Hi Folks,
Here is the first “somewhat positive“ techie
review I have seen of
The message with a
subject line of “Press inquiry: Phone interview w/ German radio on Vista
Launch“ hit my inbox late last night. I decided to respond in writing, if
only to mentally prep myself for the impending phone call. Reinhard Roede
wrote:
I’m preparing a short
radio segment on the launch of Windows Vista, to be aired in our show
called ‘Zuendfunk‘ on German public
radio. And I’d like to ask you for a short radio interview on
Well, since
How public geek-blog
coverage might have changed the OS that is shipping now…
I’d say that general
community feedback and communication has made a pretty solid impact on
what the world will see in the shipping version of Windows Vista.
Microsoft willfully opened the door to power users throughout the
pre-release process. Certainly, there are hundreds of teams responsible
for various parts of the platform - and some groups were more receptive to
feedback than others. I know that a handful of my own suggestions actually
made it into shipping code!
Which information
sources and agents seem to have been meaningful in this development and
which were not…
Well, I’ve been happy
to pass feedback through Nick White and Aaron Coldiron -
as well as Lili Cheng, Dave Vronay, and (in some
cases) Jim Allchin. They were all aware that I held Windows Vista to a
very high standard. Make no mistake: everybody who worked on the operating
system, even the bits that will never see the light of day, has been
meaningful in the process. Microsoft scores a perfect 100 in terms of
community interaction and involvement, whereas Apple consistently scores a
-4. In terms of external agents feeding the Microsoft machine, that would
be just about anybody who got their hands on a publicly-available beta.
Every bit of feedback, acknowledged or otherwise, I’m sure has been
meaningful to
What did Microsoft
like and dislike about (especially blog) coverage…
Good or bad, any kind
of discussion is great. What you have to understand is that a lot of
people who work at Microsoft aren’t outsiders to the blogosphere - they’re
actually inside (and quite active) in the blogosphere. Certainly,
Microsoft should be happy that external bloggers have written anything
about
Oh, that’s easy:
blogger reactions, mine included, have been raw. We don’t pull any punches
with our passions. I see something that I feel needs to be stated, and I’m
going to state it. I am my own editorial process - it boils down to the
feeling in my gut. “Old school“ coverage never gave us a chance to ask
questions and continue the dialogue. Never before was I given a chance to
tell the world what I felt was important. Mind you, I’ve been publishing
online since before the release of Windows 98! Moreover, not all members
of the tech press are true geeks.
Did there evolve a
certain spirit of publicly shared expertise among techie bloggers during
that [beta] process…
There have been quite
a few agreements and disagreements surrounding
What are your own
feelings and impressions of the product in the different stages of beta
versions you had in your hands…
Early on, I had
extremely high hopes - and that enthusiasm faded into frustration with
later builds. I couldn’t figure out why (and how) so many details were
skipped in the polishing process. Mind you, I’m running Windows Vista on
my desktop today - if only because I’ve got to get to know the product
intimately if I’m to make recommendations for or against it.
And, of course, what
are your impressions of the now-released product…
My impression of
Windows Vista is generally lukewarm, given that many aspects of the OS and
its apps seem unfinished, halfhearted. There are still quite a bit of
software / hardware compatibility issues at play - too many. That said,
I’m overly impressed with the way
By the way, I think I
subscribed to your Lockergnome newsletter already in the late 90s or so,
but somehow lost track of all the useful hints and tools that I simply
hadn’t the time anymore to try out. But when I read ‘Lockergnome’ or
‘Chris Pirillo’ somewhere, it always reminds me of my
Getting-Started-with-my-first-own-PC-during-University-time ages, almost
10 years ago.
My god, I’m getting to
be an old geek.
Tags: vista, windows vista, windowsvista, party, microsoft
The purpose of these
FAQs is to give you some answers to the questions that have been lingering
around about the new operating system. They will provide you with some
general information about Windows® Vista™. So, wonder no more, here come
the answers!
Q: What is Windows
Vista?
A:
Windows
Windows Vista was
released to business customers on November 30, 2006 and to everyone else
today, January 30, 2007.
Q: What's with the
name?
A:
Microsoft had a list of names
to choose from. While they will not say what the other choices were, they
included everything from using simple numbers (Windows 2007) to letters
(like Windows XP) and even more inventive names. Using a process of
elimination, they finally decided to go with
Q: So, what about
security?
A:
Windows
User Account
Control:
(UAC, previously called both User Account Protection or UAP and Limited
User Account to LUA). This gives users only the privileges they need to
perform their tasks.
Windows
Service Hardening: This monitors critical Windows
services for abnormal activity in the file system, registry and network
that could be used to allow malware to persist on a machine or propagate
to other machines.
Microsoft
Internet Explorer 7: This new Web
browser in
Windows Vista includes many features to help protect against malicious Web
sites and malware and it includes protection against phishing and spoofing
attacks.
Network
Access Protection: Windows
Firewall: Windows
Q:
What are
the system requirements to run Windows Vista?
A: Microsoft published two sets
of system requirements for
Windows
- A modern processor
(at least 800MHz)
- 512 MB of system memory
- A graphics processor
that is DirectX 9 capable
- Windows Vista Premium Ready PC
- 1 GHz
32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 GB of system memory
-
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics
memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel
- 40 GB of
hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space
- DVD ROM Drive
- Audio
output capability
- Internet access capability
My
opinion:
The "Windows Vista Premium Ready PC" requirements are close to the
absolute real minimum requirements, except that the CPU requirements are
too low. A real minimum would probably be around 2 GHz for a single-core
processor, while a dual-core processor could possibly get away with 1.8
GHz.
Q: Will Windows Vista be a
32-bit or 64-bit operating system?
A: Windows
Q: Is there going to be a server
version?
A: Yes. It is not yet known
under which name this product will be released though. Right now, "Windows
Server 2008" is a top runner in the speculation charts. Microsoft is
targeting a 2007 release date for the server product, which is currently
known by its code name of "Longhorn Server."
Q:
What is
WinFS?
A: WinFS (Windows Future
Storage) is a database based storage engine, based on the SQL Server 2005.
This new file system has some capabilities designed to improve searches
for certain files on ever increasing storage media.
In late August 2004,
Microsoft announced it would not include the WinFS data storage engine in
Windows Vista, but would ship that technology in a beta form by the time
Windows Vista will ship. It is still unclear if WinFS will actually show
up any time soon though.
Q: Is Windows Vista more secure
than Windows XP?
A: Yes. Not only does Windows
Vista build on the security improvements made in Windows XP Service Pack 2
and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, but it has also added a number of
fundamental changes to the security that should make Windows Vista as
secure as can reasonably be expected. Like any other operating system,
there probably will be security threads and the system will require
security patches, but overall, Windows Vista should do a better job of
protecting you and your computer's data.
So, how does all that
sound? Not too shabby to me!
~ Ramachandran
Kumaraswami
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More Friday,
Chuckstr
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