Are you ready for a brand new day? You may have heard it, seen it fleetingly in neighborhood electronic shops, and it didn’t make big headlines like the debut of the Macintosh during Super Bowl Sunday or become the “End of the World as We Know It.” The “it” here is Microsoft's successor to its hugely popular Windows XP operating system, Windows Vista.
Vista was finally released to the public on January 30, 2007, five and a half years in the making. The positives: Vista drastically improves upon security (sometimes to the point of annoyance) and sports a more intuitive look and feel. The negatives: As in any release of the Windows OS, you need to have relatively new hardware to run it, and running it on the “minimum” specification won’t get you anywhere but frustrated.
Of course, as was common in their XP software, there are multiple versions of Vista and not all versions come with the same features. All in all, it’s a worthy successor to its siblings, moving Windows closer to “Mac-like” proportions.
We present a rundown of Vista’s features below.
A New Attitude – Vista’s Improved Look and Feel
Vista takes a drastic detour from its predecessors by taking advantage of recent improvements in graphical technology and rendering crisp, smooth graphics – the Aero glass interface. Aero, available in all Vista releases except for Home Basic, is an acronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. The “glass” in glass windows (after all, isn’t glass what windows are made of?) intends to be simple, reflective, and transparent. Thumbnails provide visual details about a minimized application on the Task Bar and when switching between Windows applications using Alt + Tab and Windows + Tab (renamed Flip and Flip 3D). Essentially, you can now preview each application’s contents before switching tasks.  Other desktop improvements include a smaller Start button and the removal of most desktop icons so you can maximize screen real estate. The Start menu adapts to your needs depending on what you’ve opened recently. Commonly used programs appear on the Start Menu’s left column and any programs that don’t appear in the recent list are accessible by clicking on the “All Programs” option above the search box.
Integrated Search Capabilities
Users now have the ability to conduct complete searches of all applications, documents, links, and emails for matching terms from the Start menu and incremental searches from within specific applications like Media Player, Windows Explorer, Windows Mail, Control Panel, and the Network Center. You can further tag and add meta-data (like author and file descriptors) to search results, and save these results in Virtual Folders that are accessible in Windows Explorer. You also have the ability to launch programs by typing the name of the program in the Search box, eliminating the need to go to Start and then Run. Remote searches are now possible across shared computers and networks.
Interactive Windows Explorer
Unless you’re a Windows geek dead set on running programs from the command line, anything that simplifies opening and viewing files has to be infinitely better. Adding to this is the concept of "breadcrumbs" so you can trace your way back through the operating system’s organizational hierarchy in the address bar (eliminating the need to click on the Back button) and the addition of live icons that allow you to preview the contents before opening the application (much like previewing emails in Outlook). Plus, you can navigate to websites using the address bar.
Other changes include improved filtering, sorting, grouping and stacking of items and tweaks to menu items we’ve become accustomed to. Common types of programs are now clustered in program “Centers”, and the traditional File, Edit, and View menus have been reduced to Organize, Views, Save Search and Search Tools, and the list of folders on the left side of Explorer has become the Favorite Links (Documents, Pictures, Music, Recently Changed, and more folders). To restore the old views, simply go to the Organize menu button, select on the Layout option, and make sure the Menu Bar option is checked.
Anchoring Sidebar
New to Vista is a pane that docks on the right side of the screen and displays gadgets, or miniature applications that are supposed to make life easier. The gadgets include a Calculator, Clock, Calendar, Notepad, Slideshow, and the ability to display RSS Headlines (Vista is now natively “RSS aware”). You can also drag and drop these applets directly onto your desktop if you choose forego the Sidebar.
Improved Security
With Vista, Microsoft has added improvements that close some security loopholes (like blocking access to the kernel and running applications in "protected mode"). Windows Firewall now provides outbound as well as inbound protection, and Internet Explorer 7 runs in a protected mode to guard against potential attacks during browsing. Also included are an improved User Account Control (even administrators must confirm changes to the OS with a password!) and native parental control software (restricting children’s access to certain applications, web sites, games and files, hours of activity, and activity logs). Windows Defender scans for spyware in the background so it doesn’t interfere with existing processes. Additionally, Vista Ultimate and Enterprise versions include a new program called BitLocker Drive Encryption.
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