Windows Archive

Although it is still working to finish the code for Windows Vista, Microsoft has reached a decision on which versions of the operating system to offer. Microsoft has settled on six versions, including an Ultimate edition that will combine the best of the company's corporate and consumer features. The company is aiming to have all of the versions ready for launch in the second half of next year.

After months of maintaining that it had not yet finalized its Windows Vista line up, Microsoft seems finally to have decided upon a half dozen core Vista versions. According to a posting on its Web site, Microsoft is readying six core Vista packages, or SKUs, plus two additional releases customized for the European Union that won't bundle in Windows Media Player, as ordered by European antitrust regulators.

"I've been looking at the 'My desktop OS'-articles, and found that I'll have to be the one writing one for Windows XP. To be honest, Windowx XP is very close to being usable on the desktop. I say very close, because it's not so out of the box. There is a few issues, however and many of them arises when you need to reinstall. You do need to reinstall Windows from time to time - it's just a fact of life!"

"Nearly two years ago Microsoft announced that Windows Vista would sport a so-called 'tiered' graphical experience. The user interface would remain the essentially the same no matter what graphical prowess a machine was blessed with, but the best of the eye-candy and the whiz-bang effects would be reserved for the most modern of computers. While Microsoft has not put the official seal of **CONFIRMED** on any recommended hardware configurations, we have a good idea of what the company will consider as the base for the full-flavored, full-bodied Aero Glass experience."

Roughly half of today's PCs won't be able to take advantage of the 'Aero Glass' compositor found within Microsoft's upcoming Vista software, due at the end of this year. The estimate was one of the conclusions cited in a report released late Thursday by Jon Peddie Research. The fault, Peddie reported, was that the low-cost integrated graphics controllers customers have chosen process the 2D windows of Windows XP and Windows 2000 just fine, but lack the bells and whistles necessary to process the Windows Desktop Compositing Engine used in Vista. About 63 percent of the 203 million PCs sold used an integrated graphics controller, JPR reported.

"Windows Vista will eventually sport what has been called a 'sidebar' - a kind of taskbar-like user interface element designed to sit on the right or left side of a display and offer 'heads-up' information on a customizable basis. When we last checked in on the Vista Sidebar at CES, we saw a number of widgets (or gadgets) running on the sidebar, including a small picture frame, an RSS list/interface, weather information, and more. The idea, generally speaking, is to give prominent spacing to tasks and information services that are, in theory, so frequently referenced that it makes sense to prominently display them on your desktop, alongside or on top of your other application windows."