Articles about Windows Vista

If you've been testing the final Windows 7 Release Candidate on your own physical platforms, and you wonder what's giving you that feeling that it's just a bit peppier, a tad zippier, it's not an illusion. Betanews tests all this week, concluding today, comparing all the major stable release and development Windows-based Web browsers, running on exactly the same physical computer with fresh Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 RC partitions, confirmed what our eyes and gut feelings were telling us: On average, most browsers ran 11.9% faster in Windows 7 than on the same machine running Vista SP2, with most speed gains falling right around that mark.

Internet Explorer 8, for example, runs 15% faster in Windows 7 than in Vista SP2, in multiple tests whose results were within one another by a hundredth of a point. Using our performance index as a guide, if you consider the relatively slow Internet Explorer 7 in Vista SP2 as a 1.00, then in a fresh test of IE8 on the same platform, the newer browser in Vista SP2 scored a 2.03 -- performing generally better than double its predecessor. But in Windows 7, the score for IE8 rises to a 2.27.

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Poor Windows 7. Months before its official launch, it's already fighting to live down the reputation of its older siblings. It's bad enough it has to fight perceptions of insecurity (I'm looking at you, XP) and bloated incompatibility (Vista, anyone?). But like the poor kid entering a high school after his older brothers have spent years being serially suspended for misbehaviour and general hooliganism, Windows 7 has an uphill battle ahead of it. Whether the perceptions are earned or not is irrelevant. Undoing them is a monumental process either way, and it all rests on the shoulders of a kid whose only mistake seems to lie in carrying the family name.

But undo these perceptions it must. Windows 7 promises to be Microsoft's most crucial launch ever because the company's very future has never been in as much question as it is now. Its two cash cow franchises, Windows and Office, are mooing a little less deeply these days thanks to a seismic shift away from the traditional PC model. While Vista's problems are more perception than anything else, there's no escaping the cruel reality that the age of Windows-everywhere-by-default is over. As conventional desktop and laptop PCs give way to all sorts of new form factors running all sorts of new operating systems and connecting to the outside world in all sorts of unconventional ways, Microsoft can't afford another lukewarm Windows launch.

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Download Microsoft Windows Vista SP2 32-bit RTM from Fileforum now.

Download Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 32-bit RTM from Fileforum now.

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In what's turning out to be a busy week for Microsoft, the company announced last night that the code has been finalized for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 -- a unified code base that upgrades both operating systems. This after the only release candidate for SP2 was released for final testing on March 4.

In a Betanews check Wednesday morning, SP2 was not yet being distributed to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, although we can probably expect to see it turn up there in the next few days.

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A few weeks ago, Microsoft made indications that it would be delivering Office 2007 Service Pack 2 and Internet Explorer 8 as important automatic updates to Windows users on the same day. That day ended up being today, and now many Windows users are being prompted for the first time to install IE8 as an update to their operating system. Since the product's release last month, upgrades have only been voluntary.

Though two-thirds of the world's Web traffic is attributable to browsers identifying themselves as Internet Explorer, according to the latest up-to-the-minute data from analytics firm NetApplications, under 5% of that traffic comes from IE8. In fact, only in the last week has IE8 traffic by NetApplications' measure eclipsed HTTP requests hailing from Apple Safari version 3.2, which runs on Mac, iPod Touch, and iPhone. Requests from Mozilla Firefox 3 accounts for nearly one-fifth of analyzed traffic; but now, with IE8 becoming an "in-your-face" update for the very first time, Internet Explorer traffic in total may experience a bump.

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In all the confusion that arose in 2006 over whether lesser-grade editions of Windows Vista was "real Vista" and whether existing PCs were ready or capable of running it, consumers probably downloaded a lot of information about different ways they could get their hands on the new product. In a motion filed last week by Microsoft in the "Vista Capable" suit in US District Court in Seattle, and first reported on by our friend Todd Bishop at Seattle's TechFlash, the company argues that the wealth of such information that former plaintiffs unearthed during their purchasing research should have been enough to tell them that Vista Home Basic wasn't the same as Vista Home Premium.

For that reason, the company claims, prospective plaintiffs can't exactly say they were harmed in the same way, so they don't deserve to be re-enlisted as class action plaintiffs. The judge in that case threw out the class action distinction last month.

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An .ISO file for the DVD image of the installation routine for Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Release Candidate was made publicly accessible by Microsoft early this morning. As of 1:45 pm EST, however, there was no official word from Microsoft as to the release candidate's public availability. Private testers began receiving their early copies last week.

Download Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Release Candidate from Fileforum now.

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A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that the first release candidates (without numerals) for Service Pack 2 for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 will be released to the general public for testing next week. This after private testers with the MSDN and TechNet services receive their copies first.

For the first time, the SP2 standalone package will be delivered to users not according to operating system build, but to byte length. So the 32-bit standalone service pack (302 MB with the basic five languages, 390 MB for multi-language) will update both 32-bit Vista and 32-bit Windows Server 2008. Then there will be two 64-bit standalones, including one which covers x64 architectures (508 MB / 622 MB) and one for Itanium 64-bit (384 MB / 396 MB). The RC will represent a kind of dress rehearsal for this new method of distribution.

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What really, really looks like a release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 2 -- which first entered beta in December -- is officially being called an "update" this afternoon, after Microsoft declined to give it a more formal title.

A Microsoft spokesperson kinda, sorta confirmed to Betanews this afternoon the release of "an update to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 testers, in an effort to gain additional feedback." The company appears to be officially declining to call it a release candidate, although Ars Technica's Emil Protalinski unearthed evidence yesterday that this is exactly what it is.

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Though the likelihood of Microsoft's prevailing actually looks worse than it did last week, if it ends up losing, it might not be much after the judge says plaintiffs failed to prove its actions harmed a plurality.

When Microsoft decided to present consumer editions of Windows Vista with multiple versions, some of which lacked the very features the company advertised as defining the product, was it with the willful intent to defraud the public? An internal e-mail from then-president Jim Allchin to his colleagues suggests he was indeed afraid that the multiple versions could lead to consumer confusion and frustration...but that memo, made public during the discovery phase of the "Vista-capable" class-action case in Washington state district court, also appears to indicate a lack of willfulness on the part of at least one of the company's senior executives to deceive the public.

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PC makers are working on both netbooks and small desktop systems using Ion, but the first Ion PC, expected by this summer, will probably be a desktop model, an Nvidia spokesperson said today.

"Given that we just introduced Ion is December, and that PC design cycles are usually 6 to 12 months, it will take some time for Ion designs to come to market. We do expect the first Ion-based systems to hit by summer, if not earlier," said Ken Brown, PR manager for platforms, in an e-mail to Betanews.

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Guests of recent Microsoft seminars and conferences who received copies of Windows Vista Ultimate will be delighted to know the Web site for registering their copies and receiving their product keys, is now fully operational.

In Betanews tests this morning, the registration site did require us to fill out a brief survey, which was understandable and not at all out of the ordinary. Upon entering our valid promotional code, which we received with a Vista Ultimate giveaway during a recent conference, we did immediately receive a product registration key via e-mail.

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A representative for Microsoft told Betanews Monday evening that a site intended to enable recipients of promotional copies of Windows Vista Ultimate -- folks who are guests at Microsoft-hosted seminars and conferences, for instance -- to register and activate their copies, will be reinstated later this week.

Guests who received copies of Vista can still install them, for the meantime, though without the all-important product keys, they'll time out after 30 days. Promotional copies are sent with special promotional codes inside, which recipients are asked to enter on the company's promotional Web site. But that site was built to go offline on December 31, even though many folks received their copies after that date.

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It's hard to complain when someone offers you his top-of-the-line operating system for free. But it's hard not to complain when you're all ready to install it and you discover, surprise, it may not be free after all. That's the situation facing perhaps hundreds of recent recipients of Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, as gifts for attending the company's MSDN seminar tours.

To ensure that recipients register their copies and only use them once, Microsoft printed a promotional code inside the jacket, which is not the usual product key. By visiting the Web site www.registerwindowsvistasp1.com and entering the promotional code, recipients are given the full product key, and that way they will also be registered with Microsoft. Perhaps as part of a plan instituted months earlier, Microsoft set the Web site to discontinue operations after December 31, 2008.

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Before CES 2008, Betanews debuted our "Better Questions" contest, where we asked you, the reader, what questions you wanted answered from the CES floor. This year, we're asking you again.

Our correspondents will be out in force all next week, meeting with the companies, executives, and business leaders whose decisions directly impact the consumer electronics industry -- which is experiencing as much volatility now than at any time in its history. We're already asking some of the big questions, in our ongoing CES 13 Countdown series. But we've heard from some of you that you might have better questions of your own.

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