazillion different protocols have come up that developers
have had to juggle. WCF lets developers focus on writing good software
instead of trying to figure out how to talk to other computers.
From what little I’ve played with Windows Vista so far, it’s quite
snappy. After I’ve had a chance to play with it more, I’ll post some
more observations. The real meat, according to Microsoft, won’t show
up until BETA 2..
*the article was excerpted from Neowin.net
*to read the whole article, please click here.
I transformed my Desktop into Windows Vista!Yihee!
Well, from the help of WindowBlinds from Stardock, I have transformed the shell of Windows Xp that of Windows Vista. I put the Vista wallpaper also. Here’s my desktop image.
My desktop, includes ObjectDock.
The contents of my StartBar, not yet typical to that of Windows Vista.
The Control Panel.
