Longhorn, I mean Vista is finally here
An operating system for everyone
Build Vista and They Will Come
After nine years and a highway of hype Vista has finally arrived on the newest Microsoft computers, was it worth the wait?
Longhorn, now called Vista, has finally arrived!
The nine years of build up to the final release date resulted in more of a yawn from consumers compared to previous Windows operating system releases – were thinking in particular about the circus-like environment surrounding the release of Windows 95. Having finally made an appearance we can expect Vista to have a major impact on the computing industry as a whole. So, how can we expect it to affect our computing lives?
Even if Vista didn’t offer any new capabilities and features to the user, it would still dominate a majority of the computing time of daily users of computers. The biggest software company on the planet cannot drop a new version of its flagship product onto the global market without creating a few waves in the industry. And don’t be fooled, the percentage of Microsoft’s market share in desktop operating systems – consistently over 90% during the last decade – means any changes made to Windows reverberates right through the computing industry.
The biggest effect a new operating system for Windows has is in the sales of hardware necessary to upgrade to Vista. If you want to upgrade you may find you will need more memory, more processing power, more power in all aspects of computer architecture to get your upgrade to operate efficiently and make the upgrade worthwhile. In fact, Microsoft recommends that your computer have at least a 1 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive with at least 15GB of free space to load Vista, a graphics card that supports DirectX 9, Pixel Shader 2.0, WDDM, and includes 128MB of graphics memory, a DVD-ROM drive, and Internet access. So, obviously, many people looking to upgrade to Vista will have to upgrade their hardware before partaking in the benefits of Vista. In addition, if you wish to use new features like SideShow, Vista’s technology that lets the user display data your system pushes to secondary screens, you’ll be shelling out a few more shekels at the counter for additional hardware upgrades.
Let’s put aside the shekels Microsoft’s new operating system is going to make and is currently making for hardware vendors around the global marketplace for a second. Vista does include a slew of new and improved capabilities and features that will make operating a Windows PC a lot more fun, it’s always fun to learn new stuff, and easier once they learn the ins-and-outs of Vista. Vista improvements in security were needed with this new Microsoft operating system as they have been a major issue with previous Microsoft operating systems in the past and should contribute to increased productivity for all users and fewer global security crises due to inappropriate behaviour of individuals. Vista also represents another major move toward having your PC at the center of home entertainment, by controlling audio systems, TV, and other multimedia components around your home.
In short, Vista provides many new features and capabilities for you to grab onto and enjoy. While no one feature will knock your socks off, you should find a few tidbits to keep make the nine year wait (four years from the expected release date) for Vista worthwhile, and hopefully justify your upgrade to Vista and probably some new hardware as well.
Vista: The Last Chapter?
Upon the release of Vista speculation immediately started about the next version of Microsoft’s operating systems – or even if Microsoft would do one. A lot of speculation has centered on the idea that Vista is Microsoft’s last version of Windows to be released.
Despair not Windows lovers, Microsoft is indeed in development of a new version of Windows for you to dream about, currently code-named “Vienna” (and we mean currently) only god knows when to expect Microsoft’s next attempt at operating system perfection. Microsoft has sealed lips about the eventual release of “Vienna, even going to the extent of releasing a rather terse press release in February 2007 trying to quash rampant speculation about the new operating system they have in development.
We searched Microsoft.com for references to “Vienna”, resulting in a rather sharp joke as our search resulted in the appearance of several excellent pictures of Vienna in Austria.
Microsoft isn’t ready to go on the record yet, it would be hard to say would features would be making it into a new version of Windows anyway – just check out the list of planned features that didn’t get included in Vista: WinFS, PC Synchronization, and the scripting shell. Although were sure these features will all be included in the next Windows version, were just as sure there will be many currently planned features that won’t make it off the drawing board and into “Vienna” because it takes tremendous effort and time to make these features work.
The only thing we are sure of concerning the arrival of “Vienna” onto the store shelves is that it will be late as usual.
Well that’s it for this hub. Join us for the next hub on Vista as we will talk about the new features and capabilities of Microsoft’s new operating system.Warren Hayashi (a.k.a. Mark Twain)
