Games - Windows Vista

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	Games - Windows Vista

Windows Vista is the next major version of Microsoft Windows, the proprietary operating system developed by Microsoft. Prior to the announcement of the Vista name on July 22 2005, it was known by its codename Longhorn, after the Longhorn Saloon, a popular bar in Whistler, British Columbia. According to Microsoft, the scheduled release date for Windows Vista is currently November 2006 for business editions, and January 2007 for consumer editions. These release dates come more than five years after the release of Windows XP, Microsoft's current consumer and business operating system, making this the longest time span between releases of Windows. Vista will be one of the most substantial updates in the history of Windows in terms of new features and under-the-hood changes, and is thought to be the largest and most costly software development project in the history of computing.

Overview

Windows Vista has many new features, such as an updated graphical user interface dubbed Aero, improved searching technology, a number of new security features, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology, making it easy to share files, password settings, and digital media between computers and devices. For developers, Vista also has an entirely new development API, called WinFX, based on the .NET framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write high-quality applications than with WinFX's predecessor, Win32. The Enterprise edition of Vista is expected to include Microsoft's Virtual PC technology, so that line-of-business applications that are incompatible with Vista can still be used in a fashion similar to how Mac OS X's "Classic" mode supported older Macintosh applications.

According to Jim Allchin, the co-President at Microsoft responsible for Windows Vista, there are over one thousand new features and technologies being introduced. In many ways, as Bill Gates has said, Windows Vista is the broadest and biggest update since Windows 95, which was released twelve years prior to the expected release date of Vista.

Microsoft's primary stated goal with Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system. Amongst the many common criticisms of Windows XP, the most significant has been its security vulnerabilities, and an overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide Trustworthy Computing initiative which aims to incorporate security work into every aspect of software development at the company. This had the effect of significantly delaying the development of Vista, as Microsoft prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing the next version of the operating system.

Development

Microsoft first talked about "Longhorn" in the summer of 2001, even before Windows XP's release in October of that year. It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP and "Blackcomb" (now known as Windows "Vienna"). Gradually, "Longhorn" assimilated many important new features and technologies of "Vienna", and so the date of release was pushed back a few times. Faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on August 27 2004 that it was making significant changes. "Longhorn" development basically started afresh, building on the Windows Server 2003 codebase, and re-incorporating only the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. Some previously-announced features, such as WinFS, were dropped.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Windows Vista ]

Games - Windows Vista

Overview

Development

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